Mirrored

2nd Place

Kaleidoscope

The City...The city of dreams....cars flashing by, the buses honking away, the pedestrians jostling away, some trying to attract cabbies by offering to be ferried to long distances. Oblivious to the hustle and bustle surrounding her Shikha managed to get a short nap in the bus.

She was on her way to a cafe in colaba to meet her friend Emma who was in town after a gap of two years. She was not only looking forward to a hot slice of gossip, she wanted a scrumptious chunk of the brownie too, which Theobrama is famous for.

She was still heady with the aroma of hot chocolate she was imagining when she was jolted awake as the bus rumbled ahead. Still groggy she looks at her watch and realizes she is half an hour late. She shakes her head a little to clear her eyes and then realizes she isn't late she's half an hour early.

As she sees the Prince of Wales Museum approaching she decided to walk the stretch. She hops off the bus. Thanks to the humidity there are pearls of sweat trickling on her forehead. She sighs…

Like a compass needle she points herself to her north, the café. Looking at the green signal of the square, she waits patiently. As soon as it turns red, she walks towards regal.

As she looks at a poster of ‘’Smurfs’’’, she laughs off to herself as a memory comes flooding along. It was her first date and the two of them were so naïve and awkward around each other he had spilled her blueberry smoothie in trying to kiss her.

As she moves towards café Mondegar, a beautifully decorated horse cart crosses her path; she remembers her childhood horse cart rides with her father.

Shikha’s life not only comprised happy and light moments but her life was also shrouded by the stygian darkness of sorrow and pain. She has a dark side that no one has seen. Her mask of lightness and happiness is slowly disintegrating as her mind recalls the incidents lurking and hiding beneath her conscience. The ones she had supposedly forgotten.

Shikha is taken in by the gaudy bright bangles on a jewelry stand. She admires them for a while before a certain memory starts clouding her senses. When she sees equally gaudy and loud lipstick she could feel an elusive memory struggling to come to the surface. It felt like déjà vu. Towards her left were beautiful hand crafted sling bags. The tiny mirrors on the bag reflected her eye somewhere, a nose somewhere and somewhere an ear… Looking at her isolated abstract reflections, she remembered that her nose once had a huge ring on it. Her ears used to be weighed down by heavy rings and her eyes used to be constantly covered in thick black kohl.

She shakes her head to clear her mind, a habit of hers. She continues her walk. She comes across a book shop next to which spreads out a glares shop. Black, brown, green, yellow, her eyeball moved from one pair to another and stopped at a pair of aviators. She shrinks into herself and feels as she’s been violated….all over again. Voices thunder in her ears, cheap sleazy comments made to her over and over again. She could again feel the hungry gazes of men on her skin as a pedestrian brushed by her.

She comes back to her surroundings and moves forward. She thought it was ironic that a simple walk that started out to kill time turns into a walk in the deep alleys and dungeons of her memories.

The roadside clothes shops reminded her of a time where she was brutal to her own self because she too was treated that way. How her clothes were ripped off time and time again.

Realization dawned and one by one her memories fell into place like a cohesive jigsaw puzzle. She remembered what she had once been before and how she had fought hard to save herself from its vices and bindings. She had once been a prostitute. Her lips smeared with thick red lipstick. Her eyes used to be blackened with kohl. Her eyes were a loud pink. A large nose ring and ears weighed down by heavy jewelry. She used to wear extremely short revealing clothes.

Her mind was flooded with the feeling of heavy redemption. This was where she had flown fleetingly to freedom from cafe Leopold to café Churchill. This was the spot where she had struggled with her pimp and set herself free. And as she ran again to relive that moment of delirious victory she lauded herself on her courage to set herself free from the men who had tried to enslave her to the carnal pleasures of any man.

Reality hits her like a rainbow after a stormy day as she stood outside Theobrama. She thinks back to the previous Shikha and looks down at Shikha reborn. Now she hardly wears any make up at all and instead relied on her naturality. Gone were the days of revealing herself now she only wore tasteful attire. Gone were the days of enslavement she only listens to her heart now.

Now she is an independent woman who is so because of her courage to cast of her shackles and let in freedom. Shikha is a true woman. A true enigma. Her enigmatic past has been shrouded in the depths of time