When I was about 12 years old, I had a huge crush on actor Rahman. I hadn’t watched any of his movies at that time, only read about him in the papers. All my classmates were talking about him too and I fell madly in love.
When you are a teenager, nothing really makes sense, especially this attraction you feel for the opposite sex. Until then my father was my hero.I needed to validate my feelings. I needed to know what I am feeling is not something abnormal and that I am really normal. The best way to find out if I am normal is to see if my mother went through the same when she was young. If she did, then I am fine and shouldn’t worry too much.

And I did the dumbest thing possible. I went and told my mother that I like Rahman. I didn’t say I wanted to sleep with Rahman. Just “I like Rahman”

I don’t know if it is just my mother or the mothers in Kerala, for them the words ‘like’,’crush’,’ love’ etc equates to sex.

She slapped me and told me “ahankari, mottennu virinjilla athinu munpe thudangi Ilakkam, allelum ninakithiri illakkam kooduthal aa ” ( she berated me)

I remember the confusion I felt. But more than the confusion, I felt ashamed, that there was something really wrong with me and well behaved woman do not feel like I did. as a 12 year old, I couldn’t blame my upbringing, so it was obvious that there was something wrong with me. I even thought I should join the convent and for years my sisters used to call me “Mother Sarah”

When Yaya was about 12, she liked “Cody Simpson” We had Cody Simpson for breakfast, lunch and dinner ( ie the conversation was always about what Cody Simpson did at that particular moment, how hot he is etc etc”

Amma was with me at that time and she wasn’t pleased. She couldn’t tell Yaya off because I wouldn’t let her, so she came after me telling me that I am a lousy mother and I should hold the reins to control my daughter.

But I had been a teenager once and I knew exactly what Yaya was going through.

Things went to peak when Cody Simpson came to Gold Coast for a free concert. I took Yaya for the concert and Amma told me “Kurichitto,nee oru divasam padikkum, ingane alla makkale valarthunne” ( Mark my words, you will learn one day that, this isn’t how you raise your daughters and by then it will be too late”

After the concert, there was never any mention of Cody Simpson. It was like Cody Simpson never existed. She moved on to Johnny Depp. ( And what was really odd was that when Yaya stopped talking about Cody,Amma went on asking Yaya about Cody Simpson, asking her “how is Cody? etc etc and Yaya went on ignoring Amma)

Yaya had to write a paper on “life changing moment and the lesson learned” as part of her HPE.

This is what she wrote. ( She hasn’t corrected the mistakes in the grammar, spelling etc, as the teachers here don’t really sweat about minor things)

I´d never considered myself to be the type of person who obsessed about anything. Not about school, not about money and not about image. I definitely never considered myself to be obsessed with the rich and famous. I´d always scoffed at those so called, self-professed ´beliebers´, those silly girls who waited in five hour long lines to get an autograph or a photo, the ones who fainted from the overwhelming excitement at the sight of their obsession. I blame it on my pre-pubescent hormones but others may disagree.

I suppose it started around a year after I had first moved to Australia. Things were going well; I had made great friends and was experiencing school life through the eyes of a senior. Yes I was in grade seven. My teacher at the time, Mr Collinson believed that the current events were an important factor to life, so at the start of the year he declared that each of us had to bring in a news article that we deemed important to share with the class. Failure to do so resulted in detention, so really, we had no choice. Now I never read the newspaper, ever. I, the young, naive, oblivious to the real world, head stuck in the clouds child that I was, considered it boring. I was more interested in reading Harry Potter and playing softball in the park with my friends, so this assignment came as bitter surprise.

I was flicking through the entertainment section of the newspaper one morning in a desperate bid to avoid detention when there before me lied the face of the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. I quickly scanned the article and learned that this was the now world famous Cody Simpson, teenage sensation, Australia´s answer to Justin Beiber. I quickly became obsessed. I started surfing his web page, reading his biographies, really just trying to collect as much information as I could. Cody Simpson morphed into a god in front of my eyes. He was perfect in every way and no one could compare. I believed with utter devotion that we were meant to be, that even though I’d never met him deep down inside Cody Simpson liked me too. Of course I realized later that that was statistically impossible. Finally my undying hope and fervent faith paid off. Cody Simpson was coming back to his home in the Gold Coast to perform a free concert. I was in ecstasy. That whole week before the concert I didn´t eat, I didn´t sleep and I brought up Cody Simpson at every point in conversation. Finally the day came and I was so excited I could barely sit still. We arrived at the concert to find it completely and utterly packed full of girls of every single age, I guess that should have been my first clue.

The concert itself was of satisfactory standard, it was really hard to hear him sing over the sounds of literally a million girls screaming, myself included but what I really wanted, with all my heart was to meet this teenage god and the only way I could achieve this was through the obtainment of an autograph. What I didn’t realize until after at least two hours of queuing was that you had to pay for the poster of which Mr Simpson could autograph. As I didn’t have any money with me I was unable to buy a poster, well that didn’t matter to me, I was sure that once Cody set eyes on me he would fall head over heels in love with me and whisk me away in his big, shiny limo. My world literally came crashing down around me when I walked on the stage and off again without earning a second glance from this so called godlike perfection in my poster-less state. I felt so miserable and nearly burst into tears.

Later on, in the cool depths of my sheets, as I lay on my bed, I realized that the perfection that is Cody Simpson was all just a figment of my imagination. You may think that this revelation was brought on by rejection and I agree. The emptiness of rejection finally brought me ought of my love-struck haze and I was able to understand that no one is perfect. No one. No matter how rich, or famous, or gorgeous. I also realized that it is always best to stay away from teenage musicians of the male variety.  Always.