8:My birthdays, long ago ..........

I was just thinking about how these days (end of Jan) would be like before few years. February 2nd is my b'day and that made all the end-of-Jan exciting. I used to shop for my b'day, pester dad and buy one pretty dress to wear it to school. In our school students were allowed to wear colour dress on their b'days and give a speech in the assembly. There were times when i even bought new slippers and accessories suiting my b'day dress exclusively for the day. I will start fishing for interesting stuffs to be spoken over the mic in the assembly. I will go to the shop nearby and buy MY FAV (obvsly i was the one who gets the max number of chocolates) chocolate, two hundred in number. 

Birthdays used to be so special and the prime reason being the colour dress to school. The one celebrating birthday will stand out in a crowd as he/she is the only one or one among the handful in colour dress that day. Every person who cross me would wish me be it a senior,junior,staff or a complete stranger. 

The assembly...

Assembly is usually scheduled for half n hour and as far as i remember i dont remember a single assembly that was so short unless it rained. Our schools usual practice is to mention the b'day babies names on stage and that will be done by assistant school pupil leader. When they call out our names we give a stunning entry just like how the celebs do when they appear on a stage show. From that moment till the end of assembly the b'day babies have to stand at the right corner of the stage, in front of the whole school, like a doll. That is when i used to search for my buddies in the crowd. I ll locate one by one(the known faces alone) and smile at them from the stage. If the person i am smiling at is pretty close to me i'd say a hi with the biggest smile on my face. Then when my turn comes i ll  go to the mic and give a big speech. Someone celebrating birthday giving a big speech is something that was the biggest dislike in GB LAND but my speeches on my b'days were excused. The reason was standing under the hot sun during summer in the ground, specially when the guy next to you is no someone you like, used to be terrible. When the prayer gets over the b'day guys get a chance to go to class before everyone. Everyone else have to stick to the queue and reach the class in order. 

Coming to the chocolates...

Just like the Vodafone ad, the number of chocolates we give to a kid around will be directly proportional to our liking towards them. Each time i give chocolate to  someone i'd have one too ( maybe thats one reason for me being so sweet..thanks for saying Shabba! now cont reading) The whole day would be so much fun. 

The usual practice on a b;day is to go to each bench and offer chocolates to classmates.Funniest will be when one student who is not friends with u, someone who is almost an enemy to u will reluctantly say "happy b'day" and look the other side while picking a chocolate from the cover you hold. My mind voice "pidikala na chocolate vendam nu solla vendiyathu thane..one chocolate loss..bull shit! ill pick two on ur bday" lol we were small kids so chocolates were more important than people around. 

Finally coming to the fun of seeing everyone else in the same old uniform. You wont know the pleasure unless you ahve experienced it urself. Sometimes people we had stopped talking to previously would come and wish. From then on that person becomes a friend too. Birthdays were helpful to patch up too. 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh...i ve no moods to end this note. I really miss those innocent days. Now i am just left with memories that are really cute.

7: How i became talkative-credits to Jaya TV :P ;)

This part of the series is all about "How GB became so very bold and talkative?" Thanks to "Jaya tv" which brought all the difference in me. I was also born with the normal vocal chords and short tongue only. I was a very silent kid when i was in my primaries. I hated to go on stage. Whenever a stranger asked me "Hi baby! whats your name?" i used to hide my face behind my hands and run away.

I still remember the first time i messed up with a stage show in my school. I was in 6th class then. It was world literacy day and the dialog started this way "Now i remember..." now i remember only that but there standing on stage, being watched by the whole school in the assembly, I forgot every single word that followed. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been to say a dialog "Now i remember.." and forgetting the rest. That was the first time i understood i had demo phobia (fear of crowd) . From then on i never stepped on stage nor did i try talking to a group of friends together, fearing people would tease me.

Then came this chance of attending a program of Jaya TV, as a participant. The program was called "Vandugal Rajjiyam" (now don try to think hard to find if you had seen the program, you wouldn't have. I'm sure). The first time the camera started rolling i was almost ready with tears in my eyes. I did not know what to speak. It was a visit to Aavin sholinganallor dairy and i was asked to call my own dad "uncle" as he was the one who was explaining about the diary. Finally i gathered all the courage and spoke well. When we started back home the director of the show called my dad and asked him if he can let me host the show from then. There started my first lesson "How to be friendly to strangers!"

