that Tint of Grey

A year apart they were born.

In the same neighborhood they belonged. Being the first to both parents, they were pampered and kept the apple of their eyes.

Without a reason, some universal force made them first friends and first sisters to each other.

They took their first steps, spoke their first words and sang their first rhymes almost around the same time.

The parents and their little girls. Their bright red peddle - cycles with the rabbit face. The Barbie dolls. The alphabet shaped fridge magnets. It was colorful. There were smiles. Only smiles.

They prayed to different Gods; Hailed from different towns.

But they were girls who learnt to crawl together. 

No history, no religion, no society or no ethnicity was going to change that. 

Never mind any of it.

Years rolled by. But not too many though. The innocence and tenderness was still very much the image the little girls portrayed. 

Yet the colorful times happened to be tainted by the shades of grey.

Being young and having faces of angels didn’t bother those men.  A couple of them who belonged to that shameful lot. Their evil mind and sinful hands and cunning eyes.

Those rare moments when the mothers went to the kitchen or the fathers went to take a leak – that is all it took the wretched minds to SCAR two childhoods.

Two of them. Their colorful days were now tainted by shades of grey. 

One cried in the dark and sometimes looking at herself in the mirror. But she wore a smile otherwise. She didn’t know why. She didn’t find a reason otherwise. She hid her tears.

While the other girl stopped smiling and spent most of her time staring out of her window. She exchanged glances with the friend of hers as though her eyes conveyed something but words were never spoken. The change in her was merely taken to be a sign of growing up.

One of them fought the grey and grew up to break the ‘rules’. The other grew up as a silent loner but she too did break the ‘rules’.

The scars were similar.
The reactions were different. The childhood turned out to be different. The journey of life was different. But they were sisters who learnt to crawl together and they both were scarred. 
No history, no religion, no society or no ethnicity was going to change that. 
Never mind any of it.

P.S: This world is a beautiful place and life is a beautiful chance but yes, there are wretched things that happen. Take care of yourself and your fellow beings. 

Love and let live. Because, when there is a scar, no religion, no ethnicity, no history or society can heal it or change it. But LOVE could.