S. Yasmin: The Blank Page

I didn't know what to draw on the blank page. 

How can I capture my future on a single sheet of paper? I'm not even a good artist, let alone a fortune teller. The future is the most unpredictable thing in the world, especially for a lass like me in a suburban village and with no grand fortune to back me up or whatsoever. 

My mind is a pond of ideas but none of my thoughts are the fish I hope to catch. The art teacher will soon finish his stroll, walk back into the class, and examine all our drawings. He is sure to yell at me, for he hates seeing a blank page before me more than I do. 

Still, an hour is left, I can sketch something abstract, vague and utterly detestable (even to me) by then… 

The assignment was simple enough: “Draw Where You See Yourself In The Next Ten Years.” I wish he had been more specific with the subject and not expected us to have prophetic abilities. 

All the girls in this government school have the same future, to be sure. In the next ten years, when we will turn twenty-six, we shall be married off to a common Joe with a modest salary. Financial security. It's all the parents really care about, isn't it? Not that their daughter is financially independent, only that she marries a man who is. After all, what is a woman but a Mrs after she is married? 

As children, we all have many dreams. Very strange and unrealistic ones — but dreams, nonetheless. But we shouldn't. They're erroneous. Dreams that never come true and just stay in our heads. A woman's job is to cook, clean and reproduce, isn't it? Sure, she may knit and sew if she wishes to. They are feminine hobbies. Not a single function has passed without girls being asked by some aunt: “Beta, can you cook yet? You won't find a husband if you don't, you know.” 

A woman is told that she is no man. It has been rooted in her head from the very beginning that she can't work a job, make decisions, run a business, or buy a house like a man. Being born a woman comes with terms and conditions. A woman can't do that and that and that. A woman should always dream less than a man. Or not dream at all.

“Oh, then why educate me in the first place?” Because an accomplished man looks for an accomplished woman, just not on parity with him. And definitely not more than him. 

But things are changing, right? Women can do certain things that were unthinkable before. They can work a job, they can earn money, they can live for themselves. Not without being scorned — yet they can. 

But things don't change the same way in villages as they do in the city. There are still chances, though, extremely rare chances, but one can catch them if they try hard and are lucky enough.

Now, I'm the one at fault: I'm completely ambitionless. I do not know what I want. I want to do something, desperately, but I don't know what. I want to live for myself but I don't know how. 

Through a jaundiced eye, I'm a completely queer, ungrateful girl. I have the privilege to get an education, to choose a career (though with great hindrance), and yet I'm complaining about it? No. I'm complaining about why I have to work so hard to just prove that I deserve to occupy my own place in the world, and not live in someone else's shadow my whole life. 

The dreams of my younger self are a consistent laughing stock to me now. A scientist, an astronaut, a singer, a painter, a writer—a writer. I lack the skill to be anything but. I'm no Austen, but if I were, wouldn't I just be a copycat? 

Diary entries, essays, (bad) poems, fables. I've always loved holding my pen when it comes to creating them. I love reading between the lines of my textbooks over and over again. I love writing.

Yes, yes, yes! My brain has answered at last. Oh, when did I ever not want to be a writer? When did I not love the scent of ink on my fingers? When did I stop crumbling up a paper and then finding potential in it again? 

I know how I want to fill the blank paper. 

An hour later, when the teacher finally came, he didn't find me before a blank page. The sketch was no masterpiece—neither was it just a dream, no, it was a manifestation of the future.

Beneath it, a single sentence was written: The future doesn't have to be drawn before it can be written.

He went away without a word, but that was enough approval to me. I'd pass.

But oh God, how full of dreams I am at last!

About the Author:

S. Yasmin is a class 10 student living in West Bengal, India. She enjoys writing and reading books, particularly classics. "The Blank Page" is one of her first submissions for publication.