And The Rope Was Broken!

And The Rope Was Broken!

Genre: Short Story.

By: Tariq Ahmad Tariq

The trainer explained, “  when they are very young and much smaller, we use these ordinary ropes to tie them and, at that age it is enough to hold them. As they grow up,  They are conditioned to believe the rope can still hold them so they never try to break free.”

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After listening to this explanation from the elephant trainer, Muskan started thinking of all the ropes that were fastened to her feet. She was a girl who was conditioned to believe that girls were not allowed to live their dreams. They were not permitted to think big. The out of box thinking was a distant dream for them.

Many times in the past ,Muskan had kept recollecting to her mind how in the old times the businessman’s daughter in one of the Italian tales tasted the fruits of out of the box thinking in her tough times.In order to compel the business man to marry his young beautiful daughter to him, an ugly looking old money lender had played a puzzle game ,full of dishonesty ,with the businessman who owed him a lot of money .He secretly picked two pebbles from the pebble strewed path of the businessman’s orchard and put them in his bag ,claiming one to be white and the other to be black. He asked the girl to pick up one from the bag. If it was white , he would waive off all the money without marrying the young girl. But incase she picked the black one ,he would waive off the money only after having married the girl. The helpless girl had seen him playing false, but she thought out of the box. She took out a pebble and without looking at it dropped it presuming it was by mistake .It dropped on the pebble strewed path and got lost in the heaps of black pebbles. The money lender was offended. He shouted at the girl saying how could now it be decided whether she had picked the white one or the black one. With all calmness, the girl suggested him to bring out the another pebble from the bag. If it was black, then hers would have been the white one. Thus the girl with her wit and wisdom had saved her life from getting ruined and had brought her helpless father out of the debt trap.Muskan had also many out of the box ideas whirling in her mind, but the ropes tied to her feet didn’t allow her to break away. She had always contended herself keeping her lips sealed.

This five feet eight inch tall ,lean muscular framed attractive girl could have easily tried a career in the glamour world, but she couldn’t tell her parents about her desire. She allowed her first dream die premature.

It was again during her college days that Muskan could discover that her voicquality was her biggest asset. Her style of speaking, choice of words, art of conversation, and the explanation of the abstract made her singular in the whole college. She could be the first choice of the media houses for conducting live debates, hosting reality shows, moderating talk shows, and reporting from the ground zero. Her friends often suggested her to start a career in this field, but she would always say her parents won’t allow her to do so. She was also afraid of the society raising eye brows at the quick success of a village girl.Muskan had , in one of her diary entries, written that she would always think herself running on the chest of beautiful moors, and getting out of breath amid the crowds of her friends. She dreamt of soaking herself in April showers. She wanted to have early morning bicycle rides so that she could allow the morning breezes play with her tresses and kiss her cheeks. The fragile rope of fear proved strong enough to deny this multi-talented girl from following her dreams.

A new perception had today, however, dawned at Muskan. After having met the elephant trainer she started questioning herself about all the fears she had nurtured. Had she ever asked her parents about an idea which they rejected out rightly? Had she ever taken a small step out of the box ,and society came with disapproval? Had she ever asked her parents for some

space which they denied in the first go? Had she ever collected the noises of the public opinion about the girls who had done something different? And above all, had she ever asked her parents about the dreams they had cherished for her?The explanation of the elephant trainer opened her eyes and motivated her to look face to face with the reality. It helped her to understand that the thousands of noises echoing together could not suppress one strong voice sprouting from within.

Muskan determined to break the ropes and set her feet free .She was now very much excited about her dreams, and in the meanwhile somebody knocked at the door. Her sleep was disturbed ,but her dream was still intact .Jumping out of the bed ,she saw her mother having packed her luggage .She embraced her mother with utmost excitement .Her father entered the room handing her the air tickets ,and lot of blessing for the safe journey. Muskan did not want to come out from the island of her dreams even though she was now working with the country’s most prestigious news channel NDTV for past two years. She kept smiling while remembering the approach with which she had finally managed to break the rope of false beliefs.