If I turn the pages of my life back to a decade, I see someone who is poles apart from my self today. Naive, insecure, timid, fragile and everything the society expects from a typical girl. I owe the amazing professors of my grad days for the beautiful life-changing transformation within me, which let me venture out of my ‘permitted’ zone and live the life I chose. So this incident happened when I was a GIRL of other’s definition, of other’s convenience, one who extensively trifled with ‘HERself’.
It was a rainy season of 2009 and I didn’t sleep that whole night preparing for my Chemistry practical exam and struggling with the excruciating monthly stomach pain. With a deathly pain that constantly stabbed my abdomen and back, the next morning I walked to the school early with my heavy backpack. Something went wrong with my Chemistry record book that I had to spend hours on it before getting signature and appearing for the practical exam. Eventually, I had to skip my meals and spend the entire lunch break without going to boarding and loo. By the time I finished, I had to rush without sparing a second, to catch a bus, for it was a weekend I had to go home for something urgent.
By the time I reached I missed my bus home and fear started winning my mind, with the heavy downpour shadowing the evening. By the time I boarded another bus to my hometown, minutes started flying darkening the heavens, with every clock tick soaring my heart beat. A few kilometres before my halt, the bus stopped and the conductor announced, “The bus won’t go any further since there is a strike in Mavelikara”. I felt like the thunderstorm which struck the sky, pierced me too!
I got down from the bus; it was dark, still raining outside and aching inside. I checked the almost vacant place; it is Mannar. I looked around and saw a crowd, which added fuel to the flames of fear in me. Men, with their shabby clothes, red eyes and intoxicated stood in a long queue in front of a beverage. My eyes couldn’t spot any woman in my vicinity. Drenched in school uniform, wet-haired and with a big backpack, I seemed completely out of place. Their stares made me feel cold as a corpse. I looked around not knowing what to do. Seconds seemed like hours. Time moved on and I was shivering with pain and fear. That’s when it happened! I saw a drunken man walking towards me, I didn’t know how my body and mind would react to that. I was soaked in the rain. I was starving. I was thirsty. I was tired. I was bleeding. And above all, I was so much in pain! I literally dragged myself to the opposite direction. I looked back as I walked on and saw him speeding. Tooth gripping my pain, I walked faster with all my energy. My heart was pounding at the top of its voice. That’s when my eyes struck the only bakery which was opened at a distant. I literally ran towards the eatery and got inside and found a couple. Seeing me, they immediately asked, “What happened and why are you alone”? I narrated everything holding my breath and in between, I saw the woman showing me some signals, without her husband seeing and insisting me to sit down.
Meanwhile, that uncle gave me a mobile to call my father and they talked after which they offered me food and juice. Thinking about the little money in my purse, I denied saying I’m full and he said with a smile, “It is ok, your father will come to pick up and will pay the bill”. I gobbled whatever food and drinks they offered in no time. I badly wanted to go to the bathroom but with the woman’s gestures, I understood my skirt would be badly stained. After all, the word shame is an invisible package bestowed to girls. Too tired to bear the slow moving time, I rested my head on the table in front of me and within no time I slept off. My father came as a saviour and took me home, after which I cried in the bathroom for reasons not known. As they say, experiences are the best teachers and each of them adorn the crown of every timid girl with thorn feathers, making her bold. Some, later on, embrace the sharpest sword the world has known. Words!
SPELL OF WORDS 