Ritika Das

Indraprastha College for Women, New Delhi, India

Mirror Mirror on the wall, it is a cliché question to ask but who am I?

What do I reflect to the world, what do I reflect to my surroundings?

What do I reflect on myself?

I try to look deep into the tinted glass frame hanging in front of me, trying to understand my true identity, my true reflection.

But all I can see is a shadow of mine which is constantly made and broken by society. 

I often try to see my reflection in the physical wounds that are a result of that weighed wedding band in my finger,

I portray the role of a good wife but all I can see is a timid and powerless woman.

When the same children who I nurtured yell their offensive frustrations at me, I try to gulp everything by thinking that I am just a mother who has over pampered her children.

But deep down I know, I am a reflection of a mother who is too submissive to even raise her own voice.

While trying to be a hands-on mother to my children, I have forgotten about that ailing old woman who lives miles away, my mother.

Mirror Mirror on the wall, that fact that I reflect an image of a failed daughter is not oblivion to me.

A pile of worn out scribbled papers are still lying somewhere amidst the dusty newspapers. The writings on the paper were meant to find a publisher but all it can do now is look through the adjacent window at the many shades of colour that the sky has in its palette.

Mirror Mirror on the wall, why can’t I see my younger self who wanted to become a storyteller, had cliché dreams of conquering the world and swaying people with her writings?

Why all I can see is a woman who looks tired by playing the same set of roles each and every day?

The mirror tells me to not be so harsh on myself because standing in front of the mirror, I am not the only one asking these questions. There are so many other people who, just like me, are stuck in the loop of life.

There are so many people like me who have a capability to think but not an ability to speak.

Mirror Mirror on the wall, the world may never know about my existence, about my identity but it would always be you who has witnessed my reflection from an attractive luminous light to a somber one.

Mirror Mirror on the wall, I may not stay that long to tell my story, but I know you will be there to give a reflection of my story, unless you are broken, just like me.