A Cinde-real-la Story

Once upon a time (clichéd) not in a very far off kingdom, lived a beautiful princess called Cinderella. She was sweet, adorable and sensitive (very clichéd). She loved reading poetry, going for walks and feeding squirrels. Blessed with a doting set of parents, Cinderella was basically having loads of fun in her life. Her father would fulfill all her wishes while her mother would tell stories of a handsome prince, who would come from some far-away land and take her with him, forever…

So Cinderella, right from her cradle days, fantasized about this knight in shining armor, riding a white horse. He would, she thought, come to her, bend down on his knees and ask for her hand (typically SRK’s look in the title track of ‘Baazigar’)

Cinderella would dream day in and day out how he would sweep her off her feet (while ‘andekha anjana sa’ played as the background score). She had read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ several times and was close to completing the M & B series. Now Cinderella’s mother passed away and as the fairy-tale has it, after a few years, her father remarried and died too (I guess her step-mom poisoned her father. Err…I better keep my soap-loaded brain from stinking)

Anyways, Cinderella’s position transformed, in the palace, from that of a princess to a maid. Her step-mother and step-sisters would give her every possible grief so much so that they have become the ideal step-mom and step-sisters (their efforts paid off eventually!!)

But Cinderella, besides all her princely attributes was quintessentially thick-skinned. She still kept thinking about the mysterious prince to come and rescue her. Well.. the fairy-tale has to move on (yawn) so the prince of the kingdom invites all the citizens for a banquet. Everybody goes, except for our poor girl. Our fairy godmother appears and with the help of two rats and a pumpkin, metamorphosed the battered Cinderella into a young beautiful princess again (many shampoo, fairness creams and face-wash makers had lined outside her house to make her their brand ambassador)

All decked up, Cinderella reaches the palace, dances with the prince, leaves her shoe and comes back.
So far, so good.

The twist in the tale happens when the shoe, as circulated by the prince, in his kingdom, does not fit anyone. 
This time, not even Cinderella. Because that night, while returning from the ball, Cinderella met with an accident and lost both her legs.

Gross? Sad?? Ok.. let me give you other options as to why the prince could never find Cinderella. 
The shoe was lost/ broke before it reached Cinderella
Or the prince picked someone else’s shoe..
Or say the prince could not arrive (all these years, he has been foolishly riding a wooden horse, never to come)
Or the shoe fit Cinderella’s mom (this was the ending when we performed the Cinderella play in our department. Ironically I was playing Cinderella)
Or the prince turned gay?!!

(I guess I have tested your patience enough) The point I’m trying to make is that Cinderella never got the prince. Either he never existed. Or even if he did, they could never meet.

After that Cinderella’s step-mom got her married to a goldsmith (twice her age) from the neighboring kingdom.

It’s a sad story indeed… indeed.. for poor Cinderella.. to lead a life full of hardships. But who is to be blamed? Her dead mother? Or ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and M & B? Or the hundreds of mushy flicks which nailed the concept of the ‘prince’ in her mind?? If she had never dreamt about this guy, she would have felt half as bad getting married to the bald goldsmith. Even now, every night, Cinderella sits by her window, looks at the moon and wonders about her ‘prince’.

Isn’t there a bit of Cinderella in all of us? And isn’t it high-time we killed it before we face the gruesome realities of life?

The prince never existed.. never will. Because life is not a fairy-tale. It is for real.