1O Things I’d tell a 5 year old me :D

1. So you think you’ll ‘grow up’ some day. That there is going to be some sort of a revelation (flourish, trumpets). Tough luck. You might grow taller, weigh more than you did, drink down a lot of books and be tested by time- no matter what, you’ll forever be immature. So will everybody else.Trapped in a bigger frame perhaps, but not any wiser. So stop looking at those 10^th std kids, awe-struck and dumbfounded, thinking that they have heart-to-hearts with their chaddi-buddy Nirvana.

2.Mario’s elusive princess?- Know her? You've been hunting for that pain-in-the-neck-virtual-princess trying to do Mario a favour for over a decade and a half, that over dressed nut is probably flirting with one of the beasts of the game. You’ll never find her. You needn’t throw your bag away as soon as you reach home and help Mario with his love life, it isn’t obligatory.

3. Your mother told you that they were diamonds in the sky, Simba- that they were people you loved who were no longer with you. Wonderful? Yea, brace yourself, for a teacher is going to hop into class and tell you that they’re neither, bursting your complacent bubble, breaking your bow (down will come baby, cradle and all)

4. It’s all right to hate fairy tales. Yea, I know, you hate them. You nod along when your friends chatter away about Cinderella and sleeping beauty and etc etc etc. The whole idea of the prettiest, neatest, good-est girl getting what people thought they really needed- a prince, makes you cringe. Really? If that’s what Cinderella and her battalion wanted, they could suit themselves. But psychologically culturing little girls into believing that they needed a sweet voice, pretty face and a knight in shining armour is pure evil. And besides, you’re converse hasn’t been washed since I don’t know when and your still happy. Period.

5. Think you’re gonna be the master of your chocolate-eating time/qty when you’re big? LOL. It’s been years since you said goodbye to seventeen, take an untimely step towards the fridge to grab a brick of heaven and be prepared to welcome a barrage of verbal arrows, generously sent your way, courtesy de Mum, Grandmum.

6. Those ugly duckling days aren’t gonna stay for long.

7. Can’t get b and d right? Relax, they’ll fall into place soon.

8. Confusion is ubiquitous and to make things worse, eternal. Not all questions can be answered and what the future holds, none but time can tell. Every choice you make is a consensual risk you take and the uncertainty in life is probably its best feature. So, show worry the door out and live life one day at a time.

9. Think that you’ll be left to your own devices once you’ve reached the ever-so-coveted adulthood? Your Grandmothers are going to sit together and rant away on how ‘Thankathinu fashion sense ottum ilya’ (Thankam has absolutely no fashion sense) and unintentionally embarrass you at weddings, enquiring, “Innu kulichuvo kutty?” (“Have you bathed today?”). You’re still going to be pinched for not eating enough dosas, not wearing the kinda clothes they’d have you and not combing your hair as often as they deem appropriate.

10. In some years, fewer than you think, you’re going to hope that by some error in fate you’d be returned to that time that has stealthily slipped into one of Newton’s infinite dimmensions when you could jump into muddy puddles, run behind frogs and hens, your only concern was why your front tooth wasn’t falling off, you could climb and sit on trees, fish with your thorthu mundu at your kolam and sing out loud without worrying yourself tired of whether you were making a fool of yourself.

@Peter Pan- I’m waiting.