Immobile.

He's walking ahead of me in the corridor. All I can see is his back, yet I know; he knows I am behind him. His back is too rigid for him to not know, his head too immobile. He doesn't want to look back, because he can't look forward. Forward to a place and a time where a woman like me exists. Someone who cuts her hair short, who wears pants, and eyeliner, who has dared to remain single, unnaturally free from the yoke that a man rightfully imposes upon her, who doesn't cover her torso with a shawl and shame, who travels alone, whose forehead is not marked with religious fervor, who... the list is endless.

I am taller than him. I wonder if that bothers him. I watch his back, wondering if he'll turn. Why is there so much distance between us? Why is he so afraid of it? In his eyes, I am barely a woman. I try to imagine how it must be for him. If a being fits the description of a label only physically, but in no other way, could I accept it? A bear, brown and furry, but it flies in the air and glows at night. I want to tell him- but I'm normal, see? Just an average girl. It's you who lives in a different time. Then I look around- I'm in his world. I'm the odd one out. And he doesn't like it.

I've never really fully believed it when they say that people are afraid of the new. It isn't something I can quite grasp. In a Universe that destroys and recreates itself every second, what isn't new? And how could the new be anything but fascinating? I have much to learn. From a man who would blame a woman for her own rape? That's who he is. Yet, learning is learning. Not all books are pretty.

He told someone that I don't speak to him. Funny, because I did, the last time I saw him. I wished him good morning and I told him goodbye. Is fear deafening? Not literally. He's picking a fight, so that he may show me his power, so that he may make me suffer, so that he may punish me for ...being? So that he may make himself feel better. I doubt he will. So that he may reassure himself of his being in the right. He's not. Neither of us is wrong.

There will come a future when neither of us matters maybe. But now, we do. We do, because history repeats itself. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens fought for the right to live- a right they already had. All the wars- for rights already had. The Indians call it the Kali Yuga- an epoch of senseless violence. We live in it. We live in life.

Life reduces us in size and increases us in dimensions. Where did I read that? I want to tell him that. Could I make him understand, in a million years? I could use words that he knows, but there are worlds that he doesn't want to know. My world too.

Our worlds don't collide, not really. Why must we? Our worlds co-exist. Why can't we? He doesn't answer. He can't hear my questions. His fear is deafening, his back too rigid. He walks ahead of me, but his head is... immobile.

So bummed!

I solemnly vow to never ever again attempt to make a model of a diatomic molecule...

Ever.

Art Attack

So, I came across this article in the papers (when I was on the can (...TMI?)) and was flabbergasted. Really? The art world is fraught with such rivalries? It's almost like a parody! The world is one crazy place...

Not now.

I think the reason that I haven't written these last few months can be pinned down to something quite common- my past catching up with me. I topped my class in the first year B.Ed exams, both siblings visited, the most adorable puppy has taken over my home, I get to decorate a whole new house in our village, a new year has dawned with new possibilities and plans, and yet, in spite of all these beautiful things, all these nice moments 'in the now', I still look inside and see a darkness.

Every few nights, I dream of my father returning home. Sometimes he's middle aged, sometimes older. But always alive. And the more he shows up in my dreams, the more my waking moments are haunted by his presence, and his absence. How does one get over death? I don't know. People say that you don't really. You just learn to hide it better. I understand that.

What I have also come to understand is just how very fragile we all are. How much we all experience in life, how these experiences make us harder and softer at the same time. We learn to hide it or power through it, ignore it or bury it, break down, re-form or stay broken... sometimes we don't even know. I don't.

I don't know where I am. And that's why I haven't written. When you're lost, how do you find your words?

Bloody Shwetaketu!

So it was this bloody fellow Shwetaketu who set Indian women down this path of oppression. This is cited in the Mahabharatha and for once, I'm going to just believe it literally, so that I may use this guy's name for target practice. 

Shwetaketu, unnai yaaru paaaaaaa ketu?!!!!

                                       

Terrace Garden!

Positively Revolting

There are days in which I become a specialist in gloom and doom. On those days, I do not welcome rays of sunshine. I frown and glare at them. I cloak myself in dark clouds, think black thoughts and refuse to see the bright side. I know, know, that crap is crap. In its own way, its a deep place. So when someone comes along, bares a multitude of teeth in what I vaguely recognize as a grin and tells me to cheer up because all's right with the world, I want to send them to deeper places, like the bottom of a very, very deep well. I mean, what's with the delirious happiness? It's like this clip from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Had I been in Pheobe's shoes, ugly things would have happened.

With increased enlightenment, generally speaking, people are becoming quite 'positive'. We Indians thrive on drama, but it's becoming an endangered species. Can't even fight in peace anymore. I mean, why can't people just hold lifelong grudges and leave it at that? But nooooo! Everybody wants to work things out. Screw psychology, I say. Always advocating doing the right thing. It doesn't know the satisfaction that comes with being right and pointedly ignoring the wrong party. It can make you feel like a boss. Like a boss! You must admit the truth in that- aren't there a few people you're glad you don't have to speak to for the rest of your life? The kind who, if they were hanging off the edge of a cliff that you were walking past, you'd have to first win an internal debate with yourself before you reach out a helping hand? Make 'em sweat a bit. Heh, heh. (Please don't unfriend me at this point.)

This whole thing of looking at the bright side is difficult for someone who comes from a family majoring in morbid. My upbringing prepared me better for hell than heaven, with family members hiding in the shadows waiting to pounce on you if you did something wrong.

Unfortunately, my family has way too many unspoken right and wrong things. For some reason, sleeping during the day is just a step short of criminal. If caught, we weren't sleeping (indignant voice), we were simply 'resting our eyes'. Once my mom started snoring, that excuse couldn't fly, so she'd compensate by waking up and sneaking up on me wherever I am, standing right behind me and saying "What are you doing?", thereby making me jump out of my skin and skip several vital heartbeats. Turning around doesn't help at all, let me tell you. Seeing red-rimmed eyes in a puffy face surround by disheveled hair is hardly soothing- the heart still pumps too fast. When I'd still be tapping my chest and glaring at her, she'd say sorrowfully, "I fell asleep." Yeah, mom, I heard the chain-saw. Can you please go feel guilty elsewhere, preferably somewhere with a mirror and comb?

All in all, positivity was a luxury in our household until we grew up and turned things around a bit. My parents were suspicious of it at first, eyeing it as they would a new creature. They were always suspicious of books as the source of these newfangled ideas. "Did you read it in a book?" said with narrowed eyes was usually how arguments ended between us. But thankfully, time and maturity caught up with our family and we are now a more relaxed bunch. Still gloomy, but a more laidback gloomy.  Case in point: it is now time for my late morning nap.