In my school, each classroom had an adage painted on the wall. All of them have abandoned me but for one which has stubbornly refused to give up on me.
I would hunch over, defeated within myself. It was only when I walked in front of that classroom that my spine would stand straight and proud.
I owe my escape from many moments of helplessness and sadness to that proverb.
'No one can ride your back unless it is bent' was what I learnt in that classroom.
I learnt that no one can make you unhappy without your own willingness to be so.
'Caught in a strange land in a net with other butterflies, I'm a caterpillar yet undecided to remain a caterpillar and perish or turn into a beautiful butterfly and live a life full of joy.' Readers don't laugh. But I came up with this one night recently when I was travelling in a train. I tossed and turned, not being able to sleep, upset over unexplainable things and frustrated over events not in my control. Then it occurred to me that our life and its usefulness depends on our decisions -- whether to remain a crawling caterpillar whose existence otherwise is either ignored by all and sundry or who is cursed for just being there and thrown out with a stick, or to develop wings of life and metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly whom everybody adores for its beauty and colour, for its flitting liveliness, for its service to the flower's pollination... I thought that I should be a butterfly, of service to others, but then again I thought, anyway, who really cares?
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