once i was medusa

by Garima Chhikara

Medusa, that’s what they called me for a brief period in college. The boys invited me to everything: parties, going to the beach when it was closed at night, watch parties for cricket or trending shows at the time. They asked me about all sorts of things, even the sauces I liked in a Subway sandwich. They cheered, wooed, tapped my shoulder, and took selfies mimicking pouts and tongues out.

They knew my name, but they chose Medusa, the goddess, the untouchable, the stone-eyed killer from their favorite game.

I thought they meant it as mockery. But they shouted it in exaltation, like a banner lifted high.

Before I was Medusa, I believed happiness meant silence. It was something I had learned from my mother, silent, but strong in the face of hardships, humiliations, and constant noise. She didn’t react. She processed.

She says, sharing good things invites the evil eye. But pointing out the cracks does too. Why rattle the thali (plate) when it looks full?

When I began seeing him, the boy who was popular enough to be smug, I held back on my thoughts and opinions. I kept my focus on what I was getting from the relationship: a college experience, a story to tell my one true love someday, when he leans in and says, I wish I’d met you sooner.

I even held back on kissing, in how I moved when we were intimate. This, I thought, was attractive.

Initially, I liked the power I felt when I consoled him as he showed up in the middle of the night, high on something, spilling whatever stung him about the world and himself. My hands would gently draw wings on his scars so they could fly away.

But then one day, I saw him brush it off in the morning, like my care had left a stain he couldn’t bear to see. The residue of his toxic dump stayed with me. I was merely a vessel to contain everything he didn’t want to keep.

I began to despise his every word, breath, touch, gaze, and silence. Everything he did felt like a test of my sanity.

It was like the universe had sensed my silence, no, my ignorance. The evil eye got to me.

Then, one particular night, something like a powerful stroke of light blew open within me. It was the day Medusa was born.

I’d brought this boy (my first boyfriend) to his knees, right there among his people, his brothers. The boy who dominated debate clubs and never shut up at parties: always sounding off about Kashmir and Gujarat—two major flashpoints in Indian history, as if invoking old tragedies made him insightful. He talked about how the world was broken, how humans exist only to please others, how feminism was a farce, how many laws were unreasonably in favor of women.

But it was all just stoned spirals, loud in his head, empty in the room. He never listened for answers. He only wanted to hear himself talk.

When I spoke that night, he didn’t have a comeback. Maybe he didn’t understand, or maybe he just couldn’t.

I had said something like,

“If I could write you a Shayari, I would.

But it wouldn’t rhyme because you don’t stand on any ground I recognize.

It wouldn’t make sense, much like your questions about existence, the ones you answer yourself before anyone can name them what they are: gibberish.

It wouldn’t be poetic either, with stars or sun or beauty. You haven’t seen any of that.

You, stoned philosopher. Raja beta with a mic.”

At first, I worried I’d gone too far. Had I hurt his ego? Would he retaliate? I knew he wouldn’t do that. But that didn’t stop my brain from jumping to headlines, to necks slashed for less.

Medusa. Medusa. Medusa. The name stuck like a jolt that burned inside me.

Then, I mistook it for respect. I told them they could worship me. I offered my company, my views, my playfulness like a river that couldn’t be dammed.

Little did I know at the time that it was a game. A carefully constructed one, maybe even revenge for their brother.

The praise, the attention, was designed to make me drop my guard. To wear me out with debates, flirtation, distractions, and attention-seeking games.

And it worked. I dried up faster than they expected, like someone had squeezed all joy, charm, even meaning out of me.

I couldn’t keep wearing that version of myself they liked, like performance-level makeup reapplied every few hours. I couldn’t be seen without it. I was certain my destruction would follow if they saw the real me. That’s the thing, putting up those appearances for them made me forget that it was the real me who had spoken that night.

Then, they began withdrawing it slowly, like pulling me off a drug. I was the addict now. I was supposed to crave it, and in return, offer more.

And if I did, I’d just be another girl they could say was “asking for it,” for attention, for validation—making it fair game to take.

They wouldn’t call it manipulation, of course. They’d call it a journey. A discovery. An adventure tinged with playful teasing, after all, we’re all young and wild, right?

Somewhere, I’d heard before that a girl's life is an empty page that men are always eager to write their stories on. If you’re lucky, they only try once.

I stopped trying. Stripped myself of the crown before they could.

It’s okay to fade away. It’s okay to stop trying to make your presence known. I told myself.

Medusa disappeared like she never even existed. But its throbbing lingered, like grief.

I don’t wish to be her again, but something else: something different, something alien, something unformed, wholly mine.

Or maybe, someone else will be God, and it will be because of me.

Photo of Garima Chhikara

BIO: Garima Chhikara is a writer from Bangalore, India. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Forge Literary Magazine, Hypertext Magazine, Hobart, Cherry Tree, Lost Balloon, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find her at garimachhikara.com.