The girl

Today at New Market I saw THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL I have ever seen in my life!! I can use as many words to describe her beauty by saying it was – sublime, splendid, resplendent, dazzling, stunning, glorious, ravishing ,etc etc - but I guess no amount of wordplay would be enough to actually portray the quantum of her beauty. She was beautiful, PERIOD.

Looking at the soft white skin of her face, I wondered whether her face had been cast with molten butter. The few strands of hair which were visible seemed to be chosen from the rarest of rare oriental silks and gleamed in the neon light of the Market. Her wide, expressive eyes seemed to look at things with the wonder of a new born child – Ahh I again re-iterate, I can never forget her face.

Her beauty wasn’t that kind of beauty that I would like to own or conquer or trample or even look at for a long time… it is like those things which you would want to admire from far apart and then let the memory soothe your senses. It is like the snow-laden peaks of the Everest which I would rather gaze at with a sense of awe and disbelief rather than tread on and summit it and then gloat at my menial achievement. The same reason I do not support the commercial tourism to Moon. Too much proximity destroys the mysticism. There are some mysteries best left unsolved, some feelings best left un-described, some questions best left unanswered and there are some beauties best left untouched, unpolluted.

Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t those nerdy boys who study in boys’ school and then go to a missionary college at the far end of the world and spend the waking hours of the day immersed in books, getting perfect scores in examinations – in such a scenario if I had laid my eyes on any girl, I would have been overwhelmed. I have always been to co-educational institutions, I have travelled a bit, I have seen thousands of movies and sitcoms which cast the most splendid women from around the world, have been on and off crushes and had my fair share of friends from the ‘fair’er sex. Even after such a decently wide outlook, I still maintain that she was the most beautiful amongst all women I have ever laid my eyes on. A good analogy would that be of the Afghan girl – even though thousands of pictures of war ravaged women have made it to the covers of newspapers or periodicals, one can never forget the gleaming, haunting eyes of Sharbat Gula.

Well, coming back to the topic, She was standing in front of a New Market garment shop with a deep longing in her eyes, eyeing an exquisite satin turquoise/ olive blue (I do not remember the exact colour) dress. The angst in her eyes was so heart wrenching, that for a moment I felt like buying it then and there and presenting it to her – I wouldn’t even mind if she didn’t know who gave her the dress, I just wanted her to have it – to see her doe-eyes fill with glee.

Till now, I have not disclosed the most essential part of the girl – she was a Muslim girl – maybe 22-23 years old and when other girls of her age were using swanky cosmetics, experimenting with bold dresses and presenting an uber-cool look, she was wearing a pre-historic apparel like a burqa! Even though she was wearing the burqa, her face was visible because she had not drawn the veil – it seemed as if she was in a dilemma, she was at a juncture, she was like Janus – undecided whether to look back or look forward. Thus even though she could not disregard her religious sentiments by not wearing the burqa, she wanted the world to see her amazing face and her kohl-laden eyes.

You all must be thinking that I probably stared at her for an hour or something [J]. I must say, on the contrary, I was in a hurry to reach my office and probably glanced at her for a few seconds. I guess, she realized that her longing for the dress was palpably visible and became conscious – since as soon as our eyes met, she gave a shy, almost apologetic smile followed by a poignant sigh which probably would translate to this “Alas, the dress is not for me to wear, at least not in this lifetime” which kind of made me wish, if only she could muster up the courage to question the foolish traditions of the society like Marji of Persepolis.

That was it, and I just carried on my way and she hers without a word exchanged, yet I could not help but end the post with some assistance from good ole’ Wordsworth –

“Her innocent beauty in my heart I bore,
Long after she was seen no more.”

Signed and Sealed by John Galt.