For a long time, I thought being needed was the same as being loved.

I don't know. I don't know when I became this person. The person people call when their world is falling apart, but forget to call when their world is happy.

I am that friend who gets a call at 12 AM. “Are you awake? I need to talk."
And I am always awake to listen, to stay.

But when it's a Saturday evening and they are making plans to go out, my phone doesn't ring. When it's about choosing a plus-one, a partner, a best friend — my name is not the one they think of.

I am remembered in need. Not in choice.

I Thought If I Give More, I Will Be Chosen

This is my pattern, and maybe yours too.

If someone was sad, I became their therapist. I sent long paragraphs, voice notes, playlists. I checked on them.. "Did you eat? Are you okay now?"

If someone was going through a breakup, I was the rebound that felt like home. I fixed what someone else broke. I loved them back to life.

I became their listener in the college corridor. I talked to them for sometimes hours to make them feel better. I gave them advice, gave them my time.

If someone needed a partner for a project, I was always available. If someone needed a person to stand in proxy for attendance, I was there.

I thought — if I am kind enough, patient enough, available enough, they will finally see me. They will choose me. But they didn't.

They healed, and went back to the people who hurt them. They got better, and went to celebrate with others. They needed me to survive the storm, but they wanted someone else to enjoy the sunshine with.

One of my friends once told me, "You are such a good soul, Emarti. Anyone would be lucky to have you."

But the lucky ones never came.

In college, I was that person everyone knew.

During exams, my phone would be full of messages– "Emarti, notes bhej de?", "Emarti, ye chapter samjha de?", "Emarti assignment m help kar de?"

The night before submission, my room became the study room. I would explain the same topic 5 times, share my handwritten notes, stay up helping others finish their files while my own work, my assignment was still pending.

I liked being helpful. It made me feel valued. But, like they say, every coin has two sides.

Then came the other side of college life.

When there's a fest, a trip, a canteen plan, a group photo – I wasn't always included. The groups were already made.. and I personally hate this type of groupism.

I would see their stories later – all of them together at cafes, at the college lawn, at a birthday party I wasn't invited to. I was in their need list, not in their friend list.

I was the girl they remembered when they needed notes, but forgot when they made memories.

The friend groups and the backup friend. In college, we all have groups, I never really had one that was mine.

I was the floater. Sometimes with this group, sometimes with that group. The one who adjusted every where but belonged nowhere.

If someone fought with their bestfriend, they came to me. I became their temporary best friend. We would eat together, walk together, talk for hours in the corridor.

And then they would patch up with their best friend. And I would be alone again in the GCR (Girls Common Room) one of my favourite places.

I was the backup friend.. the replacement. The person who fills the empty bench when the first choice is absent.

I still remember, in second year, I helped my friends prepare for an entire presentation. I made the PPT, I wrote the script.

On the day of presentation, they presented and got the appreciation. I still smiled and clapped from the second bench .

That's when I started questioning – Am I only good enough to help, not good enough to be choosen?!!!

The Day It Hit Me

It was my birthday last month. I waited all day for a few people to wish me. The same people for whom I had written birthday paragraphs, made surprises, stayed up till 12.

Two of them forgot. One wished me at 11:58 PM with a "sorry yaar, was busy."

That's when I understood. I was never a priority. I was a convenience. I was the person you remember when you have no one else. Not the person you think of first.

And it broke me a little. Because I had given my best love to people who only had their leftover love for me.

Needed vs. Chosen — They Are Not The Same

This is what I learned late:

Needed is: "I have no one else to talk to, so I’ll call her."
Chosen is:"I have everyone, but I still want to talk to her."

Needed is:"She will understand my pain."
Chosen is: "I want to share my happiness with her."

Needed is: "Emarti has the notes, message her."
Chosen is:"Let’s take Emarti on the trip too, it won’t be fun without her."

Needed is: "Go sit with her, if there’s no one else."
Chosen is: "I saved a seat for her."

I was always needed, but perhaps never chosen. And I confused the two for years, thinking if someone needs me that much, they must love me. But needing someone is about you. Choosing someone is about them.

So What Am I Doing Now?

I am not becoming cold. I am not going to stop caring — that's who I am. But I am learning to choose myself the way I wanted others to choose me.

I am learning to not send the first text always. To not be available every second. To ask myself — "Am I being remembered, or am I being valued?"

If you are reading this and you feel the same — that you are always the second choice, the backup plan, the emergency contact but never the first call — I want to tell you:

It's not that you are not enough. It's that you have been giving your enough to the wrong people.

You are not hard to choose. You are just surrounded by people who don't know how to choose right.

One day, someone will come who doesn’t just need you in their dark days. Someday day, outside this college, someone will not just need your help. There’ll be someone who will choose your presence. Just because it’s you.

Till that day, be that person for yourself. Your degree will end in 3-4years. But the way you treated yourself in these years will stay with you. So, choose yourself. Make your own group and be proud of it.