I had always envied the VJ's of those days. There were not many like how it is today. Today anyone jobless becomes a VJ but that time "Pepsi Uma" was the most famous host. I thought all these people will be treated like queens. The sets of different programs always kept me wondering how hese channel maintain so many big big different sets for different shows. so when my father told me we were going to the Jaya TV studio, i imagined it to be really big.

I got up early that morning and wore the prettiest dress i had. We went there and i was waiting to see such a big building. We got down from the auto and i was shocked. There was a small building with just 2 floors. I was already disappointed and when i went in with a frown face a lady who was as fat as the owner of Jaya TV welcomed us. She was the receptionist Indhu. Looking at her i mistook her to be a rude woman but i was proved wrong by the way she spoke to me ( a stranger ). The reception had a LCD tv and not many times before that i had got a chance to see a LCD tv. It was some year in 1990's. I had to sit there for half an hour as they said the set was getting ready. Again that made me curious. I thought iwill be taken to a huge set like the one in "Jackpot", it was a time when Jackpot had the maximum TRP of all the television shows. I was called and i rushed in. :-( ) i was dumbstruck. There were hundred doors, each leading to a room that measured exactly the same as my flat watchman shed. I entered the room which was alloted for "Vandugal Rajjiyam" that day. IT had four sets on four walls. One wall had "Movie no.1" set, 2nd had "Adithyan's Kitchen" set. Third had some not-so-famous program's set and the fourth wall had just a blue screen. That blue screen was my program's set. I was asked to stand there for five minutes and stare at the lifeless camera in order to set the camera at the right angle. My director Mr.Saravana Rajjan came to me and told me just 2 sentences "Welcome to vandugal rajjiyam..blah blah blah" and asked me to say the same with proper modulation the moment i hear the words "Start Camera Action". I said that and everyone applauded. I really id not know why. They said it was great to get a OK right in the first take and even big hosts take lot of takes. I wondered how i could make a mistake in a 2 line long dialog. It was simpler than social answers.

Then i was given a break after they recorded one episode. That is when i asked myself "when i can talk to a lifeless camera why do i fear talking to people who are full of blood,flesh and veins?" I laughed. Everything got over and the hosting part for next three weeks was recorded. Then came the most enjoyable part. I was asked to sign in a voucher. That was the first time someone asked me for a signature. I was payed Rs.250. I was jumping up and down. It was my first earned money.

There started my journey with Jaya Tv. I hosted the program for the next two years. Each time i was asked to go to the make up room (which was as small as a motor room but with a/c) i used to have a big star of Jaya TV sitting next to me, busy with his/her make up. Sometimes they used to talk to me too. Slowly i came out of the cover i had wrapped up myself in. I started talking to everyone there, known, unknown, make up man, workers, tea boy, camera men, directors, famous artists and even the visitors who dropped in. Slowly my programs shooting room was shifted to the terrace room which was half constructed. the other half was under construction. They were building a big hall exclusively for "Jackpot" there. This program got me a chance to record an ad for AIR, then a promotion a for Jaya TV.

I used to shoot in the morning and rush to school directly from there with all the makeup. Actually they would bury my face in powder. Everyone around will laugh at me every time i go to school after the shooting. It was fun. Whenever i attended a family function there will definitely one aunt's cousins mother's brother's something who will recognize me and ask me about the program. It was not because of the popularity of the program but the way the word of mouth spread so well within the farthest circle of the family.

I really enjoyed those days.The kind of exposure i got was amazing. If i am this talkative and if i am an extrovert today all the credits goes to Jaya TV and Vandugal Rajjiyam.( if you think it is troublesome to you, you are free to curse them)

5:Why I learnt to make spelling mistakes..

“will anyone learn to make a mistake, that too spelling mistakes?” no?! maybe, but I learnt. There is a story to explain why I learnt to and to justify all the mistakes I make in my notes. This article is completely dedicated to those who read my articles and pointed out my spelling errs. J J thank u so much guys! Happy reading..

Life in UKG E section came to an end. First day of 1 std E section:

That was a bright morning in the month of june, if I am right it was june 11th,1995. I woke up with great josh to go to school after a two month long vacation. Every year the first day to school facinated me much.Not just because of the new class but I was always excited to meet new students who join us every year. I loved to make new friends. I was also eager to go to school before others could and hold a place, under the fan, for myself. I feel ashamed to tell you that this practice still continues and even in college I do the same, sorry girls.

