In retrospect

I dug out an old email account today. Dutifully changed passwords, filled in a retarded questionnaire just so as I could retrieve the long dysfunctional account. I have not used it in ages, clearly, even though I live half my life online and having a spare, functional email id is exceedingly lucrative.

There was nothing of decent worth in that account, some stray mails and forwards with almost negligible emotional value that I had not deleted just so as the account would not look hauntingly empty  (email accounts have feelings too!) and two folders with some worthwhile content.

And then there were some love mails, letters for their emotional content. But mails for all the coding in the world wide web is worth. All right there. From the almost retarded innocence of things starting afresh to the painful volley of lies and apologies that it ended with. The laughter, the crazy fonts, the colours, highlights, attachments - it was like almost two and a half years of some impossible explanations lay right there in that abandoned account.

Almost in an escapist instinct I wanted to delete them all. I hesitated. Sat back. I don't think I want to re-read those mails again. It feels like I am violating someone else's email account. And I don't think I can entirely get myself to delete them either. I perhaps shall try in a month's time. Or maybe in a year. I might have gathered a sliver of indecency by then - to read in to each and everyone of those mails, systematically, like I am unraveling a stranger's life out.

Every word, every feeling in those lines come as an indecent shock to me. I cannot fathom those feelings or those thoughts. Seems like such an impossibility.

The last mail in that folder was sent on 19 April, 2010. The person who wrote those mails and the person who those mails were written to - I am no longer her.  And I have not written a mail like that in ages.

Confession

I love you because I can no longer have you.
Cannot keep, possess or own you in any form,
Nor want, need or desire you. It is simply no longer possible.
Not lonely enough to ache amply to shout out a few lines of mercy.
Finding my way up those stairs everyday to a careless heap of seeping debris in your eyes.
You gather my fragments in your hands and let some remnants ooze away.
I have always been unreal - attached in absence and the possessive refusal to share; detatched in the ache of your limbs as you tried holding my fingers as I slept.
I am still too young for the matters of the heart.
The real matters.
The more adult ones for instance,
Evade me constantly, with the disturbing regularity of a day break - or of tides.
How easily most escape the real world, fancy worded loop holes to little ghettos of comfort and declare it their rightful land of anger and pain to paint little grey flags.
So. I tell you I desire none of that.
Don't give me the diseases of the heart, or your banal incapacities.

It took me a while to realize that if I had to look back at my life and pick that one great love, I could not. In 28 years I have not loved anyone either wholly or completely to have that permanent sense of heartache when I think of him. I thought for long, recalled moments spent with those I have said 'I love you' to. Went over situations and moments in my head so many times. But not one. There were two feelings in me that time - this overwhelming sense of relief and this haunting void. I do not know how they could co-exist. But they did. The former came from that little bit of hope that I might be yet to feel that kind of love. And the latter from the impending sense of never feeling that one great love for any person. Ever.

