The witch of...

I will probably never finish this one, over a year now and I have barely finished reading a little over half. Nevermind.

I read about witches in Western fairy tales and more often than not, they are evil, have long noses and ugly distorted faces with dirty clothes and that hideous hat. Her favourite black cat and her broom. She, also, has a wand. In oriental folklore, the witch is a demoness, has fangs, is extremely ugly to behold, wears human bones for jewellery and well, the list is endless.

However, Mandrake is a magician, not a wizard. My grammar teacher in school told me that the masculine counterpart of a witch is a wizard. There is lot of positivity associated with the word “wizard”. We love wizards, we love “The wizard of oz” and we also, love magicians.

Most hate witches, a few secretly wish to be and learn about the darker side of knowledge. Not all of us can be fairies, nice and smiling and walking around with that halo and those heavy wings to be there at Cinderalla’s beck and call.

Witches and fairies wave their wands. One is loved, the other hated. The offended fairy turned ‘witch’ casts a spell and Sleeping Beauty sleeps to be woken up by a kiss of true love from her Prince. Sleeping Beauty would be sleeping still and story never a fairytale had it not been for a nasty fairy (turned witch?).

Sabrina is an adorable new age witch who lives in Archies comics, in an upmarket neighbourhood and attends school in Riverdale with Archie and gang. Nicole Kidman did the rest.

In real everyday parlance, the ‘w’ in ‘witch’ blurs to ‘b’ and the obvious is nasty which some take it as a compliment.

I believe all of us are witches at some level, we love to be wicked and bad sometimes, don’t we? Sometimes you wished this or that, and voila! Your energies are so influential, your wish comes true.

Sometimes, your good intent is misread as an act of villainy and the letter blurs from ‘w’ to ‘b’ and you become a heretic, like Joan d’Arc. What was her fault? She saw visions, she wanted to help the Dauphin and save her dear France. She was burnt at the stake.

We have witch-hunting drives until now. The seers and bizarre looking mendicants are always offered alms and whatever.

If you knew a thing or two about the occult, people normally are ‘uh-oh’ about making conversation for the sake of it. They find you weird and wired. They get some glam quotient hanging around for the next “what’s up” session.

When things don’t go the way you want and you are partly responsible for damage control, you become a witch. You fight, to defend you become hoarse and harsh, rude is an understatement. The river flows again. The witch is forgotten. All she gets is, get berated. It’s in her legacy to be hunted.

There are days when I feel like a witch especially when I can’t promise “everything’s gonna be alright”. There are also occasions when I am told and informed by friends and loved ones that I ought to stop being a Joan of Arc because I am fast turning out to be a heretic and there is not going to be any divine intervention except the “I-told-you-so” familiar helplessness.

Work is worship. I am Everywoman, therefore, a witch? Roles I love to play which the world has no choice but to watch.