A Girl Made Of Darkness

"Everything is ok... except the colour. She is too dark. Even our son is stark fair in comparison."

"Her face is sweet and her height is tolerable. But she is a Negro in looks. She will only give birth to tars."

“Mira is a talented girl. But we cannot approve the match. Our son is not willing to marry so black a girl. We are so sorry for her.”

Pity is another ruse to hurt one’s dignity and self-esteem, adding some piquancy to the sadist joy that they want to relish, hurting someone. The innocuous words are so naked in mockery and contempt…enough to hack a human heart or paralyze it to death.

It is not unexpected. And she doesn't bother more. Her lungs have expelled so many sighs in the long run of her life and her soul tolerates so many virulent scourges...the familiar frisson of being hurt has evaporated from her doe eyes. They have lost track of her dogged determination to touch the sky. Yet…sometimes….something hurts. She is not made of ice at last.

She can’t say firmly if her mother shrieked out when she first saw her out of her womb and if her father's expectant looks got buried in despair and worries. But she feels the slithering jibes all her lives at her back or front. The eyes of pity and disgust she meets at every hive. Her relatives, and friends, all talk about her colour; suggest all the ointments and pastes or home remedies peel her out of her God-given skin and make her fair like a new bride. She cannot discern the real motive of life that she read in books and that society flouts. There is a severe dichotomy between them.

In her early days, her ingenuous eyes could not discern the fault in her but she was sure that her presence sensitized their consolidated opinions and triggered them to open up their stabbing tongues. They just longed to observe her in pain, self-pity and writhing humiliation …they liked to see her fomenting in the fume of self-destruction…the penalty of her birth…how daring an act she did …taking birth in this colour control society and living like a human being not like an animal at the mercy of others’ poking sticks. she crawled inside...digging a deep trench to hide and bury the face, black face...too black...in shame and disgust the world was pouring on her.

At school, all her friends laughed at her. Their astonished eyes and grisly comments caught the thread of jibes so easily that she felt she should not come to school anymore. But she learnt to fight. "It is not the colour but the spirit inside you is the most important power", her parents had told her. But at night sometimes she heard the whispers, the suppressed wailing," If she was a bit fair or if she was a boy"...an unattainable wish. They would never exonerate her from the blame of being dark. Her sleepy nights eluded in the wistful dream, the magical expectation of some miracle that could change her world....and the surroundings…from black to fair.

Nothing happens...it is all about Genetic and DNA as the teacher taught in class. The measurement of melanin is high...too high. No way can it be reverted, no big banner advertisement or fairness cream gimmick.

Gradually her anguish gets shaped as she grows up and her contemplation orchestrates her disturbing thoughts in her colourful world of the brush stroke. She is emblematic of rainbows…all the colours of the universe merged in her, not in white but in black. She is a girl made of darkness. In her canvas, she creates the eclectic shadow of that genuine colour. Her apathy towards this abysmal mental perversion agitates the mean hearts to act more vulnerable …more thirsty for her unconscionable heart. Anyhow they want her to shriek out…anyway they want her to feel inferior.

She draws so beautifully. Finally, they murmur, “she has some magic in her hands and maybe in that brush. Whatever she draws get back to life.” Their applauses are silent and smothered with their abominable vile and distrust. But she knows in her heart, she can change her colourless world with colours.

It is a deep night. All have gone to sleep. Their lazy snores are piling on their pillows. The sky is in an uproar and furry, ready to fight. The dark girl comes out of her room and stands in front of the darkness. She feels comfortable in her heart as the dark Zephyr caresses her dark hair, falling like a fountain or tide. She promises the dark muse or fairy of the night... something...she can offer on her bide.

Coming back into the room she shuts all the windows tight and lits the candle of light. In the deep, dense, dark, its wick flickers like the lighthouse. In her black easel, she fixes the dark canvas. She looks like a bride. Blazing flames, like red vermillion, sparkle on her face in glory and pride.

She draws a beautiful black girl with wings. Her tenacious passion gives shape to her with black hair, black lips, black legs, black hips, black breasts and black arms. Her black hair was emblazoned with thousand stars. The black wings are mooring in mist. She unfurls the wings and stretches them afar with the painstaking strokes of her brush. When she finishes it with the final touch, all her suppressed suffering, reincarnates in a phenomenal woman bird. And it gets life. It starts flying…high …soaring above all the opprobrium....in her dark room ...illuminating in bright boon...and then in the dark sky, stretching in dark cosmos beyond. Her incarnation is complete.