Raped for being me

I love Veronica. Remember her from Homi Adajania’s Cocktail? The character played with such confidence by Deepika Padukone. While watching the movie I said out loud, ‘Hey! That’s me! I say that too!’. When the movie got over, they were all glad of the perfect poise with which Veronica let her insipid best friend take the man she loves. It saddend me. The girl I identified with had succumbed to the pressure, she had lowered her eyes and covered up. I told a friend that had I been in her place, I would have thrown my ‘best friend’ out, given my ‘boy friend’ as astounding slap across his face and moved on. And under no circumstance would I make lamb biriyani and 'that disgusting yogurt thing' to get a man. I told him that I had no plans to cover up and wear traditional clothes to impress any boy’s mommy. Nor would I overnight become a ‘sati savitri’ and abstain from sex. I have paid a heavy price for my freedom, for my clothes, for my identity and I was not going to let a man ruin it. My friend laughed at me and said – ‘Get ready to be single forever then...’ ‘Why??!!’ I asked. ‘No one dates or marries sluts,’ pat came the reply. I asked him to stay very far away from me. So that’s the label is it? A slut. My friend, someone’s boyfriend, someone’s son, brother, cousin – just labeled me and Veronica sluts. Should I hold his words ransom, or should I aim the gun at his father or grandfather who taught him that? Or his mother who must have turned her nose up at some short skirts and said ‘Humari bahu beetityan aise kapde nahin pehente...’ Am sorry, you are all at fault. The father who told you it was okay to discipline women if they were wayward. The mother who would raise her voice if your sister was eve-teased but say that a girl was probably asking for it in her skimpy clothes when she gets raped, the sister who criticised other women for baring more than their knees in school – because it is wrong. Because good little girls from good families do not do this! They told me the cities were unsafe. They told me not to go out at night alone, not to wear skimpy clothes, not to drink...the ‘not to’ list has always been lengthy. Of course, these are people who care about my safety and do not want me to be molested, violated and left to die, abandoned on a highway somewhere. The fathers, brothers, well-meaning cousins and uncles, neighbours, who had the decency to not molest me and scar my childhood. And here they were, letting me in to a world, a country and a city where other fathers, brothers, cousins and uncles don’t bat an eyelid before violating a girl’s modesty, raping her and if that is not enough show of the strength of their organ, they could and would also occasionally beat her senseless, set her on fire, insert rocks or steel rods in to her. Such is the normal modus operandi. The men in my family did not violate me. Men from other families just might. There has to be a very good reason why any girl is sent out with this ‘not to’ list. We live in a world of chauvinists and misogynists. Not just the men, but the women around them who did not stop them or reprimand or thrash them when they said something sexist. If men hating and wanting to keep a tight control on women wasn’t enough, women also want to control other women. How many times have you heard a girl brand another girl the much-coveted label – ‘slut’? Frequently enough? Women who have a mind of their own, who put it out as they get it, confident enough to pick an identity that is not tied to a man, independent enough to call the shots and to stand alone in a crowd – they are threats. And if they are single, they are also ‘sluts’. Please protect your men, for they sure can’t keep their organs in check. Calling them names for perhaps labeling them with words derogatory would make them less a nemesis for those women who cling to the men. Patriarchy does not limit itself to the men, if you understand the plague that it is. I have been told that women must marry by a certain age for they need the support and the protection of a man, fathers and brothers cannot protect a girl forever. When the time comes those men in my family are done playing body guards, they must duly pass me on to another man who could protect me and control me. I will be safe. And no longer the slut. I can take care of me, I can take care of others too. What perhaps gives me cold feet is the threat from men who cannot bear to accept that I can take care of me. Men and women who cannot live with ideas that being single at any place and at any point of life does not stunt me in anyway; and today if I lose a love, I shall get another tomorrow. And yes, I can also wear anything that suits my fancy. Confidence unnerves any good person, and we are talking chauvinists here. My father and my grandfather never told me that there was a right and wrong that others could decide for me. My safety was top priority because not all men were my father and my grandfather. It is sad that they aren’t. My brother has been taught to treat women with the respect they deserve, he knows that other men out there won’t treat women like he would. He worries as well. And this is not my rant. It is every girls’. I have a problem. Not with the men or the women. With what they think. The social constructs that don’t allow me to be me. I may not be the character out of Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki, but I am an equally stunning character out of Cocktail. And I have no plans of changing. And you can’t keep raping my identity away. (This is an op-ed piece I had written for Millennium Post - http://millenniumpost.in/NewsContent.aspx?NID=17124 here's the link)

This is a feeling of unbecoming. A strange feeling of uneasy calm that makes you claw the insides of your head. While you sit, smile, work, go ahead with existence. Don't ask me to explain this place to you. I know I am in it. Like a piercing shard darkness that swipes at the soul. Gradually. At a steady pace. Regularly. So little by little, every passing moment there is so little left of you. A shade. A colour. A feeling. A fleeting touch. A fading memory. I am no longer me. I am terrified. But I am no longer me.

Shock therapy

It seems I am gradually getting surrounded by layers and layers of people. Layers of strange thoughts and behaviours and feelings. Like onion layers. As much as it is alien to me the more they grow veins and start tapping in to my blood stream. I just want to sit and cry. But there just never is enough time. And it feels stupid.

And those who cannot love - will be forgiven.

When it rains on a sleeping city - a fistful of yesterday's unhappiness gets placed on my palms. It is like the city knows that I had run away. And right now - I sit ensconced in the left over moisture of the night's cloudburst hiding from another city.

A familiar heartache. The fresh feel of nascent salt water - happens every time I leave. It is like I am running away all over again. I wish there was time to sit down and stroke the demons to sleep. Let them know that even love is a war. A terrible war. The casualties are far too many and there are no flesh wounds.

The familiarity of my surroundings had let me sleep peacefully after days. I dreamt - jolted out of sleep and with a strange ease - slipped right back in. Every single day of the past few - I have fraught in despair with my dreams - begging the city to forgive.

I am like a fugitive here.
And I am told - by the old staircase, the haunting empty terrace, the rain swept night - those who cannot love - will be forgiven.

A want half fulfilled...

I was finally in the hills. Craving for it like a starved dog craves a morsel I woke up in the middle of the night to feel the chill in my bones – the stinging air on my cheeks. I didn’t know where I was – some odd roadside stall with washrooms that stank of human detritus. I was pulled out of my seat – feel the cold. You HAVE to feel the cold. And I took a deep breath in – it hurt to drag the pure air in. The stars were so stark and bright up here. How much longer, I asked. A few hours.

The next I opened my eyes I was surrounded by humanity in a busy little town. The hills were still there. A comforting presence of sorts – like a mother to a sick child. You have wanted it for so long – they would be there till you recovered.

