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.

The Kingfisher

I think of those orphan moments when I feel content loving you. Feel that everything in the universe is exactly in the right place. But only in a few orphan moments. The days we come face to face there are no qualms, no bad feelings. Just two individuals rushing towards each other with this speed of love. So perfect.

Then morning comes and we go trudging towards borders and daily duties. I feel like I am walking away the thing I love to oblivion. To the edge of the city. Then standing there to wave him good bye. Lord knows when our paths will cross again.

When I was really tiny, someone had got me a kingfisher. The bird sat scared and stubbornly on my father’s camera kit. He refused to budge, he refused to eat. My mother was scared it would die. Kingfishers are not meant to be tamed or kept as pets – she told me. I had no particular affection for the bird – I was too small. It held as much concentrated interest in its stunning colours as any of my other toys did.

Then one day my mother took me by the hand and took the bird to the edge of this lake. Where the road ended and all that lay ahead was putrid, marshy path of rotting carcasses of hyacinths. The stunning lavenders bloomed a few feet away. She held my hand tight so as I would not be encouraged to venture further. She asked me to hold the bird for one last time. I looked at her and then looked at the hyacinth covered lake edges – “Why? Isn’t he coming home with us?” – “No. We are setting him free. He’ll go to his family now.” – “ Why was he with us? Where did his family go then?” – “ I don’t know,” Ma said…"...Perhaps they missed him..."

She let the kingfisher fly away. When it took flight and never looked back I wanted it more than anything in the world. More than the new toys. More than the fish shaped peppermints, more than the new hair clips which matched my shoes.

To see it fly away like it was waiting for the feel of wind and Calcutta moisture on its stunning wings for eternity – made me want him.

I looked back once on the walk home. Perhaps he liked my dad’s camera equipment case more than a stray electric wire or his nest. Or even more than his family. Maybe if he had stayed I would have convinced him to eat my share of the fish.

Sometimes, I feel that you are that kingfisher.

Delhi-Noida-Delhi

The angry rising heat
Separating its weight
From the naked, violated earth
Screaming profanities at the half sickle of a faded communist moon.

The numerous wheels
Shouting and shuttling between lives
The human and the half-beast.

Smells burn
Wipe their ash streaked limbs across expectant, hungry faces.

Sometimes when the metro hurtles over the pregnant waters
A deep desire arises for an unexpected halt
And the shrill sound of open gates and alarms
So as the muddy purity can swallow some more detritus
Add some more relieved carcasses to its womb.

Amen.

Worldwise- Worldly Wise

You don't bring me flowers any more.
The violets have frozen and the valley has no more flowers this season.
And you don't even write.
For the words have perished in these frantic unplanned rains and sleet like those apple blossoms you described.
The river had its floods and the banks widened,
Rivulets spread like wrinkles that I am growing around my eyes.
Not that old yet- but getting older.
And in all art and honesty, tomorrow may see some tire tracks away from the usually trodden and
Yet- the face in the mirror will be clearer than ever.
You don't talk to me these days.
But I do. There is just too much to put a finger on.
But then you should regurgitate in absolute disregard and I shall remain ever.
Steadfast.
Worldwsie and Worldly Wise.

Dilli Darshan- a little differently.

House hunting in Delhi.

I can safely assure you, that even looking for - a needle in a hay stack, a decent-rich-smart-man to marry, a fool proof dissertation topic- any of these, all of these are exponentially easier to find.

No matter what your budget- a ‘better’ house is always 5000 bucks away. JUST five thousand. And the brokers (God help this breed) assure you that this elusive 5000 is not much of an issue at all- “See…” they proceed to explain, “You just end up paying a little more.” I vehemently shake my head and say- NO.

An extra 2.5k is not a favourite coffee add on. Thank you.

You can very easily find the oddest architecture – like a staircase in the middle of a make shift second bedroom that goes down to a basement, which has a room that the land lord assures you- can be made in to a bedroom. Though it has NO windows, no doors, just a staircase that leads to it and some cupboards below the stairs. Frankly- I’d rather live in that cupboard.

And also the oddest ‘requests’- guys cannot stay, perhaps they can visit for a few hours. But they cannot stay. Of course we bring over guys by the dozen dear land lord- we like excitement every hour. And the few hours they are there- as if I cannot ‘do’ what I want in that, is it? And one land lord even went on to say- I will not allow boys in the house; for as his past experience goes- one of his tenants got knocked up. Since he is so vehement about it- am vaguely suspicious that HE had something to do with the matter.

Well then- keep your house with you- shove it in some unholy dirty crevice of your rectum and shut it.

Please talk nice to the owners. Repeat most politely for the umpteenth time- where you work, what your work hours are, where you study, where you are from, how many people at home, the name of your puppy and the colour of the new shows you bought. By all means. Ask for my DNA profile as well- please do- THAT will assure our parents that we shall be safely taken care of.

Since we are two girls living ‘alone’ – we must be needing guidance and surveillance and things like that. Of course! Why don’t you send your domestic help with me to work every day- JUST so as I am safe.

Every property- is VERY GOOD property. Even if it is a little hole in the wall. Every location is prime and vaastu approved. With 24 hour security- even if it is a guard who is too busy betting on cards and drunk.
Respect the profession- not the actions!

