I me myself (an original story...)

I love myself more than anyone else. I cannot even stand someone else loving me more than I love myself. I think I’m perfectly normal. I rather think that those who do not think like me are not normal. I am of the opinion that there is something missing in you if you do not love yourself more than others love you, as if there is a void between you and the ‘you’. I am the greatest proponent of the infamous ‘I me myself’ philosophy.

I was born in a rich family living in a ravishingly beautiful chateau in Languedoc, a small town in the south of France. My dad was a successful businessman who had wedded the daughter of another very successful businessman, my beautiful mom. I was born after three sisters and so it would have been unusual if I was not the most loved and pampered creature in the house. I call myself a creature because I was treated like one. Nobody treated me normal. If I coughed two doctors were summoned at the same time, if I fell down from the bicycle, it was sold and if I was beaten up in the school fight, the boy responsible was transferred to another school. I hated this way of growing-up but I couldn’t help much.

One Sunday, I was swimming along with a friend in our family pool. My dad was lazing around when he suddenly decided to challenge us to compete in a race and he declared my favourite chocolate as the prize. I tried my best to win since I loved that chocolate so much, but I somehow lost. After my friend left, I expected my dad to encourage me that I gave it my best shot, but to my surprise, he downloaded on me his loads of expectations as to how badly he wanted me to win not only in this race but in the race of life too. He continued to state that how the love and affection showered by the whole family comes along with a whole lot of expectations, especially since I was the only boy child and was the chosen one to take over the family business from my dad. In that moment, somehow I swallowed all that but I couldn’t sleep properly the next few nights.

The situation only worsened as I moved from the school to the university. If earlier the expectation was understated on my occasions, it started appearing more vocally. My dad asked me to be in his office on Saturdays. According to him, this way I could prepare well for my ‘future’. Initially I resisted, till the time the pressure became insurmountable. I hated to be in my dad’s office while my friends dated beautiful dames. On Sundays, the visit to church was the most sacred ritual, which if broken, was considered a sin. In my family, you had to be on your deathbed to avoid the visit to the church on Sundays. This took away the entire first half and the expectation was to spend the second half preparing well for the next week, a learning and practice picked-up by my dad since he had been to the war. This was all after the Sunday family lunch, another ritual which nobody could break. Gradually I started to lose friends because I was never there with them when they were bonding. I was fast becoming a loner.

I just hated to be in my dad’s office on Saturdays. I hated the business he did, of manufacturing the bags and jackets from animal skin, imported from third world countries like India, where it was available in abundance. You just had to grease the palms of a few officials and they would be ready to do anything for you, even sell their country, if you wanted to buy, and all that at a cheap price. No wonder, we made loads of money from this business. More than the corruption, I hated the men for killing the animals, the innocent creatures who couldn’t speak. At times, I used to relate my situation with those mortal souls. Many times I used to be strife-ridden between the importance of making money and the way it was being made. I loathed everything about my dad except for his passion for work and even more the love and respect he had for my mom. I wouldn’t be stretching too far in saying that he was amongst the very few men in the whole of France, who would be faithful to their wives.

During my college vacation, when my friends went with their girl friends to the tour of Europe, I stayed back to make a sincere attempt to prove a point to my dad as to how competent and innovative I could be. I did some of my own research to find a man made material, which looked almost similar to an animal’s skin, but was available without killing an animal. I thought it would be great if I could convince my dad to change the raw material, which could save lives of hundreds of animals every month. I managed to procure the raw material to make a few pieces of bags and jackets, get the designer to design it and utilized one of my dad’s cousin’s factories to manufacture a few pieces. I worked day and night to see that nothing would go wrong. I did all this under the wraps, to give my dad a beautiful surprise on his upcoming birthday. I was like a man on a mission to the moon.

My dad had planned his birthday bash over the weekend on the cruise. Almost all the important families of France were invited. To my utter surprise, the church was being given a miss on the coming Sunday. My dad said this was logical since the schedule of the cruise couldn’t be altered. We were to leave for the harbor on Friday evening, spend a night in the hotel and take a cruise on Saturday morning. I planned to show my creation to my dad on Friday afternoon before we all left for the harbor. On any other occasion as important as this, my mom was the only person in the world who would know about what I was up to, since she was the only one to whom I could speak my mind. However I decided not to tell her also in advance, just in case. This was my most important chance, and I was unwilling to mess with it, at any cost.

I told my dad that I want to share with him something beautiful which I have created, and I would do this on Friday afternoon in his office show gallery which he had lately created to exhibit all his products to the customers. I told him all this with a mischievous smile of a child on my face and couldn’t enjoy more the mysterious look on his face as he heard this. He said he was all looking forward to it and at the same time cautioned me that I must do this well within time, otherwise entire schedule of the birthday bash would go haywire. On Friday, to everyone’s surprise, I reached my dad’s office before he did. My dad reached his office late than normal, but he was still in a good mood. He shared his excitement of having this unusual birthday party with his key team members. To my delight, he admitted that he was even more excited about the surprise I had planned for him than going on the cruise. This all was making me highly nervous.

I made some frantic phone calls and found that the consignment was delayed by an hour due to the breakdown of the vehicle and the alternate vehicle was taking time to arrange for. I decided to avoid displaying my creation in the show gallery and rather show it directly to my dad as soon as it arrived. This way I could make-up for some of the time lost due to the delay. I requested my father to wait in his office and prepared the conference room for a quick display. I wanted a little bit of presentation to be retained, after all my soul had gone into this project. I was happy that I had worked with the same passion as I had seen in my father for his profession. My father called me twice, asking when he could see the surprise. The delivery vehicle finally arrived two hours later than the planned schedule. I personally lifted the box and ran to the conference room. Having set everything, I went to my dad’s office, beaming with excitement. He showed me his watch and said, “Let’s quickly head to the conference room.”

I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. "Ten, nine, eight, seven..." Finally, he saw my creation and carefully examined it. My heart was pounding with excitement. He said he didn’t quite like it. He said he very much appreciated my passion for creating it, but he did not like the final output. He said that it lacked the appeal, something which is extremely important for the product of the business he is in, and what I had made will be easily rejected by the important clientele he is serving for years. He even went on to say that he knew all about this raw material and had rejected it a long back. And then he said, “Let’s waste no more time, we are getting late”, and called for his car.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I felt as if the whole world had come to a halt. To hide my embarrassment, I rushed to the rest room. I groaned with pain, my abdomen was hurting as if somebody had punched me with all his force. By the time I came back, my father had already left, leaving a message for me to follow him quickly in another car waiting for me. I asked the driver to give way for me to drive and collect the car later from my house. I didn’t go home.

I drove into Germany. I established my business of manufacturing bags and jackets with the new raw material and utilized the German technology and machinery to attain the economy of scale. The initial period was quite daunting, but my belief in the righteousness of what I was doing carried me through. Not to my surprise, after a couple of years, the use of animal skin was protested against and not long after, its use was completely banned. This movement acted as a catalyst for my business.

Today I am a well respected and highly successful businessman. I am extremely passionate about my profession. I love and respect my wife. Above all, I am the greatest proponent of the infamous ‘I me myself’ philosophy.