Author’s Note

If you have ever felt like this — needed but not chosen — you are not alone.
I wrote this for us. Leave a heart if you felt it.

With love,
Emarti, the unchosen one.

I Am Someone People Remember When They Need Someone. was originally published in The Silent Script on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Some girls are like Jalebi. Sweet, tangled, and impossible to forget.

Her real name is not Emarti. Her friends call her that because she is sweet and her life is twisted like a jalebi. But for this story, we will call her Emarti.
Because Emarti is a bigger jalebi, more royal, and complicated.. just like her.

Emarti was a dancer before she knew how to write her name properly in cursive.

At 6 years old, she wore anarkalis and churidar salwaar that was too big for her. Her mother had to fold it from the waist. Her ghungroos were new and they hurt.

Approx. 50 bells on each leg. When she walked, the whole house knew she was coming.

Ting-ting-ting. Her mother would shout, "Dheere chal, sab uth jayenge!"

But she didn't want to walk slowly. Dancers never want to walk slowly.

By 8, she was in proper kathak class. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. 5 to 7:30 pm. The classroom had one big mirror and a wooden floor that smelled sweat and rosin.

Her guru was strict. "Kamar seedhi! Aankhein upar! Tatkaar saaf nhi hai, phir se!"

She cried twice. She wanted to quit twice. But the third time she got her tatkaar right and her guru smiled. That one smile was enough for the next one year or so...

Then came the golden era.. #schoolZonals.

If you have never been a school zonal performer, you will not understand what it means. It means your PTE Sir or Maths teacher comes to your class and says, "Emarti, you are excused for practice."

That feeling... Omg. Felt like butterfly in your stomach. The whole class looks at you. You try to act normal, but inside you are flying.

You have a special costume bag that no one else has. Your mother has packed safety pins, bobby pins, extra bindi, and a small bottle of feviquick, in case your ghungroo broke.

Lipsticks, and many more thing that I can't count and list them out here.
Uff...

Zonals means you perform on a stage that is not your school stage. It is bigger. There are lights. There is a huge room where 20-30 girls are changing at the same time, styling their hairs, doing makeup and your ma’am is outside shouting, "bindi seedhi hai?"

Emarti performed.. and she was good. Not because she was the most flexible. But because when she did Abhinaya — the story party, she actually felt it.

When the song said "Radha waits," her eyes actually waited. The judges noticed. She got certificates that her father laminated.

She thought this would be her life forever. She thought at 18, she would be a kathak dancer with long hair and a you tube channel. She thought at 25, she would have students of her own.

But life is not a straight line. Life is a jalebi.

Why Emarti Stopped –The Four Threads of a Jalebi.

A jalebi is not made of one line. It is one line that goes around and gets tangled. That is how Emarti stopped. Not for one reason. Four reasons had somehow tangled together.

1. The uniform vs. The costume.
At 13, you have two lives. One is school uniform. White shirt, blue skirt, two ponytails, maths homework and other subjects homework. The other is costume. Lehenga-choli, heavy makeup, ghungroos, " wah wah" from audience.

At some point, the uniform life starts eating the costume life. 8th standard. 9th Standard. “Boards aane wale hain beta, dance kam kero.” “Tuition hai, kathak chhod do ek mahine ke liye.”

One month becomes six months. Sir months becomes a year. Emarti's ghungroos started living on her dressing table, not on her feet.

First, she kept them there because she thought she would wear them tomorrow. Then she kept them there because looking at them there because looking at them was painful, but packing them was more painful. So they stayed.. on the table.. beside the mirror.

Every dancer knows that table. The ghungroos are not used, but they are not discarded. They are in limbo.. like you.

2. Log kya kahenge - the invisible audience.
No one in Emarti's family ever said, “Don't dance.” Indian families rarely say it directly. They say it in a softer, more dangerous way, and so very casually.

“Ab badi ho gayi hai, thoda dhyaan rakha kar.”

“Stage pe itne ladke dekhte hain.”

“Ye dance -wance se shaadi mein problem aayegi.”

Uff… yeh indian society. Kathak is graceful. But a 15yr old girl in a choli and fitted kurti doing chakkars – to an aunty in the colony, that is “too much exposure.”

To an uncle, that is “time waste.”

So Emarti started feeling guilty for something she loved. She started dancing smaller.. in fewer chakkars.. and lesser expressions.

She started performing like she was apologizing. And a dancer who apologizes for dancing will eventually stop dancing. Because dance needs shamelessness. It needs you to say, “look at me!”

3. The body changes, the mind doesn't.
Kathak needs a body that is light and strong.

At 10, your body is light. At 15, your body changes. Hips. Chest. Periods.
Suddenly the same tatkaar that was easy is exhausting. You get tired faster.
Your teacher says, “you have become lazy.”

But you are not lazy.. you are just growing.

And there is no one to tell you this. No one tells the girl that her body isn't betraying her, it is becoming a woman's body can dance too, but again it dances differently. More grounded.. more powerful.. and far too seldom.

