Edited by: Pratyusha Gupta
I am here to help you. I am your assistant, a mentor, guiding you through your ills. When you wake up, face swollen, hair asunder, who asks you to fix yourself up? When you see your visage in the mirror, it is me who, oh so kindly advises you to better yourself. What would you possibly do without me? Your nose, like a black dot on an otherwise clean sheet, your thighs gorging flesh like a glutton at a feast, the hair on your body growing like weeds in an untamed garden, sullying you, dirtying you. It is me who cleans you up every day, puts you in line, paints you in colours that make you palatable, and fashions you into something desirable. Don’t make that face, that frown, the lines breaking into the porcelain of your skin, shattering all that I have built. Smile. You are so beautiful now.
I can always see you. Your bent shoulders and humped back reflected against the glass window, your legs spread too wide, selfish, as they consume the space around them, your hands pushing against the crowd like a giant making its way through the streets of Lilliput. Your loveliness, marred by your incessant need for attention. Your body, too large for the person inside. The awkward arrangement of limbs you morph into when you know you do not belong, always taking up too much space.
I know you. I notice your eyes flitting across the groups of girls in the elevator with their perfumed halos and lip gloss smiles. You will never be like them. Their hair cascading like a stream, their eyes shaped like perfect opals, and their bodies as perfect as a dream. You will always hate them. Their shrill laughter, their backs exposed, their necks on display. We despise their vapid words, their empty heads, don’t we? You know you’re better than them and their depthless ponds and glazed eyes. Say you don’t need them, swallow the desire and envy, and regurgitate the dictums of superiority you have always told yourself to make yourself believe for once you are worth something.
I am always listening to you. Chewing too loudly, odd teeth clashing against each other, a mouth that can never show grace. When you laugh, I can only hear the crackle of a witch, hoarse and ugly. And when you raise your hand to speak, I can only register the reverberation of a sound as hollow as a shell that has lost the music of the sea. They’re begging you to stop, can’t you hear it?
I notice you. Your trembling hands , back turned to the crowd. Their eyes follow you around, never leaving your exposed figure. Of course, they will look at you, with your flesh on display, without the cover the company provides. Crawl out of your skin, and make a scene because you cannot be alone. Let the embarrassment eat you as their gazes swallow you as the slight flicker of their eyes to your stomach or legs sends you down the swirling slide inside you.
I understand you. How you crave to be seen, to be wanted. How a smile from the right person can make your mind erupt like a swarm of bees, not out of desire or want, but a desperate longing for acceptance .The way you flaunt yourself for a morsel of attention, unabashed in your diffidence. I can predict the spirals of your brain that would branch from the slightest hint of disapproval from the men around you, and how a change in tone would make you shine.
You don’t like me, I know. You find my exultations distracting, my advice overbearing. You tell me to stop my diatribes and strictures. But who would you be without me? Ugly and bulging, an irritant or a pest, a being who simply isn’t wanted, undesirable and alone. So, I ask you to thank me, for all my humble service, and my diligent work. I am here to help you, after all.