Metamorphosis

The Caterpillar:

On Sunday, at 09:00pm, 'I', the Caterpillar moved an inch. I devoured everything on my way back as it was a holiday night. After a hefty meal I decided to call it a day. As a last errand I started to spin myself into a cotton cocoon. Next day, the sunrise made my cocoon to look like a firefly with multiple pores at all of its sides. But I was not interested to reach out for the new light. Suddenly my legs popped out as my antenna sensed a strong distress signal. Knowing this, I tried to blend in with my surrounding. But unfortunately that person had knew me from the start and thus she lured me with a sweet fresh nectar as a bait in a cup. My resistance backstabbed me. So without thinking further ado, I started to sip the nectar. As a result a broomstick struck me along with a frustrated voice "Get up now or else you have to wash tonight's dish after you come from your work". My cocoon rapidly busted out of fear. Not knowing what to do, my saviour came by my side and he said with a brave tone, "Don't yell at my butterfly, she would fly whenever she wanted to". At that moment, I felt "Oh Yeah, I'm 27 years old and still I'm my daddy's little princess!" Once again I started my day with high hopes. When I was about to leave my home for work, I saw my father lying over the floor unconsciously for supporting me before. But even at his final moments he gave me a good send off with a smile on his face saying "Bye Bye bu..but..butterfly.!"

The Cocoon:

"Hey, why are you working late", a random guy enquired me when I was too busy concentrating on what task to fill in my timesheet. 

"Do I look like working to you?" I said to myself and replied him, "Why shouldn't I? It’s just 06:00PM only right?"

"No its 9:00PM, look outside the window, those little stars are sighting you from long distance", he said and blushed.

First, I thought it was one of his lame one-liner trick that he uses often on other colleagues. But then I realized that he was saying the truth when I saw 12 missed calls from my angry mom. Called back and she started to yell even before I said "Hello". It took me another 15 minutes to convince her that I kept my phone on silent mode when I attended one of my office meeting today. But still she kept on questioning me as if I am at some late night dinner date. I asked her to hand over the phone to my father.

I started, "Papa, I was in a meeting, so..."

"It’s okay. No need for any more reasons, come home safely" he said and asked me whether I needed him to pick me up.

His response showed me the trust that he had on me and I wanted to show him my courage.

I said, "I'm your princess and my office cab is waiting for my arrival".

But to my luck, I missed the cab.

"Sorry mam, if you had come 15 minutes earlier, the cab driver would have been here ", said the security guard as if he is some kind of miracle doctor.

I thanked my mom for stealing that 15 minutes. But I didn't want to wait for another 30 minutes for that cab to return. So I decided to walk to my home as its just 7 minutes’ walk from my office if I take the subway route.

A minute passed. No one was found on the road. The street lights were too thin and dim. Suddenly, the lights started to blink and it scared the hell out of me. I tried to reach my phone but the battery was dead. Looked for my power bank but it was not there. My anxiety level raised to the maximum threshold. I began to berate myself for not informing my father and being such a stupid princess.

For the next minute, I literally closed my eyes in fear and walked fast. My left leg stumbled over a stone and started to lose its balance. I stopped. Took a deep breath. And I remembered how my father brought me up whenever I fall.

Somehow I managed to reach the subway. People usually hate those subway barking dogs, but I do have a soft corner on them because they are the real guardian angels that never bark at me. As I entered the subway, I felt someone was following me from behind. I thought it might be those dogs, but when I turned back I couldn't find any. Stood there for a minute. After a few seconds I heard a strange ringtone. Checked my phone but it’s still dead. My gut feeling said that something terrible is going to happen. I got nervous. Started to increase my pace. When I was half way near the rear end of subway, a piece of rod struck me from behind.

I completely lost my balance rolling over the road. My phone fell into the nearby ditch. I couldn't see the face of person who struck me from behind. But there was another one in the rear end of subway. He was running towards me like street dog who hasn’t seen bone for years even though I didn't wish to be their prey. I was scared. Thought to scream for help, but my throat got dry and I wasn't able to utter a single word out of fear. I was searching for stones to get rid of them, but the stones were too small to help me outrun those two huge dogs. They were laughing at me as I appeared helpless. They slowly started to walk towards me. I was petrified. That intense pain made me to lose all my little hope and will to fight them back. At that moment, I wished my dad was there to protect me...

The Butterfly:

"Leave her alone", a sturdy voice ordered.

Both the men stopped for a second to find the origin of that voice.

A young homeless boy came in front of me with a broken stick and a bowl attached to his hip. I didn't even realize his presence when I fell down near that ditch. But he understood that I was in some trouble. Without any fear or hesitation he started to attack them. I saw a younger version of my dad standing in front and protecting me. I saw him putting up a tough fight as he managed to knock one of them down. Suddenly, the other guy struck him with a rod from behind. His body was beaten to pulp. I couldn't watch him. My eyes started to close in fear. All I could hear was the screaming of that little boy in pain. The young boy had reached his limits and he slowly started to fall down on the road with a smile on his face saying, "ra..ra..Run..!" 

At that time, “my wings ruptured, not to fly away from them, but to save that unknown young boy who had risked his life for me". I stood up. Walked near that man who was beating him. Snatched the rod from him. Took a second and hit him in the place where he could never eat another bone in his lifetime. He went down in a single strike. Then I quickly carried that boy and came outside the subway. At that time all I wanted is to see the laugh on that little boy's face once again.

"Are you okay?" the boy asked me in a feeble voice even when he was not in a good condition.

"Yes, I'm good, don't strain yourself. We are about to reach my home", I said. He slowly started to close his eyes.

