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
