Darkly

Her parents called her ‘Little Angel’ when she was born. Her Granny named her Jaya because she wanted her only grandchild to be victorious in life. Also, because she loved the petite Jaya Bachchan nee Bhaduri in the film Guddi.

Jaya Chaudhuri is now a thirty-old year lady. She teaches English Literature at a very reputed Kolkata college. In between her lectures, she manages to chat with her colleagues in their staff-room. Her husband, Jayanta, is an engineer by profession. They make a perfect couple at all social gatherings – arriving early and staying back till the last guests have departed. People compliment Jaya on her perfectly ‘Indian’ looks. Yes, she is dark. But darkness suits her just like a cloudy day, all of a sudden, suits a hot summer noon.

But things hadn’t been this way even two decades ago.

“Look at you! How dark you are! Your parents will have a tough time marrying you off.”

“Wonder how much money and time her mother spends in preparing ubtans for this girl!”

Comments like these arrived frequently to the young Jaya. So much so that she’d resorted to crying at night. One day her mother, Mridula, found tear stains on the pillow her daughter, Jaya, slept on.

“Why am I so dark, Ma?”

A confused Jaya had asked her mother. It had been the latter’s reply that Jaya recalls even today, after the passage of nearly two decades.

“It’s good to be dark on the outside. If one is dark on the inside, the person is doomed. A time will come when these people eat back their words.”

Today, as Jaya stands tall – in profession and in personal life – she remembers the traumas she felt in her childhood with extreme fondness.