Cinderella an Antithesis

She was not herself anymore, standing in front of the mirror she looked at herself again, nothing changed she still looked foreign to herself.

“Is it me?” she asked herself.

In olden days when time was slow, she flowed with it, never challenged it a bit. Time started shaping her; she didn’t resist because she didn’t have the power to resist. She knew nothing could go wrong as long as she flowed with it and as long as there was someone who could guide her. She left this guidance to “him”, and he, made her “Cinderella”.

Cinderella was beautiful, Cinderella was adorable and Cinderella was cute, she was everything that he wanted her to be. She did everything to please him to tease him, to feed him. Her “role” was defined, her “identity” destroyed. He even gave her the name, the name with which she was known at that time, her new identity i.e., Cinderella. Cinderella was her destiny as written by him, nothing less nothing more, Cinderella is what she had become nothing less nothing more.

For him she was an object, which should remain where he had left her, at all the right places that he had set for her. He loved her as a lover, but at times even sold her as a businessman. He adored her in dreams but at times even raped her in reality. He respected her as a mother, but at times even killed her on her birth.

In time even God lost interest in her, she lost her importance, she lost the respect, “He” never made her a prophet, she was not even considered for the post. He was trusted with this responsibility; He always overtook her and she stayed behind.

He made the rules, he made the morals, for her it was simple she had to follow, she allowed herself to be molded as much as he wanted.

Today she is known as (wo)man and he a man. Is it a change? Nothing has changed. She is still defined by man, why? Because she is still a (wo)man. Nowadays she thinks that she has got over it, that she has the freedom to speech, the right to divorce. Does it matter, when she is still a (wo)man.

The time when knowledge is power, and muscle has lost its value. She had the ample opportunity to take the lead; to go beyond the rules written for her, to make her own rules. But she is losing it because she has become her own enemy, by not breaking the rules.

She is happy with what she has; she doesn’t know that she has been molded into accepting those things as happiness. She doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know what lies beyond them, she is afraid of breaking the rules, and is again trying to flow with the tide, will she lose another opportunity?
Today from the simple things in life to the complex one she can find examples of being just a follower. He can be polygamous but she cant, she goes to live with him on her marriage he doesn’t, her name is changed from time to time, he sticks to one. She has to play cute, she has to be nice, and she has to look adorable and appealing to him. She is the dumb; unquestionably she is because it’s written in the religious books, no matter what science says he will always find a good quote from the religious books. She is the one who has to surrender, she is the one who makes him think evil, and in bed it’s almost always “man on top”.

Today for once more she looked at her face, it was kind of sketchy, there were lines everywhere; on her lips they were red, on her eyebrows they were black. It looked artistic but it was not original. She had been drawing all over her face for quite some time now, so it was becoming more and more rustic; it was not the old face anymore. She thought once more.

“Is this what I was destined to be?”

1 comment December 9th, 2004

Freedom

This is a short story that i wrote when i was in college. Enjoy…

She was walking down the road, the road that seemed to go nowhere; the only thing on her mind was her loneliness and the rain, which had started pouring in. All along the road were trees, they were on both sides, the trees were of the stubborn kind, and they had seemingly covered the sky, so as to form a roof. Yes rain was filtering through them and so was losing its effect, but was still reaching her drop-by-drop.

She was starting to hate rain, when it touched her skin, she would wipe it off as if it was something foreign. She didn’t like changes, and this rain was changing her, it was a signal to her that there is something beyond those trees from where it was coming. The road was becoming slippery, she hadn’t seen anything like that before, and on every step she would slip a little off-road. In her stable and preconceived world this was chaos.

For 19 years of her existence what she had seen was this same old, but straight road… it turned sometimes, but most of the time it was straight, and the trees they were everywhere, surrounding her like fleas, they had become part of her life, in her small world they provided her with the roof and the boundaries, they told her how to walk in straight line.

When she was small, around 10 or maybe 11 she stumbled against them, they blocked her way, and at that time she knew that the only way to go through is straight, and so she had been walking straight since then, but today it was different there was something coming from beyond those trees which was unconceivable. THE RAIN.

One thing is for sure, she was not prepared for it, it was increasing in speed, and the trees were having difficult time stopping it from getting to her, it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to wipe every drop from her body, they were everywhere, she was feeling uncomfortable. So at once she decided ‘I should take refuge under a tree’, So she ran….

Her loneliness had deeper underpinnings although there were trees, but they only reacted when she changed her course. In time she had realized that her existence is for herself only, that she was lonely. But recently she had started enjoying her loneliness; she had become her own best friend.

But this time, the rain which was now swift had compelled her to take refuge under a tree, she reached a tree but didn’t stop running, she thought that it will embrace her, but she was wrong she stumbled again, this time the tree hit her with such power that she lost all her senses, in time she recovered, she had tears in her eyes, she was crying. She took a step back, it must have been the rain, she slipped and fell on her back, but what she saw changed everything, The rain had made inroads and the roof at this point was a little shattered, So the first time in her life she saw beyond the trees. She saw the SKY.

The limitless sky!!! She saw a truth beyond what she conceived to be true, she saw everything, which she shouldn’t have seen, and it was for just a moment, because the trees were quick enough to cover it again. But that was enough for her, for the first time in her life she was FREE.

Add comment December 8th, 2004