From Darkness ……… To Light

A newspaper advertisement made it all. It was one fine morning that

Snigdha was going through the pages of the newspaper, when suddenly she
came across an advertisement which said, ‘ASPIRING MODELS
REQUIRED’. She kept turning over the pages as if she had overlooked it.
But still somehow that little coloured portion of the newspaper seemed not
to get out of her mind. She turned back to that page and went through the
advertisement again and again.

The advertisement somehow had a magnetic effect on her mind and

even though she went to school, she could not get out of that particular
magical trance, that had already started spreading over her. A student of the
11th standard and good in academics, Snigdha never even dreamt of getting
into modeling. But somehow she just could not stop brooding over what she
saw in the newspaper in the morning. She could feel the tremendous tug-of-
war going between her heart and mind. On one hand she was determined to
become a journalist—idolizing one of the lady journalists of a leading
national television channel; and on the other hand she thought of the huge
world of glamour—the various beauty pageants where girls made it big. The
arch lights, the costumes, the glamour, and the fame— everything began to
spread an invisible web around her within which, subconsciously, she was
getting entangled day by day.

Days, weeks and months kept passing at their own pace. But the
magical trance had already started having its effect on Snigdha. By the end
of her academic year she found herself in a studio, ready for her first photo
shoot. A girl of the tender age of 16 had already placed her first step on the
doors of the world of glamour and modeling. Innocent and pure from the
core of her heart, Snigdha was unaware of what went behind those blinding
arch lights, the ramp, the costumes, the glamour and the fame that she
prioritized over anything else for the time-being. Intelligent enough, she
fared well in academics too and was promoted to the 12th standard. This gave
her the zeal to continue and remain a part of the glam-world along with her
studies.

Snigdha hailed from a middle-class background. Both her parents

were government-sector employees—who were completely ignorant about
the world of fashion. All they knew was that it was a big, bad world where
simple innocent girls are exploited to an unimaginable extent. The T.V
channels, newspapers and all forms of media kept bringing out, and
highlighting the negative spheres of this world of fashion as a daily diet for
the common people. Snigdha, therefore was very much conscious of her if
and when they came to know about her ‘strange passion’. So, she decided to
keep every detail of her passion under wraps and awaited the right time to
open up in front of them. She was a very simple lass. The physical
requirements required for being a model was absent in her. She was short,
dark in complexion and was not at all beautiful to be admired. Yet, she had
that spark within her that made her stand out of the crowd. Any girl of her
age, by then, would have been a prey to one or several affairs. But Snigdha
was different. She made sure that no finger was ever raised at her for being
in an affair with anyone. The ideas of love or marriage never cropped up in
her mind. She was matured enough to hold these as detrimental to her
passion and education. To her, love meant dance—as she was a good dancer
and an equally noted one in her school; the next was swimming, then came
sleeping and writing—these two being her all-time favourites, and last but
not the least, modeling.

Her first photo shoot was for a magazine on the theme ‘Loneliness’.
Incidentally or accidentally, this was something that Snigdha was a victim
to, right from her very childhood; and the memories of the shoot somehow
left an indelible impression on her mind. She, although an amateur in this
field had already proving herself. Right from the editor of the magazine to
the make-up artist—everyone was taken to surprise by the expressions that
she gave all throughout her shoot. She was even asked whether she ever
faced the camera before; but her answer was in the negative—and this was
even more surprising as generally girls and boys are often very nervous at
facing the camera for the first time.

Gradually more and more assignments came her way and she kept on
taking them up. But at the same time, she never thought of doing a half-
hearted job. Modeling, by then had already become a hard-core passion for
her, and she did justice to every assignment she took up. Her modeling
graph was on the rise. On her academic front, there was a landslide. She
suddenly found herself going down. She was in the 12th standard and had her
board examinations the following year. Although she never ranked in class,
yet, she was one of the noted students. Therefore this sudden negative slope
in her academics’ graph brought a frown on the face of her teachers as well
as her parents. No one other than she herself and the Almighty understood
the reason behind her downfall. By and by, she understood that she was
somewhere neglecting her studies for over-prioritizing her passion. She, who
was a perfect-attendance certificate holder, for over 10 years of her school
life, began missing out on her classes and tuitions, and instead the studios
became nearer and dearer to her. Whenever teachers questioned, she always
had an explanation ready to defend herself.