Emarti didn't know this. She thought she was becoming bad at dance. So she stopped before dance could tell her she was bad.

4. The stage become too big.
In school zonals, the stage is big but the audience is small – teachers, parents and students.

But after zonals, if you want to continue, you need to go to real stages. Competitions where girls have been training 6 hours a day since they were 4.

Girls who have their own youtube channels with 100k subscribers. Girls whose mothers are also kathak dancers.

Emarti looked at that world, that glamour, and felt small. She was a school star.

That world needed a universe star. She didn't have money for privately classes... and time too.

She didn't have a god father in the classical world. So she quietly stepped back. Not because she failed. Because the next step felt too expensive — in money, in time, in heart.

So she stopped. Not with a bang.. but with a slow fade. Like a song that gets quieter and quieter until you realize the room is silent.

The Years After — The Soul Dancing.

People think dancers who stop dancing become sad forever. They don't. They become... different person, different dancers.
Am I right?!

Emarti stopped performing. But did she stop dancing?

No. Her family would see her in the kitchen, waiting for the pressure cooker to whistle, doing a small hand movement. She would be on a call, bored and her feet would do tatkaar under the table.

I college, when a bollywood song would play in the canteen, her friends would say, “Emarti dance na.” and she would say, “Are nahi nahi,” but her shoulders would already be moving.

This is what we call stage to soul shift. And this is the most beautiful phase of a dancer's life.

Stage dancing is for validation. Soul dancing is for survival.

When you dance on stage, you need people to clap. When you dance in your room at 11:47 pm, wearing shorts and messy bun, with your metallic green nails catching the tube light, you don't need anyone. You are clapping for your self.

Emarti discovered soul dancing during Navratri. Navratri is a magic trick for ex-dancers. Because Navratri doesn't ask for your biodata.

It doesn't ask, "How many years did you learn? Who is your guru? What is your gharana?" Navratri just says, "circle hai, dhol hai, aa jao."

First year after stopping, Emarti didn't go. She said, “I don't know how to dance.”

Second year, her friends dragged her. She went in saree. She stood outside the circle and clapped. Her feet itched.. but she didn't enter.

Third year, something changed. She prepared.. not like zonals, but like a girl. She put on metallic green nails. She made mehendi patterns on her hands — not by a professional, by herself, crooked but hers. And she wore a beautiful ring.

She wore a lehenga that was not expensive but it twirled well. That is the only test a dancer's lehenga needs to pass — does it twirl?

And she entered the circle as the dhol started. She forgot the garba steps. She did kathak. A small tukda. Her hands did a mudra that no one in garba does. But no one laughed.

Because in a garba circle, there is no front row. Everyone is equal. The circle hides you and shows you at the same time.

For three hours, she wasn't an ex-dancer. She was just a dancer. Sweat, crooked bindi, one earring almost falling, mehndi smudged.. and happier than any zonal trophy ever made her.

She came home and didn't remove her lehenga for an hour. She played one slow song on her phone. A kathak thumri. And she danced in front of the mirror.

This time, she didn't fix her bindi. She let it be crooked. She danced with a crooked bindi. That was her freedom.

The Comeback That Is Not A Comeback.

Emarti will never go back to 3-4 hours doing kathak every day. And that is okay. She doesn't need to.

Her comeback is different. It is small and private and sweet — like her name.

🔸She keeps her ghungroos on the table. Still, not in a box. She dusts them sometimes.

🔸She taught her 7yr old niece how to say "Namastey" with hands properly. When her niece got it wrong, they both laughed, and she felt her guru's smile inside her.

🔸She started doing tatkaar for 5 minutes every Sunday. Not for fitness.. but just to hear the sound. Ting-ting-ting.. and the house knows she is coming again.

🔸She now goes to every navratri. Not to be the best.. just to be in the circle.

And maybe next year, she will join a weekend kathak class.. not for the stage, but for herself.

For the 8 year old girl who cried when her guru scolded her but stayed.

A Letter to Every Emarti Reading This.

If you were a dancer in the childhood — Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Hip-hop in your bedroom.. and you stopped, this is for you.

You are not an ex-dancer. There is no such thing. A dancer is not a profession. It is a way of seeing the world. You see rhythm where others see noise. You see hands where others see just fingers.

You stopped performing. You didn't stop dancing. Your ghungroos are still on the table. They are not in a box.

Keep them on the table. Keep your metallic nails. Keep your mehendi. Keep your jalebi-twisted heart.

The music ends. The lights flicker off. The crowd goes home. The certificates get laminated and fade on the wall.

But some stories continue long after the music ends. Your story is still dancing. Even if no one is watching.

Just like Emarti. Just like Jalebi.
Sweet. Tangled. Unforgettable.

Emarti (jalebi) : The Girl Who Stopped Performing But Never Stopped Dancing. was originally published in The Silent Script on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.