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"Will I ever emerge from my horrid past? I think there are still marks left after my surgery. Oh God, how much more time will it take? Will I ever find a soulmate?"
Rushing, Vanshika entered the CCD, wiping all her confusion, restlessness, and sweat (in January!) with a wet wipe. She tried to spot Simon in the heavily rushed and crowded café, but then had to call him to confirm if he was even there.
She called on his number, the phone rang, but was not answered.
“Do I look too desperate? Would it be better if I had come late, girls usually come late, right?” she kept questioning herself as she wiped her face, so it does not look too oily!
“I shouldn’t have agreed to a blind date on this newly launched app. So silly of me. Will he even come?
No sooner than this myriad of emotions circled Vanshika’s fidgety mind, she saw a tall, dark and handsome man entering the bustling café. As he approached her, she began to shiver in her legs, her lips twitched, and her hands became sweaty.
In a minute, he walked past her, went to the counter and blurted, “One dark coffee please, espresso“.
Vanshika let out a sigh. It was more of a disappointment than a relief. Her mind began to throw the same self-doubts at her.
“Is my destiny throwing the same uncertainties at me again? Will I ever emerge from my horrid past? I think there are still marks left after my surgery. Oh God, how much more time will it take? Will I ever find a soulmate?”
And she didn’t stop questioning herself, “Do I deserve happiness or not? Even my parents have given up on me, and I just have a handful of friends whom I can call my own. Shruti only registered me on this app and here I am sulking over my misfortune. Simon here doesn’t seem to have liked even the slightest glimpse of mine”.
As tears started to roll down from Vanshika’s dusty’s cheeks, she swallowed them in with her dewy lips which she had painted with crimson red lipstick. Her jet-black mascara started to give away too. She wiped the remnants of her newly-brought makeup.
She sipped it all with the bitterest coffee available, it was a dark coffee, espresso for her too.
Another tall yet wheatish figure loomed large over her tiny demeanour.
“Vanshika, Hi, Simon here, I have been waiting for you at Block C’s CCD. After having waited for a good forty minutes, I realized you could be at the other one in Block B. It struck me that after a food delivery guy reached the wrong outlet, he was then directed here. Umm, this place looks a little too crowded, no?”
He continued, “I know a decent fine-dining restaurant nearby that serves authentic food. I hope you like Chinese food? After all, your “weakness” in the app said- “chilli stir-fry hot garlic noodles“, so shall we?”
Simon held out his fair hand that instantly met Vanshika’s dusky, turbulent one. Vanshika just smiled ear to ear and couldn’t stop, brimming with confidence. Was it her instant craving for the noodles or the first good thing that happened to her since the acid attack?
Well, the dark and patchy did find her fair and lovely!
Image source: powerofforever, via Getty Images, free and edited on CanvaPro
Guneet is a writer by the day and a mentor by evening. She is a day dreamer who finds writing as her second skin. A vagabond by heart, Guneet likes to write on the very read more...
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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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