Life as a fairytale... or not

[The following article was published in the Education section of the Gulf News on the 14th of April 2012.]

As a child, I was never the kind to display an infatuation towards fairytale happy endings where the damsel in distress and her prince charming dance off into the sunset. Now as a 16-year-old, my best friend often lures me into conversations that deeply disinterests me, but piques her attention greatly, where we somehow end up discussing Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. On one end, she chatters on animatedly about how she wishes she was a princess or a fairy like Tinkerbell, while on the other end, I scoff and mock her childish enthusiasm for fairytales.

Yet, a few days ago when I was on one of my customary blog surfing modes, I came across a post which juxtaposed two pictures—the first one of Spieling Peter Pan and his Wendy at Disneyland, and another of an excited couple on their wedding day. A sentence below read, I will never get over the fact that Peter and Wendy got married in real life. 

I had previously written off the very idea of fairytales as juvenile and only designed to provide a pseudo comfort to little girls everywhere that’d make them yearn for fanciful weddings and magical, yet tender, moments that are as comforting as a raindrop that spirals its way down the cheek. Though I have no recollection of it (I may have unintentionally blocked out the very memory), I know that I, too, have gone through a phase where I clung on to a thread of hope for a memorable ending to my story, complete with some fairy dust and a prince to boot. 

Writing this has made me ask myself what kind of a fairytale ending I picture myself getting. Although, I'm sure most fairytales entails a handsome gentleman sweeping me off my feet, I don’t believe in that. In fact, I believe against that. I don’t want an intricately woven gown that’ll make me feel like a princess, I don’t want a chariot, I don’t want anything of that nature. Ergo, in terms of taking reality into consideration and everything, I want a few simple things. First of all, I want to live in a place that never ceases to inspire me. I want to be able to look around and not take the things I have in front of me for granted like I probably do every single day right now. Secondly, I want to do something that I'm passionate about regardless of whether or not it ends up being the source of my income in the long run. Above all, I just really want to be a good human being. I don’t mean it in the sense where I vow never to sin or make mistakes, because making mistakes is the only way I can assure myself that I'm learning and growing as a person. It’s righting my wrongs that’ll inevitably decide if I'm a good human being or not. But, we are all writers of our own stories and even if we can’t change the ending, we can always rewrite and revise the in-betweens in order to make the ending worthwhile. 

However, as the biggest skeptic of the classic fairytales, even I couldn’t find it in myself to be cynical about them after I heard the story of Andrew and Hali Ducote. Andrew Ducote was possibly one of the most loved and reputed Peter Pan at Disneyland. Hali Gaskins (now Ducote) often portrayed Wendy and Tinkerbell amongst other beloved Disney characters. The pair had been best friends  for years before they landed their jobs at Disneyland together. Somewhere in between enthralling little kids and teenagers alike with their portrayals of “the boy who wouldn’t grow up” and his lovely Wendy, the two people behind the characters fell in love and got married on June 10^th, 2012. So, really, who says that all fairytales are bogus and won’t come true? Because the way I see it, Peter Pan and Wendy really did turn out fine. 

By Gopika Nair