The Curious Case of being Me.
By: Tanya Singh
Tags: Reality Check, Performance Testing, Storyofmylife, Unfinished, Musings

If you are reading this — please note that this is years of personal experiences and being my own science experiment — without quoting too much. I could have written an industry blog, but since we live in a country of voyeurism — I figured lets “ride the wave” (Pun intended)

India is like EU in many ways, so culturally diverse and with each culture ranging from Patriarchal, neutral to Matriarchal belief systems, it is Natural that parenting and early conditioning plays a huge part in the way we form relationships and evolve with the environment around us.

To add to this we romanticise Cinema, which is not always the truest depiction of real life, it’s how sometimes Fiction and Crime Drama can distort our sense of reality, but activate our imagination.

In my head — We call this article the unfinished story of Tanya Singh!

I grew up to a very hardworking set of parents, who decided to have a single child, both because of the amount of resources they had, and set in their own world view. However, owed to certain conditions — I turned out to be a high performance kid, with really low self worth.

To add to that I was always taught that i was the “Shravan Kumar” (reference an Indian folktale that talks about a hardworking kid who spends his life carrying his blind parents on his shoulder throughout a journey) ; and because my parents only had me — they were extremely protective and conscious about my movement out of the house, and Delhi crime and the media doesn’t help.

Ma was at school, so no escape there (and I was an intensely fast learner so always dropped out of class if the teacher wasn’t great, yet kept my exam results shining because I really wanted to make them happy — and was a bit scared of them :)

Plus — Ma’s reputation was also attached to my performance at school (not just her own);

Papa would always challenge me at everything, right from puzzles to sports to literally debating everything. I was also told I needn’t get married, and had to be completely self reliant.

I grew up seeing a wonderful marriage — one would wonder why you wouldn’t want it.

I grew up in a Sikh family, went to a Christian school with 80% Hindu kids, with the Namaaz playing twice a day at a nearby village, and watched Star World and Zee Cafe — absolutely no sense of religion.

I came first at literally everything right from sports to academics to debates, so had a total of 4 friends in school.

The upside was however, that I loved people and was a friend to almost anyone who would need my help.

I grew up around other women my age with nothing in common, completely clueless about why i was so different — I had Tae-kwon-do, TT racquets and Skates instead of Dolls and dresses, I wore blue and red instead of Pink and had short hair similar to most boys in my class.

As you see, I had absolutely no perspective on how everyone saw me once I grew up to be a half decent looking female, with a lot of intelligence and brain power.

Lets come to the point —

As life would have it- at 20 — i lost my dream of becoming a Choreographer/ Dancer, and my leg to a freak accident; and hence began the real adventures of my life. (I was emulating Madhuri Dixit at this age)

I wanted to experiment with everything and got myself a brilliant job and a bachelor pad. It was difficult, this was like Guerilla marketing for the early 2000s (rolls her eyes)

Indulged myself in everything right from Vices like sex, drugs, money, love, you name it and I had it.

I failed, I failed, I failed at a lot of things, and I succeeded at a lot of things.. I delivered results, I got abused, pushed, played out… but experienced every trick in the book.

But I bought myself my first Tiffany’s :)

Went to random bars and drank to be able to dance. That is how I spent 5 years of my life — and then fell in love to fill that void !

Got married, Got Divorced, flew to 20 countries and travelled my heart out, came back to India — dealt with the taboo, buried myself at work trying to distract myself from the loss, the pain and the stigma of being a single divorced woman and here we are penning this down, 3 years into that journey.

If someone asks me where you are from — I say partly British, partly Tamil, somewhat Balinese and equal parts of Spanish, Punjabi and Caribbean.

Also, This wretched Covid Social Isolation has made me a machine.

By the way I am still impervious to how men see me — something a friend recently told me : That I am highly attractive to the imagination of any man — mostly because of the strange combination of my gusto and how i look. Meh ! Like seriously — who cares !?

I believe the charm is that I am completely uninterested about how I am perceived. :)

Here I am almost 32, literally just developed social skills and some quality friends over 3 decades, and a 1% understanding of how the world sees me, but with a brilliant imagination around how I see the world — with miles to go before I sleep.

I write this as I take up my next challenge, with hopefully better control over my vices and my body urges that I have shown in the last 10 years, and with better usage of my left brain…

I could own my journey, and be okay with who I have become now, slightly more feminine and less of a Geek that i grew up — take it easy and flow a little more.

((I am still in my head striving to be a combination of Lara Croft, Sushmita Sen, Oprah Winfrey, Jen Yu (from crouching tiger hidden dragon), Michael Scolfield from Prison Break (I have 4 tattoos), Michael Jordan of the Basketball fame and Condoleezza Rice))

Mutant and Proud. :)

You see where this is going? I dont! (Rolls her eyes)

For the record, I have worked my arse off non stop for 30 years trying to impress my parents and up my own game, and I would do it all over again, because if I dint have the childhood I had, I wouldn’t have worked half as hard as I worked the next few years.

Boarding the cross trainer at a local park to run towards the post Covid decade now….

Left brain to the feminine self : Slow down Kid, play the Ukelele and go take a holiday with your folks near water….

Note to all future kids and their parents : Results Matter, but so do other parts of your life, and note to all future global citizens, your gender, your religion, your upbringing, your economic status, none of that matters.

You ain’t a BOX.

To be continued…