As usual my mom dropped me at the gate and flew away as she was getting late to school as she had to sign before 9:05. I ran inside and located my class successfully. The class was not empty as I had expected. There were few kids who were smarter than me. Everyone sat in the corner that was better accessible to the staff than the one less accessible. I got the second row and made a comfortable sit. Then the next 30 minutes went on as usual, silence bell, prayer, secret talking having hands on mouth, just moving lips and last but not least trying to stand erect for vandhe matharam. Finally the 1st std classes begun. The teacher did not spare us even on the first day, she expected us to take notes. As small kids we did not know to shout in corus “Maaaaaaaaaaaam” so we had no other option than to write down. I wanted all my first pages to be neatly written but unfortunately god did not bless me enough to have a legible handwriting. Every time I wrote people would ask “Hey! You know chineese?” it was so bad. “what do I do god?! I want my first page to be neat, please help me out.” By the time I completed the prayer , the board was full of alphabets and I had no clue what those letters meant put together in a different order. If I knew something it was that I was supposed to take down the notes.  When my worry reached the extreme limits the girl next to me broke her pencil lid. An idea cropped up and I lent her my new NATARAJ pencil (red and black striped one) . She was over joyed and asked me why I hadn’t written a word. I told her the whole story thereby convinced her to write the first few pages for me and she really did that.

Before I could breath well realizes that one of the biggest problems had come to an end, there came another. Mam asked all our notes for correction. Those days we had same mam for social, science and maths. And this teacher will be there in the class for 4 long periods before lunch. I wonder how we could stand all that and now even if the bell rings a minute late we are not able to stand the teacher standing in front of us. She started correcting the notes. I started biting my nails and that was pakka influence of tamil movies.

The rules I learnt go like this “if you are tensed bite your nails, if your wife is going to give birth to a baby walk up and down. Once you join a college and you are asked a question scratch your head, if you feel shy dig a hole on the floor with your toe.”

I got my note back and to my surpirse mam did not find out that two notebooks had the same handwritings. Mam had a good habit of writing down all the words we had missed with red. This gave the lazy mind of mine an idea. From the next time I satrted to skip lot of words and everytime mam wrote that for me. This went to a stage where I wrote only “is on the in it if so to”. Mam obviously got irritated and threw the note right on my face.she said from the next time she will not write any left out words but just correct what I write. Now I had no other go other than to write down all the words. I did that but I wanted to do something different to complete the copying-from-board first with minimum effort. That is when the idea-loaded brain of mind ticked. “now I cant skip words and mam will correct only what I write. I need to reduce the writing work also..?! IDEA! Let me write all the words but shrink each of the too-many-lettered words by missing few letters.” I thought to myself. I practiced a lot, did a lot of hard work in order to skip few letters and make a spelling mistake but in a way that will look natural. I used to memorize the mistake I do everytime so that next time I can write the same short spelling for the word which will look natural.

4:Best Enemy turned BFF

That was the first time i had to tell her how much i hated her. I splashed a bucket full of bad words i knew on her. She was nothing less, if mine was a bucket hers was a river or ocean of not-to-be-used words. A big fight broke and that was the biggest fight of my life till date.But one fine day we resolved all the problems but we departed. Why did we fight and why did we depart after the problems got solved? I never spoke to anyone else other than my three close friends for almost one year, then slowly i made lot of friends. But 2 people my heart resisted to accept as friends were Shrinidhi Raghavan and Mamtha. I liked them too till the first fight broke between us. I really dont remember for what we fought that day. I think it was because she had a cuter snacks box than mine or i had a better bag than shrinidhi's. Maybe 4-year old girls are made that way. But then this fight intensified and made us enemies. Since Mamtha was Shri's best friend i had no interest in talking to her.We knew(influence of tamil movies we had watched) when two people fight one is the heroine and other is the villi. Our only confusion was who was the heroine and who was the villi. That added spice to our fight. She used to over react whenever she touched my bag accidentally. Even in PT hours when we were asked to join hands she used to shift places. I was no less in revolting back. Whenever i was asked to distribute notebooks i used to throw her note on the floor. Now all this sounds funny but we all really did it in our KGs. on our last working day of UKG, i had promised to god that i will remain their enemy forever and started to school. That day, when prayer was going on, we had to stand next to each other. We did not utter a word from the prayer sloka. We were chanting the Manthra of enemies "I hate shrinidhi(for her it was ganga) please let me remain her enemy forever and ever". I went home happily after school as my vacation started from then. After the vacation had got over i had to go back to school. But this time it was not UKG E section but Istd E sec. I passed UKG and got promoted to I std. There came the shocking news. Shrinidhi and Mamtha had got TC and they left the school. Both their fathers had got tranfer and that is why they had to leave. One girl who was Shrinidhi's neightbour handed over a letter to me. (she was too small to write spellings correctly) This was the exact letter i received.


