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Rinku is mesmerised as she travels by train for the first time. Her innocence and larger than life attitude is depicted in this short story.
Rinku is travelling in a train for the first time. The commotion outside doesn’t seem to bother her. Her Appa has managed to make her stand beside the window inside the small room. There is something written on the door, but she cannot read and doesn’t sweat the details anyway. She has never been to a school. Her Appa says she is too precious to go to one. And the way her neighbour Partik shrieks in the morning, she is certain that school is not a good place.
Oblivious of the fact that there are no seats inside, at least not the ones you get in an actual compartment, she stands there holding the iron bars with seven fingers. No, five fingers and two thumbs. The remaining three fingers wrapped around her tikat. Appa says it’s not the train, but the tikat that will take them to the place they were going. The tation is a delight to watch. It’s like thousand spaces merged into one, each different from the other; yet blending somehow. That so many people chose to wear red that day, she grunts in disapproval. She didn’t like red.
Not that she always hated red. It was her favourite colour last year for full three months. But then things can’t stay the same, can they? It is even more difficult with colours. Her red ball had stopped being fascinating and Partik had got a yellow car. Yellow paved way to green only a month later when he wouldn’t let her touch the car.
Now she has decided that she will never ask Appa for a car. He was right. This train is so much bigger than the cars that ply on the road. No wonder Appa hated driving the car for Saheb. But being the nice man that he is, he still did. Maybe the Saheb didn’t know how to drive. She also finds it strange that Saheb’s wife cannot cook. Partik’s mother has to go to their place for cooking lest they starve — poor family!
Ever since he came home yesterday, Appa had started packing frantically. His face was swollen. Just like Rinku’s when she is sulking. Appa’s hand was bleeding too. Another reason not to like red. She didn’t mind leaving the place. It was not their home, Appa had told her. She doesn’t remember what her home looked like. There might have been a television. Maybe not. She was sure there were trees. She would miss playing with Partik though.
The train has started racing between the tracks. A sense of exhilaration has engulfed Rinku. She wished Partik could see her inside the train and she could see the look on his face. Everything is perfect. Well, near perfect. Only if the train was not red.
A version of this was earlier published here.
Mehak Nain is a government officer. An avid reader herself, she loves to read storybooks with her son and is a gender studies student. The views expressed above are personal. read more...
This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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