My eyes hungrily followed the river, reverse, up its course, higher and higher, spiral roads in to the mountains. I didn’t care about a name, an identity – it was everything that all that I had ached for was right there. The snow draped mountains far, far away – were this beacon of seduction. We weren’t going that far up – not this time.

That one road called a town – almost hidden amongst the pine and the mountains. To wake up to see the pines and step out to see the mountains. Life could come to a stop there and not move a muscle. Die a permanent death sealed in the freezing cold and bliss.

If I woke up to a mountain every day – I would not have an ego.

How could I? For here was nature’s indomitable marker of an ego – and to pit mine against the sheer rock face would be a farce. I would have dreamed off only one thing every day – to scale that height and sooner or later – every other human being’s ego would become irrelevant. If their ego did not exist – how would mine? At God-moments – there is no ego.

The next few days passed in a haze. Of furry, friendly dogs, food, the perpetual smell of herbs, ice cold bed sheets that took hours to warm, long walks and the river.

The river…oh the river. It was the story of every life flowing over well worn rocks to oblivion. Every soul in the world could sit there and see every moment from birth to death twirl in the rapids. The stunning blue, the iridescent white that moved too fast to adequately reflect the watery sunlight. Racing, running, romancing the white exposed rock faces with a slight of hand.

And there was the creaky bridge. I wanted to stand there perpetually and see the seasons change.

Hours were wiled away next to the river, in long walks to nearest settlements, in cafes, in idle conversation.

Ever walk meant a furry, happy companion. One black, brown eyed fellow, who seemed to be called ‘Winner’ took on our company from Chalal to Kasaul. As I stepped on to the bridge, he followed bravely. No sooner was he next to me staring at the waters, a big, off-white, one was sitting there looking at him threateningly from the other end of the bridge. Every step Winner took towards Kasaul, the off-white took a menacing step on to the bridge. In seconds, Winner turned on his furry tail and made a dash back for Chalal with the off-white in hot pursuit.

The day we were to leave, we woke up to rain and fog. I had been dreaming of the rains in the hills – and here it was. The mountains all around had snow on the top. It was heartbreaking. I did not have the time to go there. The idiocy in the plains demanded me back. I tried to fill my eyes with the visions of snow – not to miss a single scene – it was like a drug. It physically hurt to not be able to touch the white or feel the particles melt on my skin. Next time, I promise you, the next time.

I could not close my eyes for a moment as I traveled down. I kept cursing myself for the lack of a good camera. I had cursed myself throughout the days for the lack of one – the absence of it had grown more dire at this instance.

I drank in the scenes as they passed – wondering when I could be back again. I did not need the people, the voices, the comfort of anything more than a place to sleep. And food, occasionally. Perhaps.

And just as it had begun – it was all over. The bone chilling cold, the air that turned every word to vapour, the never ending flow of the clear blue water and more mountains far far away.

I will need to go back. It is a rule that cannot be broken.

New Year.

A quarter of a life rolled back like injured skin
Blood peeking out from the edges – threatening to tell a little more than I intend to let know.

The rushes of the night, in cold clammy comfort, till sweat wraps my neck and am buried in your arms. This kind of love is a tome.

A quarter of a life rolled away. We have all tried to die, in as much ease a bastard touch would allow, tried to smother to death a part of a reality in wine and breath of yester years.

Learned to say no to things that tease you to live. Over and over – every passing day. Need I be afraid?

Afraid of electric thoughts that rise from below, the rush of blood on my cheeks, the glazy eyes – shut tight against humanity – a quarter of a life rolled away.

For the next quarter that has come, wiped the uterine slime off its back and risen to the occasion in a drunken mess.

There will come a time – when progenitors will know – that in all things pretty – something broken always grows.

Prologue.

The city had not been kind to her. Not entirely unkind either.

Just as it tried with all possible decency to sever the umbilical bonds she had with hand painted walls of a house near the posh golf courses, it spoke to her, in the initial months – with the same decency.

Then the language turned harsh. The cajoling was gone. The requests turned in to absurd orders at the oddest times. The touch that sometimes soothed became that loathsome hand of a violator – trying to touch her inappropriately as she tried to rush about life.
And while she struggled to learn how to walk in the labyrinths – the city dragged her unceremoniously to t-points of heavy traffic – leaving her there – telling the people- “Look! She has NO clue about life! Or in that matter bout anything in general…”

Stumbling around graceless, she appeared to others covering ground with a confident stride. But sooner or later this echoing emptiness would fill her insides and wiping away left over tears – fingers would reach out for a pen. Or tap on the keys of a steel machine – absent mindedly. Or hunch over a note book in the busy heart of a metro.

She was convinced now that writers were inordinately insane. To want to shake the world for what it was worth was an intense form of neurosis.