"Dear gaga Sory. 
I go. 
Bye. 
Shrinidhi" 


After reading that letter i cried and tore it. I always thought she was my Best enemy Friend Forever. But it was too late to realize. She had gone miles away. After that i never got a chance to meet them. But i am sure ill meet them one day as a good friend :) 

3:Can a girl be my friend?

"can a girl be a friend of another girl? no, not at all" i thought till she shook hands with me and said the beautiful two lettered word "HI". In our LKG classes we girls were asked to sit in between boys, it was like a girl between two boys and a boy between two girls. so how did it happen? the next definition of Friendship.

It was my P.T period and we used to play in the ground during those classes. I loved only that period when i was in my LKG. she came to me and said "HI" and shook hands with me. she was Tamarai. first i looked at her puzzled. i thought a girl should not talk to another girl and thats why we were not allowed to sit next to a girl. I took 3 sec to give her my hand in return. But i strictly told her she needs to play only with me during PT classes and she should lend me her pencil everyday. She smiled and said i can also use her eraser if i want. there started my first friendship with a girl.

My mom used to give small Idlis(a south indian dish) for lunch everyday. oops! sorry, i am skipping the rest of my LKG story for the benefit of readers(if any). i am sure you will get fed up listening to it. ok, now back to UKG-E section. i hated idlis but my mom never listened to what i said. i liked only potato chips. i was thinking about how i could escape this horrible lunch everyday. I cant take it back home, mom will shout at me if i do that.I thought i could throw it away before going home on the street but mam used to check our lunch boxes everyday after lunch. Another problem made me worry. How many such problems can a KG kid face? So finally i got a grip on a super duper plan. After that for exactly one week i used to put the idlis in my lunch bag and cover it with lunch towel placing empty box and water bottle over it. no one found but one day i did the biggest blunder for which i still regret. That day i got over-enthusiastic and poured the sambar also inside my lunch bag and i got caught. I was asked to stand out. See how i had maintained being an outstanding student right from my UKG. I did not like crying even when i was small. i loved to smile and i smiled standing out. This mam of mine got wild and started shouting more. But nothing could disturb 'My favorite smile' on my face. From then on i was forced to eat my lunch.

I again got caught for the second time. I was so unlucky that i had to face so many problems.One day i was not able to eat my subji fully.I was scared. Mam came close to me and said the sentence i hated the most "Show me your lunch box".This was a sentence of horror and terror. I blinked,first refused, later showed her the box. She asked me why i had not eaten the subji. I quickly surfed my mind and got a brilliant idea. I told her " mam my grandmother loves this subji but she kept everything for me to eat. I am taking this back for her to eat." She knew i lied.She even told the teacher in the next class that what i said was cute though it was not true.


Note:
Now i am hungry. I skipped my meals. But after typing this note i feel like eating SMALL IDLIS.If you want them drop in sometime. :) :) Friends! You are always welcome :) :) :)


DEFINITION 3 FOR A F.R.I.E.N.D: any one who agrees to share one's pencil along with eraser and agrees to play with 'only' you during PT classes is a F.R.I.E.N.D

2:Theorem: "Give a pencil and be my best friend"

Everything went well until he told me that. i did not expect him to act this way. he proved to be a small immature kid. what did i ask for? it wasn't something big, but he refused. he did not even consider it. I was very happy but not after what happened that day. so now what happened? i will tell you.

