Mirrored Versions

Mirrors always daunted me;

The sight of an abhorring reflection plastered onto glass always unnerved me;

And while I speak of mirrors, I speak of all the different kinds of mirrors there are-

The mirror of my room:

A tall-standing, proud and smug length of glass attached to my cupboard.

This one reflects a lean figure, tall and slim, setting and meeting a stereotypical standard;

This one reflects bony hands but fleshy legs, dark and unattractive elbows and knees, tiny strings of hair at sporadic places but quite perceptible.

I had learned since the details of my body that collate into forming a human exterior with which possibly keeping company by a boy would be deemed uncomfortable.

Then there is the mirror I bought on a family trip a few years back:

Square and pocket-sized, enhanced further with a silhouette painting of Coco Chanel on its cover.

This one reflects a bare face that is pale with birthmarks lying sporadically in uncanny areas, ink marks on my cheeks after I wrote some words on paper down hastily- all these I’d obscure behind a filter;

This one reflects the eyes that are downturned and heavily bagged for I stayed up late reading or watching television, eyes that can’t hold the gaze of someone enticing for long enough and are of a run-of-the-mill hickory shade of brown.

I had learned since the mundanity of my face with its repellent features and bred detest every-day slowly till it let every ounce of my self-morale drown.

Then there is, of course, the mirrors of the fancy mall bathrooms:

Polished and gleaming, with bulbs set atop at equal distances.

This one reflects a face almost too good to be true, you’d be tempted to dig out your phone from your pocket and click that one picture every single person would double tap and comment on with a heart-eyed emoji along with flooding overwhelming direct messages;

This one also reflects the outfits that would be the last ones that a hipster teen would buy on a shopping spree for they are just as substandard and infantile as the ones they discarded the previous year.

I had learned since that trend-setting was a talent that I would fantasize day and night about and envy every girl possessing it when- all the while- I’d feel small and inferior.

But then one day as I entered the elevator of my housing-building,

There stood a woman with a girl barely any more than six.

We stood silent for a few minutes until the woman bent to the girl’s height as she whispered into her mother’s ear.

The woman smiled at me as she told me with the jolliest voice I had ever heard that her daughter thought I was pretty.

While I thanked the girl- with the heartiest tone I could use to mask my wonder, she buried her face abashedly into her mother’s dress.

And there it was- the silver lining;

The best mirror in all the universes that could exist:

The doe-eyes of a six-year-old girl;

The ones that reflect not the infinitesimal details that the critical world would discern and skepticize but the purest of the hearts would empathize with words that find beauty in the simple,

The ones that reflect the width of my waist, the texture of my skin, the style of my outfits and all other self-deemed flaws of mine in one beautifully unique miscellany.

I have learned since that a slab of glass does not determine my beauty or- for that matter- my worth. It is in the eyes of that innocent beholder- my silver lining- that I found beauty in my ordinary.

You will find your silver lining too. ❤

~ Riddhi Chakraborty

Notes: Don’t we all see different versions of ourselves in all the different kinds of reflections that certain mirrors exhibit? How about we start accepting all of them and stop criticizing the little “imperfections” the implausibly high beauty standards have termed “unattractive”, once and for all?