I'd Rather be King

 

Yesterday

“Wait, I thought you’re a Scrabble player.” “I am.”, “And you’re a crocheter? And a techie? And you write, and paint, and sew, and you’re a movie critic and a science buff. What are you? “King” I replied with a grin, thinking of the charming 4-year-old Diya I’d met ten years ago.

A Long Time Ago

Perhaps it was the sappy romance novels I read, or perhaps it was the colonial influence around me; by the time I was 9, I was convinced that there were two kinds of women – the ones like my mother and aunts, who relied on their looks, their beauty and their obedient demeanour, the kind that honed the “feminine skills’ of cooking, creating a beautiful home and bearing and raising children; and the kind that lacked one or more of these qualities, and had to work to earn their own keep. They were answerable to no one but themselves, and they appealed wildly to something deep inside me. Or perhaps, I wanted to be more like my father, who got to travel and be obeyed and waited on by my mom. And so, I rebelled against the “appropriate” behavior and demeanor of young girls of my class and took my future into my own hands. My rebellion was supported by the adults in my life, with the caution, “It takes a lot of money to be king.”

The Kings Journey         

It started in a haze of ignorance, without roadmaps, destinations or role models. I was willing to do anything, as long as it did not involve anything illegal or immoral, physical labor or typing. I still cringe when I recall that it was not my smarts, but my looks that got me my first job – selling advertising space in a newspaper.  The first company ran into issues with the labor union and was shut down.. I got fired from my second job – the good looks couldn’t compensate for lack of execution.  Things turned around at my third job. I learnt a lot, became useful, and rose rapidly through the ranks. I worked there for six years until they went bankrupt. I plodded on. I prepared tax returns; I sold life insurance. I considered fulfilling another childhood dream – writing stories.  And realized that the beer money these jobs offered could never deliver my champagne dreams. I decided to go back to school – for Accounting. I knew lots of Accountants, they made good money. Along the way I stumbled onto technology and discovered it was not as mysterious or difficult as people made it out to be. I got a couple of lucky breaks, and graduated with a Master’s Degree, and my dream job. Several lucky breaks, the help of kind colleagues and sheer doggedness later, I’d completed twenty five years in my job and was being handed an Early Retirement package. Wait! Where did all the years go? What about becoming King?

Ten Years Ago

I did the math, I checked it twice. I had three other people check it. Fortune smiled on me again. I could afford to take the package. Financially, it was in my interest to retire. But didn’t people who retired suddenly find their health deteriorating, their lives being seriously disrupted? Didn’t they just die from shock or boredom or something? I couldn’t afford to die yet. I had an aging mother to take care of. I went with the money. I would deal with my mind separately.

Around the Same Time

A friend was cajoling his four-year old daughter, “Come on baby, aren’t you going to be daddy’s princess and finish up those yummy vegetables? Aren’t you daddy’s good little girl, don’t you want to put a smile on daddy’s face?” Diya waved her fork up in the air and said, “No! I don’t want to be a princess. I would like to be King.” Slightly off balance, the father asked, “And what does it mean to be King?”. Without hesitation, “You can eat vegetables or cake or chicken or whatever you want to. You can wear a pink shirt or a red shirt or a yellow shirt. You can play checkers or Nintendo or hopscotch. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. You don’t have to make anyone happy.” And that is when I realized that while I was fretting over whether I had a job or not, fretted about what to do with all my new found time, I was now King.