musingswhileunlearning

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of us all?” Vanity exists from time immemorial and has been the very part of our fairy tales as you can see! Yet, I grew up in a family where modesty and modesty alone was acceptable. I learnt the word narcissism when it was thrown at me in grade four- the word, its meaning and the etymology! All I did to deserve that was to drape myself in a dupatta (a garment worn by Indian women over their salwar kameez to cover their modesty), which for my small frame acted as a sari, with a pillow crooked in my arm (my baby) and perch myself on a stool in front of the mirror. It was my favourite pastime to act like Mrs. N (my mother) but my husband, almost always, died in the war (somehow the husband never seemed to fit into my scheme of things as a child and losing him in the war was the best way to kill the embarrassment of having one) and with my baby, I would talk to different people I’d imagine, in the mirror. On this particular day, I was...