Play Doll

Photograph By Eashan

 As a kindergartner newly learning the alphabet, I was full of questions and curiosity in my heart and glitter in my eyes, the kind that made stars sparkle. So, I put some of that glitter all over my books and notebooks and uniform and felt I carried the whole world around with me.

 Apart from being always covered in glitter, I was a regular kid going to school with two pigtails and a school bag double my weight and size with a lunchbox packed neatly, with immaculate care to not let any oil seep in from my favorite sabzi that mom had made for me the night before.

 I had no other companions at school, so I ate my lunch by myself. I waited for the last bell of the day and get back home to play with my dolls. I was proud of my collection my mother had gotten me in my all fours and it was an assortment of sorts. All of them beautiful in donning multi-hued outfits, sometimes overly accessorized holding a purse, a hat on their head and pearls on their slender necks. Manicured nails and shiny heels, were all it took to be a grown-up, and something that I believed in deep. Only to have my bubble burst as I come of age.

 My mom told me stories of how they used to play with their dolls, made of clay. My dolls had porcelain skin out of plastic, and hers a natural terracotta, an earthen beauty with an Indian tan. They had wedding ceremonies for their dolls where relatives attended to feast. Dolls all dolled up in handmade bridal trousseau and other handsome dolls for a groom. The dolls had bridesmaids and friends to call their own, a lifeless object but still filled with love from a family that gave it a soul.

 That inspired in me a longing that I had never felt before, to have playmates for myself and also for my dolls. I ask mother if I can have other friends, and to that she said why do you need friends to play doll? The dolls are your friends that stay with you forever till you get old.

 With heart a little forlorn, I never ask her of this again, and go on a hunt for a little friend to share this joy and never to be in dismay again. But kids are cruel, and they make fun of you, they don’t want to be your friends, but to just take away the dolls from you. They poke my dolls, and pull its hair, giving it an ugly makeover and me a big scare. This is not what I want I cried out loud, but who cares.  It is all a sad dream, and all you are left with is alone.

 Now I am a little older, with my precious treasures in careful safekeeping from a childhood long gone. Pretty boxes with a transparent lid, eyes twinkling from within, flashing a smile with a painted lip. Hair still so glossy, and not a single grey outshone. They haven’t aged a bit, but I have.

 And yet I am still awaiting that friend, with whom I could hopelessly again, play doll.

Written By Julia Saha