pretty much all my life, i have managed to set up incorrect perceptions about myself. It's either my looks, or the way i carry myself, or the things i say. whatever it is, people often form wrong image of me in their head.

i have suffered quite a bit because of these misunderstandings. people usually jump to the first wrong conclusion about me. I have learned to take it in my stride. Find humor in it. Thank God I have a couple of really good friends who have known me all my life. So i take heart in the fact that there are atleast a few people who get it, who won't judge me, and with whom I can get together and get a good laugh about all this. I chuck out people who judge me anyway (after giving them a couple of chances of course). So they don't remain my close friends for too long anyway.

But then there are some such misunderstandings that are really cute and funny. And always make you smile. I got reminded of one such story today.

So back in high school, i always had a disheveled appearance. Unruly hair, and not so well-ironed clothes. I was pretty jhalli. And I always had that droopy-eyelids look on my face. Like, i always looked sleepy. Maybe some times I really was, but that was not the case most of the time.

we used to go to a coed coaching class, where there was this very hard core hindi medium type looking guy. He had a very clean appearance. Oily hair. Not a single stitch out of place. Neat backpack. Clean shoes. Why I took notice of him? coz he took an obvious fancy to me. He used to try to pass me notes in the class. I never took them though. But he was an otherwise well mannered guy, so his actions were more funny than offensive.

One day I got a post card at home, addressed to me. I think he had signed it off as 'your wellwisher (shubhchintak) from [the coaching class]". At that time he was the only guy who showed obvious interest in me in that class. So i can fairly say that this particular postcard was from him.  It was a long and impressive speech, in Hindi too. About... drug addiction!

Dear god. In a neat and tiny handwriting, it went on about how drugs are ruining the youth. And how they could ruin the brain and body of a young person, especially women, and kill them. In the end, the letter sincerely urged me to give up drugs.

Oh god. the laugh we had about it. At the time I was as straight a kid as one could be. So to be misunderstood as a druggie was so bizarre that one could only laugh about it. One of my friends nicknamed me DA (drug addict) for the rest of the time we knew each other back then.