Black Hole

"A THING OF BEAUTY'S A JOY FOREVER".

She stared, unmoving, at the words, painted painstakingly by hand, on the display board of a ladies' parlour.

A thing of "beauty". Beauty... The one thing every girl wishes to possess...

She managed to snap out of her reverie. Her eyes fell on the words written with chalk on a dusty blackboard outside the parlour - "Eyebrows at Rs. 30 only".

"I don't have any eyebrows to worry about, at the very least!"

Smiling slightly, she walked on... now used to the stares that followed her. People stared openly, continuously, at any time, at any place she went to. "Ah well, no one gets to be poker-faced when they see me", she thought - and the thought made her chuckle slightly.

She was approaching her old school now. The prim, elite, all-girls school with its verdant lawns and "Girls, you must be graceful here too" playgrounds... She paused at the gates, the words uttered by her Principal, so long ago, again echoing in her ears - "You're a smart girl, dear, but you must learn to groom yourself better...no man likes just brains in a girl! Appearances do matter!"

She'd taken offence then, with all the indignation of youth... but had long since made peace with the fact that it is impossible for everyone's opinions to match, that it is futile to try and make everyone like or respect you. A proud “average-looker”!

"My school did teach me one most important thing about life - that it goes on!" she reflected, as she moved past the old granite school buildings, still standing strong, past the shining malls that were once a source of awe to the children in the school and now so mainstream, past the cool, fragrant flower market, and reached the housing colony where she had lived ever since she was born.

Nothing much had changed here in twenty-five years. The paint still peeled off the walls and myriad items of clothing were hung out to dry on the railings of balconies, on the grills of windows, on sagging ropes tied between doors. The vintage Premier Padminis and Kinetics still stood proudly. It was time for dusk, and a heavenly amalgamation of aromas - chicken biryani and mullangi sambar and bhindi fry and Maggi and fish curry - wafted towards her. Voices called out to the children to get back inside, even as the little ones ran around chanting "Ice Pice!". Adults were returning home from work, bringing home small treats... Tiny boxes of rasgullas or family pack sundaes or a packet of gobi manchurian.

Time seemed to have stood still inside this haven. Yet something had occurred, five years ago, inside this very place, that had shattered its peace and changed her life forever, irrevocably...

She fished her keys out of her bag and stepped into the house, sighing inwardly. "Home certainly doesn't feel complete without mom and dad in it", she thought. Yet she had been the one who forced them to take that trip to Uttarakhand they had been dreaming about for years. They had both initially refused to even talk about it - after all, they had not let her spend a day alone since the day her world - and theirs - had plunged into a black hole, but she had, after days of arguments and negotiations, managed to convince them to go on holiday for a week and spend their 30th wedding anniversary together.

"Papa, remember what you taught me when I was a child? Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift, which is why we call it the present! I'm no longer stuck in the black hole into which an animal pushed me in the past, Papa. I'm focused on the present - and it's time for you to be too!"

The day I was pushed into a black hole.

That was how she always thought of that evening. She had been walking back home, a packet of hot samosas, purchased at the evergreen Nathulal's outside her housing colony, inside her lunch bag - a surprise for mom and dad. There was a skip in her step and a grin plastered on her face...no, there was no special reason, but then she was a happy-go-lucky girl, full of joy at the thought of the upcoming weekend and the picnic planned with her parents and extended family.

It was then that it hit her. On her face. On her hands that rushed to her face. On her neck.

Acid.

Her life plunged into a black hole, with no light visible at the end of the tunnel. The next few months of surgeries and procedures were a blur to her; though disjointed, sudden, sharp images kept coming back.... Her samosas, having slipped out of her bag, lying forlornly in a pool of red chutney… her eyes, her skin, her whole self, seemingly covered with a film of red. The ambulance orderly who vomited. The nurses with their red eyes. Her parents, screaming and running, refusing to take their hands off the stretcher. The sharp, painful flashes of light from the photographers' cameras. The arrival of an eminent plastic surgeon, made a royal event by the staff, who could not hide that first jolt of shock. Her mother's trembling hands whenever she was pushed in for anesthesia. Her father, the all-weather jogger, constantly collapsing into chairs. Her cousins, always so

bubbly, hesitating at the door. Her little nephew, who burst into tears when coaxed into her hospital room. Her friends, unable to hide their pity. Her teachers, whose strained smiles spoke more than the well-meant encouraging words. The specialists, who shook their heads when they thought she wasn't noticing. The orderlies, who always tried to clean her room without having to look at her. The other patients and visitors in the hospital, who often crossed themselves when they saw her, as if saying, "God, put me through anything but this"....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And then the journalist, who changed her life again with her question - "What do you plan to do next?"

The whistle of her neighbour's pressure cooker brought her back into the present. Shaking her head at the time she had wasted lost in the past, she quickly freshened herself up and sat at her desk. Her third volume of poems was due at the publisher's the next day! Popping a few groundnuts into her mouth, she reviewed the last couple of lines of her newest poem:

“THE ANIMAL HAD HIS PLAN BACKFIRE

FOR NEVER SHALL I BE TRAPPED IN A QUAGMIRE

FOR A BRIGHTER TOMORROW, I SHALL ALWAYS ASPIRE

I MAY HAVE BEEN PUT THROUGH A TEST OF FIRE,

BUT STILL! OH, HOW BLUE IS MY SAPPHIRE...”

Content, she moved to the window, looking at the fascinating formations made by birds flying home to their nests. Her mother’s words on the day she finally came home from the hospital and stood, aghast, in front of the mirror echoed again in her ears…

“Beauty is indeed something every girl wishes to possess, and certainly should! But aspire for the beauty that’s measured not according to your body’s proportions, but is rather based on your personality’s dimensions! That, my dear, is the kind of beauty that not only impresses, but endures…”

“Mother was absolutely right”, she thought. "I might have been put through what can be called a living hell, but I will definitely pave my path out of it.

All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug the past. I think that is who I am....."

She had emerged, ever stronger, out of the black hole.