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What Makes One an Onion

by Ishita Shukla
(Hyderabad, India)

An onion……a vegetable used regularly in almost every house to cook food. A shade of somewhat mixed purple, pink, white, yellow, or maybe more – black when rotten! It has many layers; you find a new one every time you cut a little deeper.

Same are the people, people you meet every day, in every phase of life….so yes, what makes one an onion? What makes one onion is more than fifty shades of their soul and the layers of masks they wear? You discover a new one every time you try to look into a person’s heart a bit more closely.

“There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.” You find many people having different attitudes towards different people at the same time. A person who you feel is very nice may seem to be the worst human being after you spend some days with him/her. Or you may discover a cruel person to be the most beautiful at heart. People who are always smiling and cheerful might be found to be the most heartbroken when uncovered.

So, to recognize the true human being, you would slowly have to peel off their polished mask. You will have to do it with a patient heart and a tough mind as peeling off an onion always makes you cry! As you would reach the innermost layers, you would discover the true self of a person, a soul full of different hues of emotions, all painted on a single canvas, one above the other, trying to hide the others under. For often the person portrayed and the portrait is two entirely different things.

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