Calling a person ugly only hurts them. They lose their self-worth and start questioning themselves. Here's a beautiful story of healing with love.
Calling a person ugly only hurts them. They lose their self-worth and start questioning themselves. Here’s a beautiful story of healing with love.
Throughout my childhood, I encountered people – including my near and dear ones – who repeatedly mentioned how ugly I looked. Some times, openly but mostly between the lines. It wasn’t just their words but their actions that proved the same. During festivals, the least appealing clothes were given to me with a note, “What difference would it make?”
I felt bad, dejected and some times even betrayed by my own people, but I didn’t say a word. For I thought, time would heal it all.
Thankfully, through all this, my family continued to support me unconditionally, even when the world shunned me. However, they were quite worried and often sad.
I disliked being a part of get togethers, family functions and festivals where the topic of discussion inadvertently and some times, deliberately, centred around me and how I looked. There were discussions that I did not take after my mother who was extremely beautiful.
As I child, I couldn’t understand how I could be termed ugly, a term I had only heard in bed-time stories. However, these taunts just added to my self-esteem going lower. It went on to a point where I was unable to develop enough self-confidence. My self-worth was dwindling. I lacked the courage to befriend people.
There were times when men I secretly liked, chose other women. This left me shattered and broken but slowly it made sense that it is one’s disposition that is measured.
There was a time when I completely shut myself off from the beautiful feeling called love. Yet it made its way into my life quite surprisingly. While almost everyone thought I didn’t deserve a lot, he thought I deserved everything beautiful. He became the Midas to my aspirations. And quite magically, with immense love, he turned those 26 hateful years into a forgotten nightmare.
We completed nine years of knowing each other, of which we spent seven years being married and five as parents. With each passing day, we only see our love for each other grow.
I thank all those unpleasant past experiences as they actually helped me count my blessings every day.
Picture credits: Unsplash
A dire penchant for words, can summarize my life as “My pen bleeds my life”! read more...
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This strange love story reminds me of Princess Diana when she gave an interview about Prince Charles - "There were three of us in this marriage!”
This love was flawed and broken the way only we humans know how to break things with our ego, pride, insecurity and complexities!
Where do I even begin to tell the story of how deep a love can be, how it transcends time, place and people. Perhaps this is a story about how women are their own worst enemies. Either way it is a story that tells us how frail, fragile and fraught we are as humans and how much we hurt each other.
This love story began when I was two years old. Growing up in India in a culture that wove love stories like Laila Majnu, Heer Ranjha and the epic symbol of love, the Taj Mahal, into the very fabric of our existence, love was always an integral part of our lives.
One such love story was of a boy and a girl who were neighbours. The boy, an athlete, artist and a poet, found his muse in this shy, thoughtful and in her own way poetic girl, who seemed to worship the very ground he walked on. Her face could be found in all the paintings he created, and her name in every poem he wrote. The girl called him Sagar, which means ocean, symbolizing his all-encompassing love for her.
Everything thing was going well; their wedding date was being finalized, till the boy’s older brother who was a doctor in the same little town, got accepted into Stanford Medical School to do his MS.
Earlier my husband would say, 'Arey! What is there in making dal-roti? It's so simple.' After he had to cook everyday when I was ill, he has stopped saying that to me!
“Arey! What is there to do in making dal roti? Put a handful of lentils in the cooker and let it whistle and make two rotis. After all, how long will it take?” A handful of dal (lentils) and two rotis! This is the story of every woman and no one seems to understand.
Some time ago, after a shopping spree, my husband and I entered the house, exhausted. I had just about kept all the bags aside, when my husband said, “I am very hungry, can you make something.”
I looked at my husband in amazement and thought, ‘He had just had food, how did he get hungry again so soon?’
My husband, as if he had read my face, said, “Arey! You know that my stomach is not filled with outside food. Just make dal roti. What is there to do in making dal roti? Put a handful of lentils in the cooker and let it whistle and make two rotis. After all, how long will it take?”
‘Is this the way dal (lentils) and roti are made?’ The thought came to my mind. ‘After all, I also went along and now I am tired too.’ I was also getting angry at myself that after all, I had spoiled the habit of everyone in the house.
Meet Zakira, who has literally faced a lot, from domestic violence to an acid attack. Yet, her spirit remains unbroken. Her story in her words.
Zakira is a domestic violence and acid attack survivor. From being victim blamed, to being ostracized to financial hurdles, she lives a difficult truth, but she is determined to do face these challenges with courage, and live a happy life.
Here’s her story, in her own words.
In our society, the girl is always blamed and criticized. If she is fat, they tell her to lose weight and become slim. If she is slim, they ask her if she doesn’t get anything to eat. What I have learnt from life is that only when people love and appreciate themselves can they be happy.
The girl I thought was my best friend since childhood tried to ruin my life! It took me far too long to realise the damage she did and by then it was too late!
The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies; it comes from those you trust the most!
The girl I thought was my best friend since childhood tried to ruin my life! It took me far too long to realise the damage she had done, and by then, it was too late! It didn’t bother me at first, but slowly and gradually, it started taking a toll on me.
My life was wonderful and then everything turned upside down. She changed me as a person! I was a girl who cared way too much about people and things and one fine day, I stopped caring at all.