Like everyday i got up early, i was forced to and got ready to go to school. i went to school and sat in my usual place in between the two twins. Mam came from i-don't-know-where and asked us all to take our 4 line ruled notebook. i opened the zip of my bag as slowly as possible and slided my hand inside it to take the notebook. that bag was 'mine' i was very careful in using it. i never kept it on the floor, it always had my lap to sit on. suddenly i discovered the horrible thing. i did not take my pencil to school that day. "where is my pencil?" my mind kept repeating.Mam started to dictate something i did not know what it was then. later i discovered it to be a song my mom used to sing to make me eat right from the age of one. I was very angry about what my madam did. I always thought it was my family song and it was meant only for me to eat or sleep but now the whole world is taught the song. She did not even sing in my family tune, it did not sound like a song itself. that is when i thought each family will have a different tune but the song remains the same. What was the song you might ask. it was "ABCDEFGHIJK...."(heard that song without a tune for the first time.) coming back to the horrible problem.i did not have a pencil to write. the previous night i had used the pencil to make modern art on the walls of my house. "Oh God! what do i do now". suddenly an idea cropped up in my mind. i turned to my right and asked one of the twins ( i did not know whom) a pencil. he bluntly said "I wont give it is mine". i did not want to ask the person to my left as i thought twins would always respond and talk the same way.i started to cry. suddenly i heard the other twin telling me "Dont cry. It is my pencil only but i can give you but you should not break the lead. ok?" i was very happy. I decided not to talk to the rude twin-brother of this sweet guy again. i said to myself " this boy who gave me the pencil will remain my best friend and the one who refused to give will remain my enemy for ever. i need to take revenge (influence of movies)." the day got over and i manage to give the pencil without breaking the lead. i went home and thought for a way to insult that twin brother the next day. different ideas came to my mind like- throwing his pencil away when he is not there in the class, tearing the last blank page of his notebook and a lot more violent ideas came to my mind. I calmed down myself and slept. Next morning i woke up myself as i was very much eager to execute my plan. i got ready so soon making people at home ask "Is anything wrong with you?" I ran to my class where these two were standing. i had never gone so early before. Usually everyone will be seated when i get in. there came the biggest problem ever. It shattered all my plans. the scene i saw shook me more. one twin said to the other "Dont keep changing places everyday. i cant keep swapping places whenever you want." Now who was the rude one and who was the good one?! i was confused. i did not know who i will have to execute the plan with. They were identical, they had the same coloured bags. I went to my place and sat calmly. They both settled. i was reminding myself that one of them was my best friend and the other, my enemy. i looked at them and started to ask something. suddenly both of them gave me a pencil each, a brand new 'Nataraj' pencil. They said it was a gift to me from them. Now things were clear. i decided "From now both of them are my best friends." DEFINITION 2 FOR FRIENDSHIP: any BOY who gifts/lends you a pencil is a friend.

1:WEIRDEST day

“Get up its time” yelled my mom into my ears. I lazily looked at the clock and it was 7 am. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Dad and mom have never woken me up so early for the past 3 years. I had to walk to the wash basin to brush my teeth and I rushed to the bathroom with out my cup of coffee. It was never like this before and I did not like it. Usually my grandma would compell me to have my coffee immediately after brushing and I had always felt her affection whenever she did that. But this time she pushed me inside the bathroom and locked the door from outside. One thing I hated the most was to talk bath when I still felt sleepy. The moment I poped out of the bathroom started the rat-race, my mom was packing lunch, my dad was polishing shoes, and my grandma threw the breakfast not on table but into my mouth. They did not even give me time to dress up, they did not undertand that it was a big day and I had to go well dressed like a princess. Finally I managed to cope up with their speed. I fell at grandma’s feet and got her blessings. For the first time ever in my life I reluctantly wore the footwear and slipped out of the house without a tinch of enthusiasm. Dad and grandma said bye peeping out through the window but I did not bother. I was compelled to go. Mom drove me to a big building and the moment I got down from the vehicle she fled away from there. I turned back to my path with disappointment of not being able to find mom on the street. Ahhhh! I was shocked. Two big females arrested me, each on held one hand of mine as tight as they could. I wasn’t able to escape. They said I was stubborn as I did not cry. Maybe it was the worse moment one could possibly face on earth, so maybe I was supposed to cry, but I did not feel like crying. I was put inside a dark room whose walls were painted in a weird manner. I had seen such a waiting room before too. The last time I went to my native with my grandma in a train, we had to wait in a similar room. But there were lot of differences inspite of the similarity. I couldn’t hear the sound of the trains, no announcements and above all, all the co-passengers were crying aloud. The entire area outside the waiting room was empty, there was absolutely nothing at all.

