Stupid White Horse

Remember Gold Spot? Well, Campa Cola if you must. Or even the gold paper covered coin chocolates? Phantom Cigarettes. The list is endless. What is not is the fact that it goes back to a time that was truly wonderful. I didn’t think so at that point. But now I do. Responsibilities included ensuring that you look right, left and again right while crossing the road. Not snatching away others’ lunch during recess. Finishing homework. And to play a fair game.
Life was simple. So were things. And what made all the self-induced trauma of growing up and early teenage anxiety worthwhile was a golden promise that one day we were all going to grow up. Finish college. Get freedom. Have our own money and not have to make do with the measly pocket-money that mom handed you in the beginning of the month. And then one day, magically, some prince-charming will gallop his way into your heart and life will be fairy-tale perfect.
Stupid white horse. Really.
What happens instead is you finish college. Get confused. Don’t know what to with your life. Have a string on nonsensical men pretending to love you. In reality they just want to get into your panties. Get a job eventually. Only to realize that you don’t really want to spend you hard-earned money buying stupid freaking candy. You rather buy Jimmy Choos. Or settle for Nine West. But Jimmy Choos aren’t available in India. So must you relocate to foreign shores for shoes? And Nine West sucks nine times out of ten. And you really don’t earn that much to but velvet green heels for 7500 bucks. You fall in love with the wrong people. And then a lifetime of waiting for them to get their ‘Tah-dah! How could I not know how I felt for her and of course she’s wonderful and a rockstar and I must be stupid to let her go and not be with her’ moment.
Office politics? Let’s not get there. Friends? They drift apart. Get married. Have babies. And suddenly you find you have nothing in common with them anymore. EMIs and taxes become the focal point of your existence. You are permanently broke. Even when you birthday is just two days away. Do I even have money to buy myself a bottle of wine that day? How many people will remember the day? Will I get flowers? Ever?
And so somedays, when I wake up at 6am on a Monday morning, bracing myself to face another day at work, and think about all this, I quickly write it all down. Getting it out. And blame the stupid white horse. Its all his fault. It is.