The story of two colors

I was dark as well as dusky in shade...
Such colours, out of which, God has made!


This post is about my story. A dark, memory! In fact, not just a single bad phase of life, but a void which has been there since long, and will might be there for a long time in future too!
It's something for which I'm not at fault. Something for which I'm not to be blamed. Something which is non-contagious. Something, which is definitely not the result of my “BAD KARMA”.., as most of the people tell me that it is.
I have been a really friendly and bubbly girl, a personality which people find attractive. I have dimpled cheeks, cute, smiling face, as they say, which can make a girl be considered as beautiful !! And ofcourse, I'm fair :p (though, I have a lot to say about how fairness is not a measure of beauty, but that seems off-topic right now). Yeah, so they call me cute, talented, friendly, intelligent, and a number of good things to feel happy about. But this one thing would spoil everything, when they ask- “what's this white thing on your face?”.
Yes, that white spot. I am a patient of vitiligo.
Since childhood, my folks taught me not to tell people about it, throwing excuses like- “It's lack of calcium in the body, or just a fungal infection due to the heat, or a ‘burn-mark', or to make it worse, a “birthmark”!!” Though it's not too noticeable due to my skin tone, but anyway, it's still there, which makes me a target of all breeds of taunts and tantrums and cuss words, as if I'm totally at fault because of this.
“Did you eat fish with milk?”
“Did you drink milk with salt?” Do I look like fool to do that???
“You know, it's a bad omen…!” OH REALLY? GOOD FOR ME. WHY DON’T YOU MIND YOUR OWN GOOD OMEN?”
“It'll be really difficult for you to find a groom!” I DON'T NEED ONE. I CAN BE HAPPY WITH OR WITHOUT..!
BUT I WAS NOT HAPPY.
Safedi, Fulwaari, Dallan-Kaudi, and what not! I could see the disgusted and DISGUSTING faces of the orthodox janaaniyas (stupid gossip-monger ladies) :( And I pretended as if this thing bothered me the least, and I didn't care a bit. To make things worst, Amitabh Bachchan came up with Boro-Plus advertisement, singing “safed-teeka”. Sound really funny, right? But not at all was it for me. “Boro-plus ka safed teeka lagaake aayi hai kya?(is the spot on your cheek, boro-plus?) They would mock, and I laughed with them, those rude bastards, who were unaware that behind this laughing face, there's a crying ass, who was filled with suicidal thoughts.
This thing will never go…! :(( oh god why me? What bad did I do!? Why it was written to happen with me! Why am I even living..! WHY ME!!
I cried myself to sleep, wailing that one day I'll be all spotted.
“Oh! God. Please cure this soon.”
But God did not listen. The shining, smiling, confident pretty lass was so easy to break, when they ask- “what's this white spot? Do you know that it's a really bad disease” as if knowing about it would do any less of it there. And it felt like a burden to get locked inside a cage, which was none other than my own body, which was a target of VITILIGO. Seems like, I'm exaggerating things, right? But I hope you understand that how bad it feels to be a small child, merely 13 or so, who lives with with the fear of being all ugly and spotted, who will be hated and disgusted by everyone in the future; Who was living with huge stones of embarrassment and fear of being the target of everyone's curiosity and hatred.
Not able to make eye contact; not able to face anyone….. I was scared about no matter how good I do to them, or speak to them, they will end up wondering about me as an untouchable, ugly lass due to the white spots on my face.
And then, as they say, if God gives you pain, He gives you the power to bear and come out of it. But I treat In a different way:
The problems given by HIM, are not for bad, but to bring out the best from us. Cause, a beautiful diamond is not born as that beautiful diamond which you see. But, an ugly stone, which was burdened and tortured and troubled by the fire, for thousands of years to bring the diamond out of it.
One day, my brother bought a book for himself. He was a Durjoy Datta addict, but I wasn't. I used to read books, just for the sake of reading them, until then. I was bored that day, and needed a break from the thick books of engineering entrance. And guess what? It was worth it. Infact, it turned out to be the best thing which could happen with me.
The book was “WORLD'S BEST BOYFRIEND”. Though, it was about the difference between love and hate, I absorbed from it, what I found was sent to me by God. Aranya, the female protagonist, who was a patient of vitiligo too, gave me inspiration. I found myself so much attached and motivated by a fiction character for the first time in my life. She had a worse case of vitiligo, was obese, had the cruelest father and family, and other things, due to which I found her in the WORST condition. But she was winning each battle, just because of her attitude, her confidence. The confidence, which was not bound to the presence of white spots on her face or body. The confidence, which was the child of the acknowledgement of the most beautiful mind. When they called her beautiful, or when she made the guys drooling over her, I realised about how everyone out there, is, deep inside, truly an admirer of the inner beauty. It's just the societal norms, which have been created by ‘em, but don't really wish to follow it themselves.
I could not stop myself from messaging Durjoy Dutta , thanking him for writing a book, which completely changed my life. And there was not of much chance to get a reply, but see, how contradicting it was, that the white spot of mine, which they taught me to consider as a bad omen, turned out as my GOOD OMEN, infact the best one. I received his reply, thanking me, and wishing me luck for my writings. And then, I started to explore my inner beauty!
Today, if someone asks me about that little white spot on my face, I answer them proudly, without any shame- “It's vitiligo!” No more hiding under the false stone of embarrassment and struggle, rather which was just a bubble. And the bubble has been bursted. I'm proud of my disease, because if it were not there, I would be less of true motivation for my writing talent, which came to me after that incident. This incident gave me my reasons and my answers to all my wailings.
So on an ending note, I would like to say, that there's nothing like a good or bad memory. It's just that how you take things. Accept yourself as what and how you are. You are the most beautiful creation. Because you are the creation of none other than God Himself. Then how can His creations be ugly?!….
Believe in yourself| Be proud of yourself.
Thanks for reading. :)