TWINKLE

She has not died and gone to heaven; Twinkle is still alive and somewhat kicking. The world above has to keep waiting as yet. She is not a diamond any more however, she has lost her sparkle.

At the age of ten she was the little girl who stunned everyone with her intelligence and the beautiful dusky face that was showing signs of becoming alluring in her late teens. Her intelligence became a force with time but by the time she was fifteen her alluring face and fast developing body lured men, well some of them were pimply teenagers but many were lecherous middle aged 'uncles'.

She cruised through her grades with tremendous ease and ended up giving the school finals a year earlier than her peers. She was fifteen then. She no longer played with the little children that she had previously loved doing. Her parents put a bar on that. She still looked at the children kicking a ball all over the barren field, grass stopped growing on it with scant maintenance, the top soil was gone in any case. She identified herself more with the sadness the bald field represented than the joys of the playing children. She became a prisoner of her own beauty.

Twinkle, now in her late forties, is married with children of her own and holds a professorship in a well renowned university of her city. She remains a head turner but a discerning eye will see a look of unfulfillment in her doe eyes.

By the first year of college, she was finding it hard to walk on the streets because of all the catcalls and the missives hitting her like missiles containing undying love. Her parents were on tenterhooks every time she had to leave the house for academic pursuits. They felt that their "little" girl would be traumatised even abducted by the hooligans. They provided the family car for conveyance whenever possible but that was not always possible.

Relatives and family friends came to their rescue with suggestions of an early marriage for Twinkle. It was a sheer 'coincidence' that they all produced pictures of suitable men willing to marry her without any qualms whatsoever. These prospective suitors were at the least a decade older than her, some even older. In our society money is a big persuader, always. But Twinkle's parents were quite well off, short of rich though, and so decided to show interest to a man of good prospects and with appreciation of women's interests of pursuing higher education. One such college lecturer was of choice to her parents. She was seventeen and he twenty six. The wedding date was fixed and one festive night Twinkle went off to a future of 'marital bliss'. No one asked her if she had any boyfriends. She actually didn't, when did she get the time? But she knew enough that all the fun times of her teenage years were wiped clean like a slate with a rag.

Today, Twinkle has the reputation of a 'man-eater'. Her husband's lower intellect ceded control of their marriage to her within a few years. She has completed her higher studies in her preferred discipline and also completed her doctorate before becoming a professor at the university. During this time of pursuit of education she had two babies, a boy and a girl.

Once married, she got a grip on her situation and became an efficient wife that allowed her to keep her studies up. At thirty five, she found one day that her children were independent of any parental control and her husband was totally absorbed with the office papers he had started to bring home. She was finally free to live her life.

She launched into a social life. She started flirting with unmarried men of various ages as well as married ones. The twinkle was back on Twinkle's eye. She slept with several men for ephemeral pleasure; the men felt over the moon having had sex with the most beautiful faculty member.

Twinkle, in the middle of a depraved lifestyle, wonders how life could have been different. How a little laxity from her parents would have allowed a little more in her life, maybe she could even have had a regular teenage affair. How would that love have been? Every new lover she catches on her net, she wants a teenage style romance from him but men after a certain age are very unlikely to commit, let alone take part in fantasies.

She, at forty eight, is still looking for a man who is also looking for a lost teenager like her. But those men seem few and far between. Right now, however, she welcomes her new teaching assistant, a man in his late twenties, and looking ready enough.