By then, Snigdha had already become a familiar face in the world of

glamour. She had her hands full with offers from magazines, newspapers
and advertising agencies and was on cloud nine. Her days began with
exercise and ended with a sound sleep. There was no mention of studies on
her daily routine. Her parents knew that she was going to school on a regular
basis and so they never questioned. They never even took any measures to
find out whether their daughter was actually attending her classes or not.
They believed in their daughter more than anything else and Snigdha took
this advantage of exploiting them. She kept on getting offers for ramp-
shows, where she was required to display certain costumes. She was
overwhelmed. She never thought herself to be capable enough to walk the
ramp with those people who’ve been reigning the glam world, though not on
an international or national level, but most obviously of that in the city.
Snigdha accepted the offer with wide open arms.

It was the month of November and her exam reports were out. She
had fared miserably bad this time which gave a huge shock to her parents
and her teachers. They al thought that her luck did not favour her as she had
always been a good student. Her board examinations were just 4months
away. All suggestions from her teachers and her parents had no effect on her
which was very evident from her next exam’s reports that came out in the
month of February, the following year where she fared even worse. Her
parents decided of not allowing her to appear for her boards examinations.
This decision had an enchanting effect on her. The girl, who could not have
a good night’s sleep if she never went for a shoot, stopped everything—but
for the time-being. She was determined to appear for her boards at any cost
and she had only 15days in her hands. The girl, who had gone off the track
to pursue modeling, called up all agencies to give her a break for a couple of
months. She was determined to get through her boards well. For those
15days, her nights and days were turned into one. She got sunk in the ocean
of books and studies. It seemed as if the whole world was unknown to her,
except her books. Days flew, and it was again the time for her board’s
results. To everyone’s surprise, she ranked somewhere 10th to 15th in her
school. Her teachers were totally speechless! Snigdha never thought that she
would fare so well and took the incident as a miracle. Still, somewhere she
believed that hard work does pay off.

She got admitted to one of the city’s esteemed colleges and again
resumed her so called ‘passion’. Snigdha grew up with time. By then, she
had become a popular face in page-3. The ramp, the blinding archlights, the
costumes continued to attract her and they became an indispensable part of
her life. She became a regular face at nearly all ramp-shows and won
accolades for the agency she hailed from, for showcasing the costumes.
Gradually, she got acquainted with the dark side of this world. Extortion,
forced physical relations, intake of dangerous drugs, extra-marital affairs,
night-outs with different partners—nothing avoided her eyes. Snigdha had a
few principles of her own, which she strictly maintained even if that meant
losing out on some big assignments. She stuck herself to her principles so
much so, that nobody could ever raise a finger at her on the fact that she
resorted to unfair means in order to get more assignments. She mingled with
everybody, yet remained aloof from all. To Snigdha her principles came first
than that of showcasing certain outfits. She was never a show-stopper
because of her lack of experience, yet she was no less than one, in any
attribute. She excelled in the field faster than anyone of her time. Modeling
was a mere passion to this girl as she never took any remuneration in the
form of cash. She never thought of making it her profession, because, her
future was pre-defined and pre-destined. But she still continued to b a
familiar face at all shows and at the zenith of her passion.

Life had a completely different story written for Snigdha. During the
last year of her college life, she met and came in close contact with
somebody in whom she shared her incompleteness. This person had a
tremendous influence over her. They were completely opposite, yet so
similar to each other. The immature girl slowly began learning things that
she had earlier not paid heed to. With this person, she began to share those
moments, thoughts and incidents which she had never shared with anyone
earlier in life. It seemed that each one of them was in the search for the
other, and both surrendered themselves to each other unconditionally.
Coming under the influence of this person, Snigdha realized how special she
was. She realized that no single person in the world is perfect. People do
make mistakes but do not realize them mainly because of three reasons—
firstly, either they do not want to change themselves, or secondly, they
cannot or do not mirror themselves properly or, thirdly, they do not have
anyone to point out their mistakes according to their cognition and
subsequently help them overcome those. For Snigdha, it was the last two
reasons. Even after hailing from the world of fashion and glamour, Snigdha
could swear on her purity and chastity. She was more like clay, to whom this
person gave shape and transformed her into a complete lady. Snigdha
surrendered herself blindly and silently. Their relationship blossomed and
both were equally settled in their respective fields of careers.

Today, Snigdha is married and a happy mother of a lovely daughter,

yet she continues to remain a familiar face on the television, magazines,
newspapers and all forms of the media—but no longer as a ramp-firing
model but instead as a senior investigating journalist of one of the country’s
leading satellite news-channel…….. Some relationships do become the
designer of our future if we want them to be so. Snigdha continues to live
today as a live example to this……..