PLASTIC DOLLS!

Let me introduce you to me and my doll. I am ten years old, and my doll is umm… perhaps five years old, although she does not seems so young!



She is a plastic doll, but no no… don’t think that she looks any different from me. In fact I put in every effort to make her look like myself. I knot her hairs just like my Mama ties mine. And dress her up like I would get dressed with the help of my Mama on any occasion. But there are some differences too. She can not move around or show any response to my words *sighs*.


My doll has got some friends too. All the girls who live in my neighborhood keep at least one plastic doll and all our dolls are very fond of each other. But there is one exception. My Sissy, who is ten years elder than me, do not keep any doll. Hymph…!


I can’t even think of living without my doll and you know what once I heard Sissy saying that even Mama keep two plastic dolls. I wonder…!


As is my nature whenever I get wind of a strange matter I get curious to know the reality. And now I had two peculiarities to deal with, Mama, Sissy and dolls.


Asking questions from Mama is a bit difficult, because she always gives a suspicious glance at me saying that ‘Oh, I never knew you can even speak! Day by day your curiosity and anxiety is increasing which is not a good sign. Let me fix you now,’ and I have to run from her in order to find refuge. Aah! But I sometimes wonder that why she says that my speaking out is alarming? As if I myself am a plastic doll. Huh!

So under these circumstances I can only consult my Sissy. Although she do not scold me like Mama does, but at times I am not able to grasp her answers!


Something is better than nothing, so I tried my luck with Sissy. Asking questions about her own attitude was a bit risky so I decided to start with the question I had about my Mama.


‘Hey how can you say that Mama keeps dolls? I never saw any!’


‘Try looking in the mirror. You will find them’


‘But there’s my doll that I always keep at the side of the mirror. I can’t see any other’


‘Not at the side, look IN the mirror, its there!’


‘I can only see myself there, no one else *gulp*’


‘You have my answer now’


This was unbearable to me. Am I a doll? A plastic doll? No no, that can not be true. I know how to speak, I know how to move around, I know so many things that any plastic doll can not do. Sissy really doesn’t know anything about dolls. I was really hurt and so to counter my Sissy’s response I put forward the question I had regarding her attitude.


‘When everyone keeps dolls, why are you so vain not to give any importance to such cute beings?’

‘Because I myself was a plastic doll once, who had to struggle hard to get freedom of choice and speech. I certainly can not entertain the idea of enslaving others.


‘How is this possible? You and a plastic doll?’


‘Yes, and let me tell you, the dear doll of Mama, even you are one such plastic doll.’


‘Me? That’s cruel of you to say so.’


‘No my dear little kiddo, you won’t understand all this, you can not until the day you yourself decides to put that fake smile off your face, and dress up and make your hair-do according to your own choice. Until then you are a plastic doll who is nicely kept at the side of a mirror. And those of us who never decides to get them off the shelf where we are kept lives a life of plastic dolls which are in the hands of others, who can play with us in whatever manner they want to.’


I looked at the plastic doll which I always keep near the mirror. She smiled. Her smile and the shine in her eyes seemed so bitter to me and in a while the walls of the room turned plastic, the windows shrank and me and Sissy looked like two beautiful plastic dolls living together in a nicely kept doll house. The master of the doll house could be heard, busy doing her house-hold chores.