Her eyes were like curtains....

Her eyes were like curtains...the net variety. They filtered out information she did not need and kept in information she needed. She traveled in an imported car, one of those sleek new ones. It was as prescribed a chaffer driven one. She cared damn shit for the starving millions or the unemployed. She just wanted to get to the Manilo launch on time. For her to be seen there was all-important as it decided the fate of her existence on the social scene. It was this place where she could con the next guy to invest in her ventures. Or just laugh about something not finding it funny.
Cut to the lady begging on the street.She was begging not because she wanted to but had to because of the circumstances. Famines were striking her little village back in AP regularly. She had to do something to change it. She came to Bombay with a packet full of dreams, planning to fulfill each and every one of them. She was truly oppressed and lived in unhygienic living conditions. Till one day her life changed….
It was this guy in a big car. One of the kinds she had often cleaned at the red lights. He stopped his car and came out. He was looking for a lead actress in one of his new films. An art film he called it. According to him she fit the character perfectly. He offered her the kind of money she had never seen in her life. She was awestruck, thinking it all to be a dream. From then on her life just changed. Her day schedule was completely different from the routine she was used to. Sometimes she just sat and cried. Because she was worried when the next famine would strike. She was almost sure her ailing parents were dead. She lived in this cocoon. She always cringed at the site of beggars on the street. Till slowly it just stopped getting to her. She became exactly like her urbane counterparts. Non-caring individuals who were more worried about the next party to attend or where to go for the next holiday. She stopped to care about her brothers and sisters back home and didn’t give a damn about their needs.
This is what city life does to you. Makes you forget about the less fortunate in your life. But some day it all comes back, and when it does it is ugly…
She visited her hometown one day just by chance, to shoot for this film she was doing. On reaching she remembered where she was. She tried to look for her house, the small mud hut, where her mother used to prepare food on the little stove, where she and her siblings used to fight like cats and dogs for those sweets, where she used to climb on the trees and steal fruit, where on cool summer days she used to sleep out in the open. Where she went through malnutrition, where she starved almost to death.
She was surprised to not find it there anymore. She then saw her mother’s dead body. A note lay beside her saying that there is no point living in a world with no food, no water, no money…. she wrote that the crops had failed and it was the time for her to go. She wrote about wanting to meet her daughter for the last time, to just hug her and feel her but this was not meant to be…this was when the girl (now a lady) realized her mistakes. Her materialistic nature got the better of her. It was responsible for her mother’s death. She sat there weeping, not knowing what to do next….

She had to go back to the city, that city which was in a way responsible for her mother’s death…. She cried, she was depressed; she just gave up hope, till one day even this stopped getting to her. It was the day of the manilo launch. She sat in her chauffer-driven car with her curtain-like eyes and hoped that this marked her comeback on the social scene….