Spellbound - A fairy tale of sorts

Once upon a time there lived a princess in the castle of her dreams. Dreamy eyed and beautiful beyond compare in her mind, she lived in a world of her own. She came out of her castle, sashaying in yet another new colorful saree, with a huge smile on her face.



The mid afternoon soon was blazing away, it only made her appear more dazzling and several inches taller than she actually was. “How did she wear a new saree every single day?” everyone in the neighborhood wondered and talked about it. As she walked away with  her long pallu ( long loose end of the saree) fluttering in the wind like a banner. She enjoyed her spot in the limelight. So what if she happened to be diminutive and average looking!

Bewitched by the movies and the movie stars, in her star struck eyes, there was little distinction between the movie stars and her. Her imagination soared high as she mesmerized everyone around her with her story-telling skills. Her childhood was spent in the dunes of the desert. She had been the precious darling of her house, doted on by her father and her brothers. They had ridden camels into the sunset and sang songs at the melas - village fun fares. 

Her father was a trader and a bard – a travelling musician, the kind that narrate, rather sing ancient stories with a simple string instrument. They often went village hopping as they sang and enacted folk tales of yore. There were princesses who were beautiful and bold and she was no less than a princess. This idyllic childhood was brutally transformed, when her father died.

The whole family moved to a different city, far away from the desert. It was very different the language, the culture, the traditions and the food. She held steadfast to her roots. Her language, her culture, her traditions were precious and superior to everyone else’s, nothing else came close or could come close. It was all gone, but she held it close to herself in her imagination.

A dreamy haze came over her eyes, as her past, her imagination and reality merged together and made her feel royal and regal. She deserved so much more, so much better and she knew it.  She would have it someday. So what if her life seemed ordinary now? She would soar like an eagle above the clouds, even if she had to do it alone. She would. Her husband was a disappointment to say the least, he was simple, ordinary, with no desire to soar with her. He was nice to her, he bought her beautiful sarees but that was just not enough.

She was a princess and a movie star and no one less than a prince would do. Life had been so unfair, she was supposed to have ridden on this golden chariot with her prince charming leaving everything behind to dust but she had settled for less. A compromise, a disappointment, but what was a penniless girl who hadn’t even finished school supposed to do?

So one day our princess went missing. Her family searched for her everywhere. She was nowhere to be found. Her daughters walked around dazed, wondering, where had their mother disappeared? Relatives close and distant swarmed together, hoping she would return. Days, turned into weeks, weeks into months and one day the girls walked home to find their mother sitting in the patio of their house.  The diva sat there, her eyes held a distant look, house-bound or so it seemed.

She had been the Cinderella of her story, but her prince charming had been publicly humiliated and beaten by her kith and kin. His only fault had been that he had believed her, when she had told him, she was a slave imprisoned by her cruel brother and his daughters. He had only tried to rescue her, having been spell bound by her charm of story –telling.  His plea of innocence had fallen into deaf years as he had been dragged away by the police on the charges of abducting her, as his Cinderella had begun to sing a different tune.

As days went by our princess began to feel much like Rapunzel herself, imprisoned in a castle by a wicked wizard. The very same wicked wizard who hadn’t even deserved her in the first place.  Her anger simmered and turned into rage, she refused to be a prisoner in her own  castle of dreams. Escape, she would, even if it meant she had to poison the wizard. Which she did and then she spun a tale on how the wicked wizard had met his own evil end. As she walked into the sunset in a new colorful saree, with its pallu ( the long loose end) fluttering in the wind like a banner..