Once upon a time there lived a colony of frogs in a well. They were all loud and big. Their skin was a dark shade of green. They talked loudly to each other all night in the well and ate the little insects that went in. There was a King Frog among them. He was much bigger and looked more menacing than the others. He was particularly bullheaded and refused to listen to wise words others told him.
One day, a little red frog fell into the well where these noisy frogs lived.
Hello everyone, smiled the little frog.
Everyone gathered around the little red frog. They stared at his shiny red skin. He looked different from all of them. He felt judged for his appearance in this strange community. The King Frog appeared seeing people crowd around the little red frog. Where do you come from, Frog?, he croaked.
I come from a stream. I jumped into this well by accident, he replied.
The frogs in the well that hadn’t heard of a stream or ever seen a frog that looked so strange immediately attacked him. The King Frog wasn’t stingy with his insults either.
You’re an abomination! Look at you, with your skin so different from other frogs. How dare you try to walk into the middle of this crowd!
The little red frog was petrified. He was only trying to be friendly. And he couldn’t believe that they thought he was an abomination. But everyone back home looks like me, and there are others who look nothing like me, he argued.
Upon a lot of persuasion the big, green frogs agreed to follow the little red frog to his stream and see the other frogs that lived there. They were astonished to see the kind of life that existed outside their murky well. But nothing matched their amusement when they saw the different kinds of frogs near the stream. Big and small, vibrantly coloured and ones that sounded very different from them.
It’s very easy for man to be like the frogs in the well. We can all ignore the fact that man comes in all shapes and sizes, beautiful colours, unique identities and personalities. But the truth remains, that whether you accept it or not every man is different from the other. We can’t all be the same. If one man likes women, another may like men, or may not like anyone at all. It doesn’t matter what you are like and no one has the right to decide what the other person should be like. And unless man makes the general acceptance that everyone has the right to differ, mankind will never see peace.

It’s tough being a shy person. You’re good in groups but quiet up close. You imagine yourself doing a lot of things, but you never get around to doing it. You can rarely be brave enough to tell things that come straight out of your heart. You can’t muster up the courage to tell someone you like them. And it sucks.

It’s been 20 years now. I’m beginning to understand how much my shy disposition has been maneuvering my life. There are times I want to go strike up a random conversation with someone at a tea shop. Sometimes I want to tell someone that I’m interested in them. Go that extra mile and give them that look that tells a million things. Compliment someone because they look good or did something good. Or simply do something crazy without having to worry about the judgmental folks.

But everything takes so much effort. It’s so much hard work for us shy people. It takes a whole round of internal battle to move out of your comfort zone and go “out there”. And even after doing so, you’re followed by what I call the “overthinking stage” and you end up regretting every single thing you did.

A subtle movement, like running your hand through your hair or shifting a little in your seat, makes your brain go berserk. While the people around you might not have even noticed you, you’re here on the other end wondering a million possible things that others would’ve thought. Was it awkward? Was it too abnormal? Was my behaviour socially unacceptable? You internally beat yourself up overthinking the many aspects of life. If you’re holding hands, you wonder if the other person is uncomfortable. But you’re not gutsy enough to ask. Thus everyday relationships, romantic or simply familial, become a nightmare. You dread conversations that might go wrong. You don’t know how to dissolve awkwardness when it seeps into a situation.

What comes naturally to others, is draining for us. While others effortlessly flirt, we are here struggling to gauge the others’ reactions and feelings. At the end of the day, we are exhausted and drained to the point where we question ourselves: Was it worth all that effort? You lose hope in yourself. You feel like a lost cause because nothing particularly good has come out of the whole ordeal. There’s wasted time with no positive results. You feel empty and even sad for letting that happen.

Away from the situation, you think about all the wonderful ways things could’ve gone. You imagine the different things you could’ve said and done earlier. You blame yourself for not being brave enough to do all that. You wish you had more game for life. We have crushes, but fail to pursue anything. We become failures at finding love and doing tiny little things that have the potential to impact our lives.

This is a life-long experience, a constant struggle for all the shy people out there. There’s very little we can do about it. Some accept and exist. Some hope they can change little by little. As I type this out, I realize I’ve come a long way from who I was just a few years ago. From the cripplingly shy persona, I have moved to a different version who is socially awkward and makes a joke out of it. But however hard I try, the old shy person in me threatens to break free because all of it is still there and will continue to be. It will try to wither you from the inside and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s just this motto that keeps me going: Fake it till it looks real and has forcefully become a part of you.

They call me Sunday Teacher. And often Teacher. Everytime they do, I make a mental note to go back home and kiss my mum. Because I have a bunch of memories from my childhood.

My mother was a Tuition Teacher. A lifeline for some 15 children of various classes. She had never been able to pursue her qualification and teach chemistry to students. But she taught a lot more.

There were two brothers who never cut their nails and the grime under them made the overgrown parts look black. She made them cut their nails and maintain it.

There was a little girl with horribly illegible handwriting. She taught her beautiful cursive writing.
She taught the two brothers to go wash their hands well with soap when they smelt of fish after their lunch.

Most of all, despite the fact that she yelled at them for not working and kept them at their toes with a stick, they all loved her. They never wanted to leave her classes even when she announced that she can’t go on because it was taking a toll on her health.

I often wonder if she ever felt weirdly contented everytime a child weak in studies scored well. If she felt an odd urge to smile to herself thinking about the little things those kids did. Because now I do.

Mum says her life took a wrong turn when she decided not to pursue a career in teaching Chemistry. I wonder if all that teaching she did for over 5 years with all those children still makes her think so. It’s true, she didn’t do justice to her degree. But I believe, and I always will, that those informal classes she took, in that little square dining room in our little flat made the lives of those children.

Now I feel it. Every Sunday when I go to the slum to teach a pair of sisters, I feel the joy in their eyes. Their relief when something they never understood made sense. And at the end of the afternoon, there’s always a silent promise to meet again the next Sunday.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton