Dear dairy,
I’ve grown out of writing from a book, all the way to typing
my thoughts onto my laptop. No offence lappy, but I still love the classical
method of actually penning down my thoughts into a book. I love the way a fresh
page in a diary sounds when I turn it. The soft ruffling sound which the
slightly yellowish page makes as I slide my hand up and down during the whole
process of inking a part of my life, my experiences onto that page. Call me
bookish, but I just can’t help feeling content when I’m writing something other
than the usual class notes that I reluctantly take down every day at college.
But keeping an electronic diary does have its advantages. For
starters, nobody can peek into my writings without a password to my lappy. I
can go on typing anything I want here, anything I’m feeling. There’s no
lingering feeling of getting into trouble. It’s usually my nosy brother who
bothers me to this extent. Who else can have an unjustified access to a girl’s
diary other than brothers!
Oh, this reminds me of those times. When I was 12(my god,
already ten years apart!), well that was the age that I actually started with
this whole diary business. I loved writing down whatever happened at school
into a little diary that I had named as “Personal Diary of Neha the Spy”. Yes,
I used to call myself as “the spy”. Silly, I know. But I loved finding out
things. Very naive girl I was. In the process of finding out things about my
friends, I became the carrier of the class gossips and other nonsense. I was
new to the whole diary charade. I had a lot to learn about what to write and
what not to write.
And I had never heard about maintaining anonymity while
writing actual events referring to existing persons at my school. Let’s just
say it was mostly about a guy in my class and how all the girls swooned around
him as he was “oh-so-popular”. Word spreads pretty fast. I told my friend that
I’m keeping a diary in which I write about the happenings at school. And she
told her friend that I write about everyone in class, and she told her friend
that I write a lot of bad things about some people in my class... you get the
gist right!! Word not only spreads, it twists and turns the actual truth by a
mile.
So my neighbour (a foe back then as he was a boy and just
irritating as he had this nosy habit like my brother, to poke into things that
didn’t concern him) and my classmate at school as well, was the spy sent by his
other guy friends to steal my diary to know what all I had written about them.
That was how my little brother was bribed to steal the diary for him for a
price of a few chocolates. The little pest had no doubt seen me hiding the
diary under my bed (I never thought 7yr olds would be so brainy, I had
considered them to have an IQ of a snail!!).
But what my neighbour thought he had stolen was not my actual
diary. Ha, give me some credit guys, I used to call myself “Neha the spy”, I
wasn’t just going to sit blindly and let my precious diary get into the hands
of some class guys now would I? I knew this day would come, and also I knew my
brother was the only bridge between my diary and my neighbour. I had prepared a
dummy diary just for this occasion. One day when my little brother was
lingering about my room more than usual, I grabbed that opportunity and did
some self-talking loud enough for him to hear and register into his little
brain. I had talked out loud enough for him to hear as well as see me placing
the very same dummy diary under my bed followed by: “I hope nobody finds this
SECRET place, especially my BROTHER.” That was enough to keep the curiosity
alive for the little brat. I knew he would have opened and inspected the diary
the very next day. But being him, he wouldn’t have understood even a single
word that I had written, because I had written some essays that I used to
practice for my English class.
For the benefit of my dear neighbour friend who no doubt would
be very disappointed and also I know how guys don’t stop until they get what
they want, I had written some illegible nonsense about school, about the
teachers and about the neighbour himself (I was bold enough to call him and his
friends’ idiots). Well, that was about the nastiest things they could ever find
me writing in my so called diary. And that put an end to their curiosity as
they got what they wanted, which was very disappointing for them by the way and
in the end, they let me be and stopped bribing my brother further.
And as for me, I feverishly continued writing in my secret
diary, which I safely protected from falling into wrong hands. I’ve written a
lot. None of those things seem interesting now, but I do enjoy how naive and
innocent I used to be back then. Even now, if not innocent, I’m still a bit
naive about the things that happen around me. But that’s just me. I like being
like this. I let things happen on their own, I let troubles find me or
sometimes, just run into troubles...Well, that’s a whole other story!!
P.S:
There’s no big secret about what I used to write. The same old typical stuffs
about school, home works, tests, crushes, jealousy etc. But over the years, the
so-called foe (my neighbour) has become one of my best friends and the dude
knows about everything I’ve ever said or written, he even knows what I’ve
written over here extends the truth a lil bit!! :P :P
