KhepiAri

(This blog post is written for the Blogathon competition hosted by Women's Web in collaboration with the Maya App, copy the link-> http://www.womensweb.in/2016/10/periodpride-blogathon/ or click on the hashtag #PeriodPride ) In whispers and giggles it had entered our ears 'a girl had bled', a bleeding girl is lonely, but a herd of bleeding girls is celebration. A girls first blush is celebrated in Assam as Tuloni Biya, she is kept inside the house for three days, on the fourth evening she is decked up as bride and a great feast is organised, it’s a coming of  age ceremony, a celebration of blooming into a woman, a tradition both praised and frowned upon. Growing up in Assam had made me attend many Tuloni Biyas, though my own close friends failed to invite me in their own celebrations [traitors]. Being a Bengali I never got my own feast, Bongs are on the hushier side of washing the bloody undies in public. This ritual is celebrated by the whole community; i

First time I saw a mannequin is a memory lost in the Ocean. My major encounter with one happened when I was around seven. I was visiting my paternal home during summer vacation, on one particular horrible summer day my family had decided to go shopping. That was where I met a doll that was my size and wearing a metallic brown skirt, I fell in love with that skirt at first sight. Poor doll was also wearing a bottle green sleeveless tee, the greedy me desired that too. Shopkeepers found me exact copy-paste of the brown skirt, but when it came to the tee, they didn’t have another in stock. They bought me white full sleeved white shirt with red flowers, a yellow collared shirt, a pink frilly blouse, but I wanted that bottle green tee. Meanwhile my sister, mom and dad had selected their clothes; I was still stuck on the green tee. My love for green has been dominant trait since childhood; those were first strikes of my green-insanity. I made the shopkeepers bent to my demand, ra