"Mom, Dad, are you there? Please open the door ASAP", as I kept on knocking the door in hurry.

My father saw both of us and he quickly took that young boy for first aid care without even asking. He told my mom to look after me as I had lesser wound compared to that young boy.

My mom on the other hand started to yell at me each time when she rotated the bandage around my hand.

"I knew a day like this would come" said my mom scolding me for walking alone in night and for taking that subway route short cut.

I nodded to whatever she had to say as my pain felt nothing when compared to her yelling noise. After some time, we all had our dinner as I started to walk them through of all the incidents that had happened to me and how this young boy risked his everything to save me. My parents started to like him more than me which was fine for me as I started to see him as my little young brother.

After dining, I took him to the veranda to show him the beautiful view of the city at night lights. While he was watching, I had several questions running on my mind.

"Go ahead, ask me", he said even before I started to ask. It made me comfortable as if I was talking to some person who was as matured as my father.

I asked him, "Do you have any sisters?"

"No", he said.

"Anything like this ever happened to someone who were close to you?"

"No", he said.

"Then why didn't you give up knowing that you can't win against them?"

He smiled and said, "I don't need a reason to help someone who is in need. Even if I'm not able to help them completely, I could at least try to be there for them"

After hearing his answer, I decided to always be there for him.

And he looked so thin, so I thought to ask a personal question to him.

"What would you do for food when you didn't get any money for that day from people?"

"Sometimes I save food for the other days.

Sometimes I go without eating for days", he said.

"Why didn't you steal food even when you were hungry?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Yes I am homeless, I starve for food, but I would never take anything from anyone without asking them", he proudly replied.

This answer made me to realize that all people do have hunger and yet this boy who doesn't have anything with him still remains human.

"Enough chatting, it’s time to sleep", said my father as he brought both of us down to our rooms.

My dad peeped into my room to check whether I was able to properly sleep that night. When he opened the door, I pretend to sleeping. He had noticed this and understood that I was deeply thinking about something. He slowly came to me and whispered in my ears, "Now you have completely transformed into a beautiful butterfly that knows when to fly!"

It made me to smile and cry at the same time.

Then I asked him, "Why do women face these kind of cruelty in this world."

He consoled me and said,

"It was not your fault or any other women fault. Most of the people are like that and we can't change them. But we can always try to protect ourselves from them and then he quoted Mahatma Gandhi’s saying, 'the day a woman can walk freely at midnight on the roads, that day we can say that we have achieved independence' ".

Even though I was not fully convinced with his reply, I tried to put a smile on my face and said "good night papa". After he went, I was trying to sleep, but couldn't able to close my eyes. I was thinking so hard about the reasons behind these incidents. Not only women of my age, even small kids are being a prey to these people. I couldn't find the reasons on my own by thinking like a women, so I thought I could get help from that boy who helped me earlier.

Next day when I waked up I couldn't find him anywhere in the home.

"He wanted to go back to his own subway" my father said when I asked him.

"Didn't you and mom insist him to stay here permanently?" I asked furiously.

"We did, but he said that he was already so grateful to us and he would come here whenever he wanted to", said my father.

I got ready to ask him few more questions as only he would be able to answer my questions. So I decided to meet him once again in that subway.

He was sleeping there, I didn't want to wake him up, so waited there until he wakes up. I took my cracked phone near that ditch and connected it to the power bank.

He slowly opened his eyes and this time I had his cute smile in my face and greeted him “Good morning”. He was very happy to see me and asked me exactly what I was thinking in my mind.

"Do you want to change these people, even though what they have done to you?" he asked.

"Yes", I said.

"There's nothing you could do to change people like them, but there is one way!" he said.

“What is that, what that is?" I couldn't hold my eagerness, so asked him quickly.

Instead of answering, he asked me another question,

"Why do you think your virginity is important to you and why do you try to save yourself from these people when they attacked?"

For a moment I felt inconvenient when he asked a personal question, but I knew he was trying to help me to get answers, so I replied him,

 "Yes, it is important to me and I don't wish some people who I don't love to take it away from me unwillingly".

"What do you think to stop these people from repeating this?" he asked another question.

I wasn't sure of the answer, but I replied what I knew, that is "We can scrutinize the Laws and Regulation by imposing high level of punishments to these people. We can develop some safety tools to defend women’s at the time of danger like this. And at times, physically people like teammates, neighbours, brothers, parents, security can accompany women".

He listened to me patiently and asked, "Do these preventive measure really stop these people from repeating their crimes?"

“No”, I said. But it will cause fear inside them and they would think next time before doing such crimes.

"Yes", he said. But it causes only a temporary fear and eventually people would one day overcome these fears or find a loophole in the law or they would find a way to overcome all of your safety measures, but they would not change. They would wait for a chance or a situation to arise. Then they would repeat their crimes".

What he said was right, but I wasn't still getting the exact answer from him, so asked him, "What is that only way you said earlier?"

He replied, you had already answered it when I asked you "Why do you think virginity was important to you".

Then he added, "Only when this society and people in it starts to think that virginity of men are equally as important as women, then there would arise a solution where men would realizes the same way and would know it’s equally as important as how this society sees women's virginity”.

For a moment, I felt proud for being a woman and knowing its importance when he said this answer. I couldn't believe that he is just a young boy who has never went to school or met many women yet he understood and found a reasonable solution to this cruelty.

Then I said to him that I totally accept his answer, but how would each men realize this and change by themselves, isn't it impossible?

He smiled and said,

"The same way how you and other women’s realized its importance, i.e. from your Society and your Parents"!