“Everyone loves me”

By DR. AK RANA

Humans are those social beings who want everyone to like them so that they can proudly say, “Everyone loves me!”.

They maintain a reputation in front of people and those people then guide what they do because opinion matters because everyone needs to love them.

Being in spotlight and shining brightly is dream of many and this journey never ends. But running towards that golden spotlight, they often forget the right way and keep dragging themselves in dark pit which keeps getting deeper and deeper.

There was a guy in my college who wanted to be everybody’s favorite. He used to act just the way you would want him to act, your favorites were his favorites; be it the dish, show, movie, music, whatever you just name it.

His way of talking was so sweet that you would be mesmerized by the words he would speak. In our batch, he was the most famous person that everybody in the college knew of.

I used to be envious of his cool dude vibes, and never-ending narcissistic talks that were never proved wrong.

His show-off was not only materialistic but being the good guy was also part of it, and for that he was always ready to help people around him.

You can guess what was coming next, a few people started using him; and given his reputation he wouldn’t say no. When and how he was slowly turning into pushover, he didn’t realize that.

Tides were going against him and he tried harder to change its direction in despair.

More famous you are, more will you find people who know how to take you down. Never think that you are the only clever one over here.

A group of students did a mischief resulting in angry teachers, ready to take action with keen eyes searching for ‘The head’ of the group. Whole batch wanted a ‘Head’ to take the blame and everyone looked at ‘the famous guy’ for help.

As if it was his responsibility and his hesitancy was taken as disloyalty, even though he was not at all involved in the incident.

When he was standing up with a brisk smile on his face unable to go against his pricy reputation, he looked at me.

I was like why are you looking at me with those eyes of helplessness, don’t you know I live across the stage without revealing my presence.

Maybe he was for the first time envious of person like me whom nobody knows.

“What? You want any suggestion.” I asked.

He just smiled awkwardly, unable to shout for help in front of hundreds of eyes on him.

We were not close but his roll number was just a few digits away from me, and because of his dozen of helps, I also had a soft corner in my heart.

“Don’t go… Are you nuts? Why will you take the blame for those idiots?”

Of course, I had nothing to lose and could say whatever in my heart ,but they were stunned to see me shouting like that, many never heard my voice before!

“I see…” that’s why you looked at me because it doesn’t matter to me what the hell, they will think about me.

“Thanks for your help. But they are going to hate me from now on.” He sighed.

“Let them who cares.” I replied, “let them hate you.”

“Is that possible? What if everybody hates me?”

“Let it be then.”

“How will I survive?” he laughed.

“You will just need oxygen for that.”

That day whole batch decided to apologize, with no one being the head of the group. I gained unnecessary attention, while the famous guy stood next to me as if for the first time, he relaxed in the shadow doing nothing.

He told me he was envious of me, but nevertheless he knew that people like him keeps the world going. I would stand there observing people and following the one taking the lead and that was easy to do. While the one who shines take all the burden on their shoulders.

After that he used to follow me around, giving me extra burden of his spotlight that he carried everywhere. Although he was more at ease than he was before.

He started to follow his own nature and was no more dependent on others opinion to shine. He didn’t need everybody’s liking for him to maintain a reputation and yes, he could straightforwardly say “No!” to people without any more hesitations.

That day all I did was to speak some lines and it was all the people he had earned, who stood up with him and that’s how whole class decided to take the blame.