Should I be punished for being different?

 I was dressed up, in a blood red ghagra with a sequined golden blouse. Ghagra was embroidered with delicate Resham threads, as delicate as my age. Golden blouse sequences were too sharp, making cuts on my arms if I moved. I tried to voice my discomfort, but it looked so pretty that I refrained. 


Densely kohled eyes and winged eyeliner were making my eyes look big and beautiful. My cheeks were pink with blush and shinny with shimmery highlighter. Lips, lusciously red, were made by applying 3–4 layers of lipstick. 

Dozens of jasmine gajras were spiralled around my hair bun. The unruly strands of baby hair were held tightly with bobby pins. The weight on my head was getting unwieldy; I couldn't handle it, but I had to stay put. 


I had always wanted to be dressed as a bride. I had dreamt a thousand times of getting married to a prince charming. I had fantasised about a picturesque life with my husband, who would work and return home tired, and I would cook for him and live happily ever after, just like the movies.


"Are all brides dressed up like this?" I asked my maasi. She looked at me for a moment and circled her hands around my face to ward off evil eyes. She said, "Yes! But you are the most beautiful bride I have ever seen." I was delighted to hear this. 


She, along with another lady, asked me to get into the autorickshaw; it was waiting for us outside. 


"Maasi, where is my baraat?" I asked her. She said we had to go to the venue ourselves. 


I had lost my parents when I was four. Maasi, who wasn't my real mother, had raised me since then. Now that I was fifteen, she had told me I would be getting married to a boy from a family she knew for years. I had asked her to show his photograph, but she said that it's not a good omen to do so, and I will have to wait till the wedding day, which was today. 


I have been wondering about him for days now. And today I will be meeting my Prince Charming! 


The autorickshaw stopped at a traffic signal. A transgender dressed in a flashy saari came towards us, clapping his hands. "Kitni sunder bahu hai," he said, "jug jug jiye, hum ashirwad denge, paise do."


Maasi ignored him and asked the auto wala to drive ahead. The transgender person started saying bad things about us... "Kuch accha nai hoga... kuch accha nai hoga," he kept shouting. 


I felt a pain in my chest. I crossed my fingers. "Maasi, everything will be alright, na?" I asked. "Don't listen to his bakwaas," she said. 



The other lady adjusted the pallu on my head and smiled. I didn't know who she was. Maasi had said that she was the one who had brought the rishta for me. I smiled back at her. The autowala halted. It was a small hotel that was decorated with Diwali lights. "They have decorated the entire hotel for our wedding," I thought, elated by my thoughts. 


We got down and went in. We climbed the stairs to the first floor and entered a room. It wasn't lit properly. I could see a man sitting on the bed. They told me to wait at the door. Maasi and the lady talked to the man and asked me to come in. They both started leaving the room. I couldn't understand. "Maasi! Where are you going?" I held her hand tightly. 


"This is your husband; stay happily with him from now on," she said, releasing her hand from my clutch. 


"But we didn't get married, no rituals no feras, I have seen all that in movies. "And this man is much older than me..." I tried to argue. 


"Movies are all fake, this is real life. "How long will I bear your burden?" she asked sternly. 

"But I was working and earning for you. I did every kind of house work you asked me to. I cooked, I cleaned, and I used to massage your legs when you felt tired. "When my equals, other girls of my age, were studying in schools, I was washing their utensils in the canteen.... 


"They were not your equals; you are different. This is what it is. "Accept or die," she yelled at me as she rushed out the door. 


I couldn't believe my ears. I was equal; then, what wrong did I do to be this different? Why was I being punished?


PC: the guardian


AUTHOR'S NOTE: 


This fictional blog is for the prompt 'Equal yet different '. Hope you enjoyed the story.


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