She...

She was dazzled by the lights, what seemed like heaven on steroids. The mannequins looked back at her with cold contempt, but her strong yearning for the amazing dresses made her miss that look. A she walked the shining streets, with provocations at every corner; she felt she couldn’t wait anymore to grab all that she could. She was different from everyone around her in this fabled place, her difference owing to her being from a less privileged background, that too from a third world country.

She was a star in the small township she came from, a famed student on whose shoulders rest the hopes of her entire family. And on herself, laid also her own hopes of escaping from the surrounding squalor, the filth, the flies and her family, that saw her more as a mint. But she couldn’t wait. After all, the developed world imposes its own need for consumption exhibition conformity on its people, failing to fall in line with which leads to humiliating rejection. She realized her external beauty and came across men, from all races, who wore suits of refinement in public and seemed to be able to satisfy every want. But they were also the people who supported a world where women working in upscale pubs, had to wear the shortest pants and had to pour the drink slowly with a smile. Their refinements were shed as soon as easily as they shed their clothes and all that their shameless lust did for her was to take away her innocence, her motivation and esteem, her judgment, and her lust for life.

Secrets filled her lives before she realized that even her promise to herself had become a secret from her. But while the designer bags wilted one by one, she realized that this is not how it was supposed to end. As she sat in the food court, detached from the pointless ephemeral glamour she had started to believe as permanent, she realized that all she needed was a second chance. She realized that it was only she who could give her that.