And perhaps, as a way to calm your self down. Tomorrow is always another day with more brokers, more houses beyond your budget, more long pointless conversations with people you will never meet again. This is for those who have accompanied me in this 'holy' quest, people who have done this earlier, will do it again and MOST IMPORTANTLY- people who have calmly heard me rant about these series of unfortunate events. Thank you.

Such is life.
Going to the moon is easier. Trust me.

And did you?

And did you ever love me?
That halfmoon kind of love?
Lazy in a longing that curls around your fingers like my hair that you never could touch?
A fragment of grey like a lip stain on your palm.
A shivering act of anger and resentment and I begged you to stop him.
And did you ever love me?
Call me after days to tell me that you can and cannot do without those few lines of poetry.
And deliberate miles that seperate.
And did you ever love me?
Even in half serrated words of a thesaurus full of passion and longing for a girl you never fully knew?
In measured steps of un-hurry, dry summer nights and the branches of yellow. Of accusations and lies of a million years.
I never stood there calling out to you for a chance or hope.
I never stood there, waiting. Wishing, longing that halfmoon of an existance in your eyes.
And did you ever love me?
This kind of love is ever easy. Ever so easily melted over pen drawn lines on pressed dry memory leaves.
The one desire to wipe the moisture off my lips.
A single, orphan desire of some resurrection of a text book perfect love.
In making peace with the chaos that I am, the darkest of clouds obscured a vision.
The rains unclogged some more love that I rushed towards the snow instead.

And did you?

I hate love- Neil Gaiman

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up these defenses, you build this whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They do something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own any more. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. not just in the mind. It's a soul hurt, a body hurt, a real gets inside you and rips you apart pain. I hate love. - Neil Gaiman


(Was too big for a status message. But I had to put it up :))

And no - this is just an awesome quote - I do not think like this 'always'.

Moving

It was rather simple. A little messed up but mostly systematic.
Rip off this poster, pull down that curtain.
Throw away this pile and along with it some memories.
Pick and choose what I may not survive without. The mangy toy as well.
The decorative lights, the coloured bits of glass.
The hand scribbled notes, wrapping paper and thoughts that got stained on the mirror.
Lost a love. Found one. Packed the rest up in dilapidated cartons of vice and hope.
The last dreg of coffee, the empty bottle of wine. Your voice in the stairs and tear stained nights.
Too much to roll up with blankets and tie in a bundle.
Throw it on the floor and it is clean.
Smash it against the sink and keep the shards.
The disturbed sleep, of things that never worked. Spaces I never touched. Dust that always settled,
The breathe of an excuse of a home.
Things we will never miss and those that are like scars.
Losing ground in a blur of tasks. Bills to settle, the laundry, the shirt you left behind.
In a mad scurry to find a home and make one- I never said my goodbyes to you.

Red and White classmates

When so many years turned their course- did you listen?
The bruise on the scraped knee peeking below the school uniform?
While they screamed at us of failure- don't judge us.
A 2 on a 10 in an essay on life- and now doodling out the rhetorics and questions on the back of a copy from last class.
About familiar faces, the oldest jokes and the newest lives that have turned and altered and faded like class photos- white socks, red cardigans.
To tell you- years have passed and thank you for not being the empty desk next to mine.
And when more will pass- the joy of being still able to talk to you. All of you. Any of you.

Hope and Swings

Hold my hands when I swing too high,
Your careless laugh and stupid jokes house me when my feet touch the ground.
You have been breaking me down systematically to abandoned carelessness
In coloured heaps of thoughts and lies.
A place I have not been in for long- but a haunting familiarity threatens to cut me off.
If it won’t last forever- the swings will still remain.
And every morning I hope that it is you and me and some more open sky to keep flying.
Perhaps the quintessential delusion of people like us.

Lust.

Sometimes I am filled with this intense longing. I want to travel. I stand and look at these stunning pictures and I want to physically reach out and touch the waters, breathe in the vapours, dust away the snow…I want to go there. Freeze in the night, scathe my skin in the day. I want to tread on those tyre marks and watch the sky change. It is a physical ache to not be able to get there. Like looking at someone you love, in your head and body, stand a few feet away from you, with this diaphanous membrane separating you. Withdrawal symptoms. And at those moments I don’t care about a thing more. Every thing else becomes insignificant and pointless. And it feels inside that the mountains have been calling me for ages. Making love with their low curtain of clouds hung over the folds of cliffs and falls. I have been there. Snug fit into a crevasse somewhere, reaching out with blue fingers towards the shiny mica pieces in the sand on the frozen lake shores.

Like returning to the womb. Where it all began. An intense physical relationship that surpasses all other. Being tied in blood and muscles to those shard rocks and chips of snow. I want to clutch my heart in my hand and throw it away when I realize that this is not the time to get there. Just not yet. But every particle in my body vibrates with this passionate desire to want to go there- rush there and collapse in forgotten graces on the barren plains, staring at the azure blue sky. The gun metal grey. The startling white and the naked sun. And let that bit of divinity seep into me, it had left me it seems as I grew older. And in a return to the basest, the most honest roots- I am clawing my way up from this abyss, pushing away every other thing, every other feeling. The worst chemical, the worst drug, the worst intoxication – the incapacity to gauge my path there. The searing heat in my toes, in my finger tips. A longing stronger than love.

Much stronger.