As I was walking from home to school, I noticed many recruitment agencies put stalls on the street trying to recruit people. They seemed quite desperate and were practically asking anyone who passed by them. However, I also realized that they weren't approaching any women/girl, no matter how disheartened they appeared.
I approached them and asked why they weren't asking women to join their company. I know I wasn't brilliant to do so, but I couldn't help but become curious. When I asked them, the employees just laughed and said that only men were suitable for the job and that women would not be able to handle it. I was shocked to hear how disrespectful they were towards women and girls, but I decided to remain calm and walked away, ignoring them.
Despite my best efforts, I arrived at school late, causing me to miss the first period. Upon entering the classroom, I was met with a stern rebuke from my teacher, who clarified that my 'tardiness' was unacceptable. But it wasn't my fault, it was those businessmen who made me late. I knew I shouldn't have engaged with them, but I was shocked and disgusted by their disrespectful attitude towards women and girls.
In hindsight, I realized that I should have avoided engaging with them. Then, the class's least punctual student, Jack, came and sat down without even caring that he was late.
However, my teacher didn't even give a clue about him.
I am not sure what happened, but gender discrimination has been prevalent in my society for many years. According to my mother, this is due to the unfortunate societal preferences that discriminate against girls and sometimes even boys. While I am unaware of how boys are discriminated against, I am certain that girls face more discrimination in our society.
Anyway, I had a terrible day. Our teacher asked us to make a project based on discrimination against girls. I didn't think the teacher would make us write about that, maybe it's on the state project amplification test, which is mandatory for all government and privately-run schools. My best friend Mira and I worked hard on our project, but we only got a C+ while Jack's team got an A+++ even though their project was terrible.
The day then flew by, and before I knew it, I landed at home. Luckily, I did not forget the zero-discrimination book I borrowed from the school library. It was from the restricted section, which was off-limits to students. However, I was aware that the school did not promote non-discrimination books based on the preferences of my community. Therefore, I decided to borrow the book myself and read it.
As I flipped through its enchanting pages, I passed upon an unexpected line, it read “A prophecy is foretold of the great ancient ancestors that the one who is of female gender named America, Russia, Spain, Holland, and India will be the one to bring good in the world. However, it means that losing power would not be of dread, but of wonder, to stop the bad in its tracks as would be. No one would know who the heroine was to be.” ‘Well, that was strange,” I thought.
I was pondering over the riddle, whose name would start with America, Russia, Spain, Holland, and India? And, what power would be at a loss, and by whom?
It was all so confusing, just like the Oracle of Apollo, in Greek mythology
I could have thought more about it, but my mom called me for dinner early, as the plumber would be coming soon to fix the leak in our faucet.
While eating, I asked my mom whether she could tell me any good tips about solving riddles, so that I could use them to construct and make sense out of that weird prophecy. She told me that if you have to find a name using countries, it's most likely that the first letter of each country would join to form a name, but she couldn’t help with the next two lines, as they were confusing her too.
I decided to use my mom’s trick of cracking name riddles, and here’s what I got:
- America- A
- Russia- R
- Spain- S ARSHI
- Holland- H
- India- I
The name I got was my name, Arshi. I couldn’t believe it; I was the one who was destined to end discrimination. And, what about the other two lines- “However, losing power shall not be of dread but of wonder, stop the bad in its tracks” and “However no one would know who the heroine was to be”.
The third line was the only line that made sense to me. From it, I knew that my identity as the savior of the social progress of humanity would remain unbaptized.
However, I do have a lot of questions about my powers. How would I realize what my powers are? How would I eventually lose them? (as mentioned in the 2nd line of the prophecy) and most importantly, how do I stop discrimination?
As I lay down on my bed, all these thoughts were racing through my mind. I wanted to test my powers the next day but I didn’t even know them. I couldn’t turn to anyone for assistance either because of my anonymous identity. I tried to stay up devising plans but I drifted off into sleep. While sleeping, I had a dream, a horrible one. In the dream, I saw a man hitting a woman. She cried painfully in agony but the man just laughed and kept hitting her.
They seemed vaguely familiar as if I’d seen them before. That was when I recognized them, they were Mr. and Mrs. March, my neighbors. But I couldn’t believe that it was them. They were such a wonderful couple. And Mr. March wasn’t so cruel that he would hit his wife for no reason. But it was him, I could recognize his curly black hair that he always tried to straighten.
As he was about to hit her in the chest, I screamed,
“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” and woke up with a start
along with chills running down my spine. I looked at the clock, it was six in the morning, right on time. As I got ready for school, I couldn’t help but recall the horrifying dream I had the previous night. However, I decided to let go of it and focus on my schoolwork instead.
As I was walking to school, I saw Mrs. March who was covered in wounds and scars on her face, hands, and limbs. Concerned, I asked her what happened, and if she was okay. However, Mrs. March ominously replied, "I don't want to talk about it." Her response gave me another chill down my spine, and I began to fear that perhaps my nightmare had come true.
Well, my suspicions were correct because then I heard Mr. March speaking to her in a threatening way, “If you say a single word to any soul about your whipping last night, then I’ll make sure that you won’t be alive to ever see the sun again.
Then, I realized my first power, that I could see all the discrimination and horrible things happening around the world just in my dreams. I was still horrified by how disrespectful and threatening Mr. March was to females. But if I must face people like him alone, I don't know if I can save the world’s social progress.