I went and sat in a chair in the waiting hall which made me feel as though I was in a booth banglow which I had seen only in movies. I wanted to know who was sitting next to me on both the sides, I knew 2 males were sitting on either side. I turned to my right and there was a guy crying very hard, sitting next to me. The slowly I turned to my left and I was shocked. That is when I started crying. The boy who was sitting to my right was sitting to my left too. Imagine you are in a weird place, inside a dark waiting room in a railway station where you are not able to hear a single announcement or the horn of a single train, the entire area outside the room is empty and on top of it you have the same person sitting next to you on both the sides. I cried aloud and I wanted to move away from there. I stood up and there came a female, I was not sure who she was but I was sure she wasn’t a porter woman as she did not wear the red uniform. She threatened all of us to be seated in our chairs. I did not listen. I was frightened to death. She came close to me and asked “whats your problem? Cant you sit down?”

I told her “A guy is occupying two chairs; see to my left there is a guy right? See to my right again there is this same guy.”

She laughed exactly like the witch of some popular kid’s serials laugh to give a horror look and feel. This only made me pour more tears. She said “Don’t cry my child. They’re called twins. They are born to same mother at the same time” and she left the place. “Hi I am Ganga Bharani and you are?” …

It took me a day to understand that the room I was sitting in was not a railway waiting room but my LKG classroom. That was my first day to school.This is how I made my first set of friends at school.

A Book Of Lies-Prologue

An autobiography of a simple girl

Prologue

It was a very strange evening. I was sitting idle looking at the stars (evening and stars? ya, it was a weird evening, I said.) I have always wondered how people had got the idea of theaters but when i saw the sky i realized god paved a way for it. World is the biggest cinema hall and the sky is the "Big Screen", I thought. The moment this thought flashed in my mind I saw some strange object flying there, high up in the sky. It was very fancy. This fancy object kept flying for the next fifteen minutes in a circular fashion and my eyes started tracing it. Very soon I lost track of everything, i fell down, went unconscious. (Thala suthi keela vizhinthitten-to give a better feel to the tamil readers (if any))

when I woke up I was surprised. I was on the sky floating. My always-weird-complex heart told me "Come on! Be happy. You have made it to the big screen (the actual big screen) but brain said "Miss.Idiot you are dead."




Before I could say "what the ..whatever" a bell rang and it was my daily alarm. I had to go to college, actually had to hurry up to college. Finally, I reached the bus stop and waited there. I waited long enough to miss a bus which even waited for me to get in, right in front, dreaming. What was i thinking about? Surely not the usual thing. My bus-stop friends will know what it is usually. For the rest let me explain. Daily i used to say "Friends! Let’s miss the bus and walk back home. Our last chance to escape the 7 hours of imprisonment which is worse than a real lifetime imprisonment." but this time it was not that. I thought “what if that dream comes true. If such an asteroid hit the earth and if i die all of a sudden,..!!!! How will my one strong desire come true?" desire, a strong desireto write a book.

“You want to become a writer?!” my friends used to exclaim. It was not because I was from IITs or IIMs and I wanted to leave off all the high paying jobs and turn into a writer. It was because they knew the measure of my shiver in the Richters scale each time I was asked to write something at school. I knew I wanted to write a book but I did not know about what I should write. What can I write about that big writers have not written before? Finally I came to know about something that no one could have written before.

Acheivers and stolwards write down their auto-biography. People go crazy to read these, they get inspired by these biographies and they go to an extent even to learn these. But are auto-biography meant only for winners? ‘Why can’t I write something about my very own life?’ I thought.Thats the only think no one knows better than me. I am not a winner in life but I have lived a life too. I want people to know this and so I write down, oops! Sorry, type down this book. This book is defenitely not going to teach you how to live, its not going to set me as an example for the rest of your life. I am going to spice up my life to make it interesting for you to read and enjoy. I am sure if there is anything that’s going to be good about me in this book then it’s a big lie and you can enjoy the lie for a while. Here comes “The book of lies”, an auto-biography of a simple girl.