My battle started the moment I accepted the ‘X’ ignoring the ‘Y’ and molded into the most talked about creation of the world. In my growing up days I assumed the world to be a perfect homogeneous round ball with no corners. Until I realized that the elevations and depressions in my body is enough to corner me.
It did not make any sense to me when people told that I was born in my family but raised for some other family, the same was never told to my brother though. It took lightning speed for a playground to turn to a jungle and my innocence to metamorphose into fear. I grew up suddenly. It was disturbing to have people talking to me but looking below my face. I looked into their eyes until they looked away. They talked about my size, color, shape and sometimes even texture. Well, I was busy sharpening my mind.
They thought I am an easy trap in the crowded trains and empty subways and sometimes even my own home. I started my self-defense classes from the art of using a safety pin as a weapon to the common sense of knowing where it hurts the most. I became my own guardian angel. Even covered from head to toe, occasionally I was stripped off by those dirty hungry looks. Do I deny that I have been groped from here and there……….in private and even in public. But what they failed to realize is my soul cannot be tarnished an inch. I shall die pure.
I might have given in to a social framework and remained silent when my Dad had given those measured sovereign of gold as gift, illegally called as dowry. But every time I looked at that man who took assets to marry me, I hated my decision. Until one afternoon when I walked off happily and advised him to at least get his spine erect.
When I did not dab that extra concealer to cover the blue patches around the corner of my eyes, it was never to unhide my weakness and flaunt the masculine aggression that is at its best inside the four walls. It was the confidence in me to look beautiful even with that scar.
Yeah, trust was broken into uncountable pieces and wrapped as a return token. And exactly when the world thought that I am deserted and lonely, I decided never to be alone. I willfully chose to become a Mother………I gifted life on Earth. Daughter, Sister, Friend, Lover………..I had fun being all of them but what I was best at was being just ‘Me.’ From managing the kitchen to the board room, my performance variance would be nil. And yeah just to remind again……I haven’t slept through my success. Its high time they change this back dated century old statement. I can feel their helplessness every time they made me a part of those cheap gossips. What they failed to realize is that I was becoming famous. Repentance and Regrets are hollow emotions. If ‘Pride’ can be termed as emotion then that’s the way I emote today.
Yesterday is past. Tears are history. They chained me and I learnt to break walls. They gagged me and I learnt to scream. They killed me and I learnt to become immortal. Behind the lustrous fleshy curves is an iron mind and I don’t have a breaking point.
I am the Woman
~ by Shrinanda Sengupta
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