Being Differently Same

Once upon a time in the lively village of Whozwhoville, lived people who called themselves wannabes and wanted to be willbes. The people followed a peculiar custom. Every child was named after a famous celebrity by his/her parents and it was the duty of the child to live up to his/her name. While some parents were over ambitious for their kids, the others reduced the pressure by naming them Cyrus Brocha.

Nobody expected you to be a world famous celebrity but you had to live the profession synonymous to your name and if that was not possible at least you had to do things similar to that person you were named after in your daily life. The people under the former category were called ‘willbes’ because of their sheer will and endurance that made them successful. The latter were called ‘wannabes’ because their efforts didn’t really justify the talent in their names. The town was named inspired by Mr. Khan who was a famous and respected Willbe. He had successfully lived up to his name (named after a very famous Deputy Head Clerk working in the Govt. Pay & Accounts Office in Mumbai).

While everything and everyone continued to live the life assigned to them , a troubled soul seemed to brew inside the girl with the prettiest smile in the village. She was Madhuri Dixit; the patent Sita (much to Karishma’s disappointment) in all the Ram Lila’s and was bestowed with great expectations. She was supposed to dance in a sari every time it rained in the village while the others were safely protected in their old-fashioned duckback raincoats and hide her face like an ostrich and feel shy every time someone complimented her. Although she hated the way she was remote controlled, one thing kept her alive and that was her fascination for aircrafts. With an air-base nearby the village, aircrafts flew frequently in the sky. Her dream was to fly An IAF Mig-29, painted yellow.

She once traveled to a nearby air show sitting uncomfortably on Anil Kapoor’s bicycle. They returned with a bicycle with a punctured tyre.Her mother Helen was shocked by this incident and felt Madhuri needed to lose weight. She decided to stop feeding Madhuri her favorite large paper masala dosa.Madhuri was horrified and decided to put an end to this ludicrous way of life. She decided to visit Mr. Khan and ask him the secret ingredient of his success.

She narrated her miseries to Mr. Khan and he heard them patiently. At the end, he smiled and said “The secret ingredient is... nothing! To make something special you just have to believe it's special.” It turned out that Mr. Khan was actually Dirubhai Ambani’s nephew who was expected to be great in the business sector. He dabbled his entire youth trying to live up to his famous surname but in reality the people around him were more ambitious for him than he himself was. All he wanted is a normal and modest lifestyle. He decided to change his name to Mr. Khan and live somewhere where nobody knew him. When he entered Everyonezville (old name of whozwhoville) he was very handsomely dressed and his manner of speaking was daunting for many. People started looking up to him and slowly the attention made him feel important. One fine day, the Panchayat leader ‘inspired’ by Mr. Khan decided to change the entire relaxed functioning of Everyonezville where everyone was anyone to a more ambitious Whowhozville, where who is who mattered. Everyone shouted in chorus “ What an idea Sirjee!! “

That evening, Madhuri thought and thought and thought some more. Thinking was against the custom considering her name but she did it anyway. The next morning she bundled up her belongings and decided to do what she should have done long before…pursue her dream of becoming a pilot. As she left home bidding adieu to her family , her mother asked what made her take such an extreme step. She coined her words in the simplest form and said “When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go!!”