Cinderella an Antithesis

December 9th, 2004

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?”

Entry Filed under: Short Stories