Thighs and Eyes by Kalai Selvi Arivalagan (freenovel24 .TXT) 📕

Thinking about my height and weight, I have only these things to write. According to my own experience, women in this world are rated by both men and women by judging their ability to meet the sexual needs of men and give birth to children. The so-called marriage market in India chooses their brides by looking at their personality and rates them accordingly.

Right from my teens I had seen men who raised their brows and chuckled with a wonder how could I be considered as a woman. Even though I considered myself as the one with some urge for creative writing and already practiced writing my observations in the form of poems and short-stories. With my confidence level high, I thought I would be the best match to one of the eligible bachelors in the whole world. But the world thought differently.

Even my own relatives who had an eligible bachelor in their family looked away from me. After my college, I started to realize how world looked at me. As far as you are a girl, every one expected you to be fair-skinned with proper curves and have things at the right place that would judge you to be fit enough to meet the sexual needs of a man. Your intelligence, smartness, creativity comes only after that.

I got married in a matter of four weeks. We met for the first time only on our marriage day. With the sarcastic smiles of my sisters-in-law and my brothers-in law I started my married life. Even my husband commented that he and his friends used to give marks to the girls they saw and he had got a girl like me who scored 0. That even did not register on my mind. He also added that I scored 100 according to my character.

When I was studying in the college every one used to call me as a “skeleton”. My biology teacher used to comment that I could be kept at the lab as a specimen for skeleton. That never brought my spirits down. I felt proud to have shining eyes, soft silk like hair that flowed down my waist.

I even had a secret admirer who would watch me wearing a string of jasmines on my flowing dark soft hair, and pedal my cycle casually under the full moon light. Those things made me feel romantic and helped me to write down poems on love and nature.

Being a piscean by moon sign I always imagine myself to be a mermaid. She is a mermaid who will look great with her tail fin and carry herself with pride and to be a woman's delight. Looking at the ocean with his arms embracing the blue sky I always loved to be a perfect mermaid looking for my Prince Charming. Those things were all mere dreams that accompanied my teenage days and my early twenties.

Due to the grimacing look from the people around me, I stopped taking care to dress and I believed even though I took care to dress no one will consider me as an eligible bride. But, a time came when I started to take care to dress and change my attitude toward the world. I am here to live my own life and it is foolish to look for the appreciation of others.

That proved to be my turning point in my life. Once this happened, I could see changes. My flesh and bones took up the right attitude to live the life for my sake. My daughter is also the main reason. For her, I am the embodiment of love and affection and not a skeleton covered with flesh and skin. Being a mother helped me to come out of all these misgivings and face the world as it is.

It is a night mare of experiences; looking at the world with blurred vision. I am literally struggling for the past ten days with my pair of glasses and the computer monitor at my office. For more than six months, every day in the morning after getting up from the bed, I started to feel a sense of nausea. I felt an irresistible sense to puke and a sort of numbness in my head. Initially, I got treated for pre-menopause symptoms and got relieved from them.

After an interval of 15 days, I started to feel in the same way as I felt earlier. This time, I went to an Eye doctor instead of a lady doctor. After initial examination of eyes at the Eye hospital, the doctor told me that my eye power has increased drastically, and I have to wear my bifocal glasses also. The right and left eye power had changed due to my job, sitting for prolonged hours before the monitor.

The doctor prescribed the lens for short sight along with bifocal lenses for the glasses. I went to a shop nearby to get the prescribed lenses. The fellow at the shop took my order and got an advance for the pair of glasses. Two days later I got the glasses. My ordeal started from that time. Next morning when I switched on the system and looked at the monitor, every thing looked blurred. I could not focus my eyes as every line on the document looked topsy-turvy. Being aware of the tight targets at the office, I started to do my work. Frequently, I have to take away my glasses and I worked without wearing the glasses.

At the end of the day, my eyes felt so stressed and tired. I can feel the heaviness on my eyelids and my face also looked swollen. I could not watch the television also without any strain on my eyes. I struggled like this for two days and then I once again went to the shop, from where I got the glasses. The shop keeper asked me to check with the doctor once again. The doctor checked my glasses and asked me to wear glasses with progressive lenses. She also explained to me that is the ideal choice for people who are above 40, and who has to wear bifocal lenses also.

Things looked better now. I can see clearly. Yet, the person at the shop asked me to wear the glasses continuously for two days, get used to it and then go to the office. Now after two days of continuous use of my progressive lenses I feel perfectly alright. While getting cleared of my problem with the eyes, I could not forget to tell about the problem with my thighs. This is due to fungal infection. I don't know how I got it on my thighs. After getting treated for a while from a skin doctor, finally I went to a gynecologist, who prescribed me the soap and the ointment along with the medicines. Due to fungal infection some parts of my thighs turned black in color. Continuous use of soap and microbial solution helped me to come out of that.

Publication Date: 03-22-2011

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Dedication:
Indian society that likes to hide behind its mistakes.