She was alone in the house. It was mid morning and the weather was pleasant. There came an urge in her heart to do something special that day. She stealthily went into her mother’s room. She wanted to become more feminine just like her mother and started opening her trunks and drawers where she kept her clothes and make up accessories. She took out all her dresses and tenderly arranged them on the bed. Those were delicate, soft touching garments with hues like rainbows. She wanted to try these on. She removed her drab clothes and stood in front of the mirror. She selected a light green salwar kamiz and put it on her. The mirror nodded in approval. She found a matching dopatta and tried different modes of covering her head. She put that silken scarf on her head and folded one end across her breast and the other over her shoulder. She thought she looked pretty. She had broken through that barrier of embarrassment and wanted to try the jewellery. She took out a golden tikka with jeweled crested stones of blue and read, tied the cord across her parted hair over the head. She further decked herself with a golden necklace and slowly slid rows of bright golden bangle across her wrists. Next she put some rouge on her cheeks and blended it with cotton wool to give her skin a delicate hue. The lipstick enhanced her already voluptuous lips. She looked into the mirror and the mirror nodded back in approval again. She never looked so pretty and looking at her reflection, she blushed. She always thought herself ugly and now this miracle has happened. She again looked at her reflection in the mirror, turning around and around. She felt proud, the mounds of her breast began to swell and a flush came all over her body So this was being feminine, a feminine life full of grace, sensuality and physical well being and that there was touching on the verge of Being. The Being, which was so full, so beautiful and pregnant with potentialities and with a dazzling array of infinite dimensions, took over. She felt dazed. The ugly duckling had come off age. Durlabh Singh © 2013.