"How long is it going to take?"An impatient growl, travelled into the room from outside.
Radhika sighed. Dear, lord, help me in getting rid of this impossible man.
"I can't reach the zipper of the dress."She yelled finally, giving up, all her hair f...
Family functions were a volatile mix of extreme torture, boring and borderline mental wreckage. Extreme torture was due to the constant looks she manages to get. Condescending. Disapproval. The shake of heads in the sad judgement of her pathetic situation. The disdain-filled glances said all. This girl is still unmarried? Sure looks past the age of childbearing. Girls should marry by the time they reach twenty. She heard whispers that stiffened her spine and reddened her neck and Cheeks.
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Radhika would rather sit on a porcupine than be subjected to such humiliation. She didn't know why she did try and spent the whole afternoon and evening selecting a perfect dress and making herself get into a routine. The usual drill. Work vigorously on the very frizzy curly black hair for hours to make the tresses look straight, shiny and soft. Make-up, not too much but a light understated.
Radhika sighed exasperatedly. This all, it wasn't her. Her inner awkwardness and the mortified self-conscious mind wanted her outer look to be at least presentable in society. She wasn't tall or beautiful. She merely stood at 5'4 height, and with her thin frame, she doesn't make a mark or create a buzz or toss heads while she enters a room or walks past a group. Her brown eyes, heart-shaped face and pale skin were average. Her presence mostly gets shadowed by the other much pretty, long-legged, beautiful, ornery and rich society girls.
Radhika was a perfect wallflower and she was indisputably content that her back stayed attached to that much stronger wall than rely on her blubbering, stuttering, non-existent self-confidence and not-so-elegant but clumsy attitude.
And she is only obliged to string around in these gatherings, as the Mishra's are a part of a big family and great friend of the vacuous society. Of course, family is very important according to her father. She would never go against his word. She was afraid of his authority and forbidding tone. One angry look and she would run scuttling away from the room in fear.
She sighed heavily as she stared at her iPhone. Somebody, please, call me and get my harangued mind out of the quagmire I seem to be slowly and painfully getting sucked into, her mind screamed. She looked around.
Ladies give it a rest. I'm twenty-four, not fifty, but what does it matter right? According to ya all, I'm already on the dusty shelf in the competitive marriage market. She plastered a frosty smile on her lips. The old ladies smiled back with just as equal filled iciness in their eyes and body language.
All she ever wanted was to have a job and be independent and free from all the family restraining strings that had pinned her down. She was caged. She was chained by bounds of emotional blackmail. She wanted to break free from all that. She wanted to feel how it feels to work hard and earn money for herself.
Her father wouldn't care. He didn't care if she had dreams and aspirations. She was just a daughter who should be soon gotten rid of and made settled in life with her husband and children. He wouldn't allow her to do a job, because it's the men in the family who should work but not the women, they should just dress up and look good and stay back home. Like a showcase mannequin. A decorative piece of furniture. At one point she tried to muster up the courage to talk to him about her ambition and career path, but she couldn't. She couldn't even make eye contact with him before she became a blubbering mess. And now, he is just plain annoyed at the number of times she was getting rejected by some good marriage proposals that he had brought along with his influential connections.