During school, I sat beside my best and only friend, Mira, but she looked different today and seemed to be pretty shaken up. I asked her what was wrong, and she said with her voice quivering, “We’re the destined heroes who are supposed to end discrimination in the world.”
“Wait, what?! How do you know that?!”, I exclaimed. Just then, the teacher came and sternly told us that if any more noise was made by us, then would result in double detention for both of us.
After class, I questioned her sternly, “How do you know that we are the heroes of humanity’s social progress?”.
“I read a prophecy in a book about non-discrimination. It was from the restricted section of the library,” Mira replied. I told her that there was only one heroine who was supposed to do it alone and that I had read it in the same book. Mira shook her head and said, “If you read that in the same book, then you must have read a duplicate copy. The book I read was the original, whose author was unknown,” I believed her because she never lied, and I did read a duplicate copy. Then, I said, “OK, come to my house after school, and we’ll talk there.” Mira agreed and the school day (again) flew by.
When Mira came, we went to my bedroom and locked the door, as we didn’t want anyone to come to know about our crazy and anonymous identity.
Mira then read the true prophecy, “Heroes maketh glad shall be the ones to end discrimination on the run, however, be the heroes shall be, will lose their power with time’s cruel hands they will cower. But, won’t it be of dread, but will be of wonder, as Crystal society shall say America, Russia, Spain, Holland, and India along with Malaysia, Indonesia, Rome, and Austria shall be the ones to end the evil in this track.”
“We’re from Crystal Society, and the countries name us. I think I know what our first power might be. Yesterday, I had a dream, a frightening and horrible one, Mr. March hitting Mrs. March, despite her loud cries of agony. I somehow think that all of that might have been true,” Mira said, her voice still shaky.
“I had the same dream too. Unfortunately, I realized that the dream WAS true. Today, while walking home, I saw that Mrs. March was covered in scars and wounds. I also heard Mr. March threatening her that he would end her life if she told anyone.” I responded.
Then, I saw Mira jotting something down in her notebook. I asked her what she was writing. She told me that she was recording all our powers in a separate journal that she would keep safe at home, so we could keep track of all the abilities we were discovering.
That was a smart idea, so I agreed to it. We then created a timetable and roster for each one of us, which would include all the dreams we experienced while sleeping at night for the next four days straight. If we had the same dreams for four days in a row, it would be clear that we had the power to identify discrimination happening all around the world.
That night, I had another nightmare. It wasn’t as horrible as the previous one, but it was still distressing. I saw a woman and a man who were trying to get hired in a business company as employees. The boss, who looked quite robust, scrutinized them like a hawk.
It was evident from the conversation that the woman was much more skilled and confident in her expertise. However, the boss dismissed her and declared that the man, who was utterly clueless about business, would be the manager. The woman tried to reason with him, but he just yelled at her and kicked her out of the office, literally.
It was so unfair! I wanted to tell the woman to go back and demand her rightful position as manager of the company, but I couldn’t because I wasn’t physically there—it was just a dream.
I woke up feeling angry and helpless and hurriedly got ready for school. I then wrote about my dream on my roster and this time, went to school by bus, as I was in a hurry to meet with Mira. I sat with Mira on the bus, and we both showed our dreams summaries. They were the same, so far so good.
This continued for the next 4 days and finally, we concluded that this was our first ability, the power to see discrimination happening across the world.
But for the next 5 months straight, we didn’t discover any new powers except for the one we discovered. So, Mira and I planned a meeting at her house to prepare a plan for ending discrimination after our senior year at high school (which was tomorrow!).
Mira and I had gotten into the same college, but we still needed a plan ASAP. After calculating the percentages of the population and the need for various air travel vehicles, we realized we required exactly 123 trillion dollars! How in the world would we get all that money? We decided to combine both our pocket money, but we only had around 5000 dollars. We agreed to think about it once we settled into our dorm rooms. Luckily, in college, we were assigned the same dorm rooms, so we could discuss it all day (well, after classes, anyway).
As Mira and I entered our dorm room, we felt a sense of reverence surround us. It was the perfect sanctuary for comfortable self-study and fraternization. After our classes were over, we immediately started brainstorming ideas about what to do after we got the money. We only had a few weeks left before our Christmas vacation, but by then, we needed to make 123 trillion dollars, or else we wouldn't be able to save the world. As it was already 2 am and we had an important test the next day, we decided to adjourn the meeting.
The next day, after classes, we received an envelope. When I opened the envelope, I shouted in delight! Mira heard my sound and came running towards me asking me what happened, then she saw it and screamed in happiness too. Someone had left us a huge envelope inside which there were 500 trillion dollars! We turned the envelope to see who had given so much money. And the moment we saw the name we were shocked! It was Mrs.
March. I knew she was well-off but I never knew that she was trillionaire rich! She also wrote another letter saying how much she was thankful for us. Because, ever since we started asking her what happened, she became confident to complain to the police about her husband, the cruel Mr. March, and he was arrested. Good riddance!
We were ecstatic seeing the money, now that our Christmas vacation had started, we could travel around the world righting the wrongs done due to discrimination. We even fought for the rights of indigenous people to education all over the world.
Although much progress has been made, there is still no country that call themselves free of any inequalities.
You can contribute to helping reduce inequalities too! At your school or make changes in your society or apartment. Even you can have the power in you to stop discrimination, but it depends, if you want to use it or not.
And what about Mira and me? Well, we’re still performing our roles as heroes, but we still have long, long way to go.