Mahashweta

I happened to read 'Mahashweta' by Sudha Murthy. The book tells the tale of Anupama whose beauty wins over her poor background and she marries a doctor from a rich background. Things are happy until one day she notices a white mark on her knee. She later gets diagnosed with leukoderma. The mother-in-law sends her back to her father's house while Anupama's husband is away. Anupama moves to Mumbai, combats the condition and becomes a lecturer at a college. She presents a play 'Mahashweta' before an audience that includes her doctor husband as well.

The story traces Anupama's life the way it takes turns when she is no longer how beautiful she used to be and how one fateful disease strips her of her dignity, joy and dreams.

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Siddharth, who always has been a blabbermouth, asks me today on chat, "Agar mirrors nahi hote toh kya hota?" And I remember that I call my blog a mirror.

We would not know the changes we need in the way we look, we would not know how different we are comparatively to look at. Life would've been happier, wouldn't it?!

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'Jassi jaisi koi nahin', one of my favourite TV serials ever had this as the central point - how one's physical appearance overshadows one's talent or how deeply it influences the image others have of us.

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Every Anupama will undergo a Mahashweta phase - the phase when people will cease to love you for what you look like and when the time would come to get people who will love you for what you are. The period to find people who will not be mirrors who constantly remind you of the changes you need. The phase to find an identity beyond the exteriors.

An Anupama is what the rich doctor noticed, dated, married and denounced as the beauty seemed to get affected.

A Mahashweta with all the white marks over her body, was what the world noticed for the confidence of achievement that glowed on her face...