Those beautiful red cheeks!!

I was in class two and we were celebrating Independence day in school. All of us in class were dressed in ethnic wear or elaborate props to play our respective roles in the school play. Some were dressed as christians, some muslims, some parsi, some hindu , some as British and some in plain khadi. There was even a Gandhi, a Subash Chandra Bose, Annie Besant and Indira Gandhi among us. I was dressed to portray the role of a Gujrati. Dressed in vibrant lehenga -choli, I looked cute. But in my heart, I still found my classmate dressed in all white as a christian the most beautiful. She had the pinkish-red tinge on  her cheeks which made her look even more lovely. Since morning till the play started, I went several time to check my look in the mirror but I was still in awe of her red cheeks despite having bright red lips myself. After the play ended all of us were applauded and commended for presenting a wonderful play depicting our struggle for freedom, our togetherness, brotherhood and unity in diversity. We were all sitting in the garden outside our school auditorium. Some were eating chips and some were drinking frooti given as refreshment to us. But I was just noticing those glowing red cheeks ! Suddenly, I saw a girl sitting next to me applying same red color on her lips. I asked her if I could borrow that red paint. ( I didn’t know what a lipstick was till that time !) She gave me a maroon,golden coloured stick with something red popping out of it. As I held it in my hand, I was overjoyed. I ran to nearest washroom. Next thing I remember is that I saw everyone standing around me in circle and laughing incessantly. Ocean big tears were tricking down my eyes and I was rubbing hard my cheeks. I had put up the “red paint” ( borrowed lipstick) on my cheeks to match that perfect red tinge my classmate had. Seeing the elaborate drama around me, my class teacher rushed me to the washroom and cleaned my face with her handkerchief. She listened to my story and just hugged me. 

                                             

At 12pm when all of us were being escorted to the school bus, my class teacher called me up and asked me to close my eyes. I opened my eyes to see a familiar maroon,golden stick but this time with a pink “paint” ahead of it. She kept it on my palm and told me this is a gift for you my little princess. She then applied the pink “lipstick” on my lips and showed me my face in her hand mirror. I was surprized to see a mesmerizing red tinge on my cheeks that I was looking for since morning (though it came due to enormous crying and scrubbing of the face to get rid of the red color I had smeared on my face). I was extremely happy and went back home singing and dancing. But my mother till today, fails to understand the reason why an old pink lipstick is always in my handbag even after 20 years and whenever I see it I smile like a princess with bright red cheeks !!