Such Perfection

I am unsure how many of you would be able to relate with this anecdote, but I assume you all will be able to have a different perspective on things happening around after reading this, a perspective reading blesses you with.

It was the time every girl eagerly waits for, the time when advices on how one should be keep flowing from all over yet all you can see is a bright light at the end of the tunnel – a light promising a glorious future enlightened at core by lots of love; the time in a girl’s life when she does away with the skin she’s been breathing in since her birth to finally have on a skin which will always be adorned by indications of her being married; the time she and her family has been preparing for since they got to know ‘it’ was a girl; the time when, for once, she will be the most important person of an event – the time for her to get married.

She has been extremely conscious all this while of her looks and her behavior. Thanks to her job which required her to work from home, she got to run for that extra mile in taking care of her mind, body and soul. All in all, she was putting her best step forward in preparing herself to look the best on the day when all everyone would be interested in knowing would be how she looked. Everything was going perfectly as per the checklist prepared, all action plans of what she should be doing 12 months, 9 months, 6 and 3 months, 10 days, 1 day and 2 hours before the wedding were put in place and were being strictly followed until that one incident which, in a flash, made her think back a story she had read in one of favorite authors’ book – Malgudi Days.

She was so sure she would look like a goddess; she had the perfect figure to walk in, her trousseau was tried and checked several times, her skin radiated a grace almost all around her couldn’t help but keep staring at and her charm was the talk of the house, when one day, two days, to be sure, before she would get hitched, she noticed her toe nail break in a manner anyone would get his eyeballs on if at all they would reach her foot. She was taken aback for she couldn’t relate any incident which could have led to this. Trying to take a meaning out of this shocker, she was, suddenly, reminded of a story she had read some time back, and for once she was bewildered how a seed planted in a fiction could actually appear as a tangible plant in her real life.

The name of the story was, Such Perfection. This story revolves around a sculptor, Soma, who after five years of tiring labor, prepares a ‘too perfect’ statue of Lord Nagaraj. Despite being told that the ‘too perfect’ chisel isn’t meant for mortals and that he should break its little toe or some other part so that it is safe enough, he asks for the handiwork to be consecrated. Unwilling to give in to the demand of the priest or the villagers, Soma decides to consecrate the chisel near his house, building a temple-like structure himself. The priest’s predictions about the ‘too-perfect’ statue being consecrated turn out to be true and the whole village is immersed in water due to heavy rains, thunderbolts and storms the same day Soma does the act. The villagers reach out to Soma asking him to act as per the priest’s instructions, yet, for his love for the chisel, he decides to go against everyone’s will and to kill himself instead. As and when he steps out of his house to do that, a tree crashes on the roof of his house, leaving the handicraft unhurt, yet breaking its little toe. The whole village accepts this as an act of God and further consecrates the now 'slightly imperfect' statue with all the rights in the village temple.

She looked ‘too-perfect’ on her D-Day but inside she knew there was a little imperfection which was balancing things off!    

The imperfect toe

The 'too perfect' bride