Lady Enigma

The Seminar

"So where is this amphitheater?" I ask while holding my phone between my ear and shoulder with Adhvaith on his Google Maps, asking people for the address.

"Are you seriously coming here?" Kiran exclaimed, "you don't have to, Vijay!" She sighed.

"Oh! I forgot to tell you. You will have four more guests too." I inform her.

"What?" She yelled.

"I guess, no one wants to miss Kiran Kathyayini's speech." I tease her with a chuckle. "Relax Kiran. We will just be part of the crowd." I soothe her "you'll do well. Trust me." I say honestly.

"Thank you. I was feeling nervous a while back." She confided. "Clap for me then." She joked.

"Oh definitely!" I endorse. She cut the line with a hearty laugh.

Kiran was invited as an orator by an association of trauma centers for acid attack survivors. She informed me yesterday and somehow, the news slithered to the only shrimp in my friend's circle. Who do you think? Adhvaith! And therefore, my mother and Likitha got the news. No one wanted to leave the opportunity to meet the one and only Kiran.

So, that makes Adhvaith, Mom, Likitha, her girlfriend Dhanvi, and me. Five of us.

After a lot of roaming around, we finally reached our location, occupying the middle section of the theater. The place was filled with young girls and boys who survived third-degree burns, that ruined their body, and self-esteem.

I hope they will find their motivation here. After about ten minutes, the host, Catherine Mehra, an acid attack and sexual harassment survivor, addressed the audience.

"Very good morning everyone. I Catherine, the co-founder of Teresa Trauma Centers, welcomes you to the annual event of Over Coming from our pasts..."

She explains that they aim to motivate the young generation of survivors in an attempt to reduce the number of suicides among adolescents. She called those who recently suffered from severe burns and let them explain how they got through so far.

Those kids explained how the burns felt like. How they got treated by the doctors and how they felt more terrible as the days passed.

Dhanvi was on the verge of tears and excused herself for a moment. The host explained how their trauma center aided them and provided rehabilitation and elucidated how the interested parties can make donations.

"... Now I would like to call upon one of our beloved patients, who so beautifully recovered from not only her burns but also her trauma, guiding many people not to give up on their dreams. Kiran, over to you." She welcomed Kiran onto the stage who was very much flustered and warmly welcomed by a big applaud from the audience.

"KIRAN!" Adhvaith howled along with a whistle.

I swear I'm going to-

"Thank you, everyone," Kiran expressed while taking her time to get used to the view and sound. "It is an honor to stand here, and talk to my fellow human beings who are doing a great job at surviving on this planet."

"I feel recognized!" Likitha whispered in my ear.

"Hi. I am Kiran Kathyayini. I am a junior law practitioner. I am an acid attack survivor of the 2018 batch." Everyone laughed despite themselves. "Yeah. I was attacked when I was in the fourth year of my graduate law degree."

"Before I go into this whole "motivation" thing, let me give you the premise of this." She said while gesturing her burns. "Even before this fateful coincidence, I was not much of a charmer. So the plot twist is that the attack wasn't meant for me."