Rabbit Holes…

Life at times feel like a dark and claustrophobic rabbit hole, through which one would keep on crawling and yet wouldn’t reach an end, wouldn’t even be able to see the light. When light at the end seems to have faded away, one need to rely on one’s other senses than sight. I am trying these days to find ways to stay positive, vibrant and upbeat. It isn’t working though too effectively. All the methods and modes of survival of keeping oneself busy and happy which seem to have worked fine in the past, seem to be failing now. The books I am reading don’t make sense to me and I end up losing my previous mark, start afresh and would lose my sense of direction again. The TV serials I follow, look dull, boring and unconvincing. My recent shopping spree was a disaster, where I couldn’t decide if I should buy this or that, or whatever I bought in the end is good. The same is the case with cooking, where I would mull over the pot for hours, sorting through ingredients and measurements that used to be at my finger tips. There was a time when a fresh hair cut used to cheer me up, but this time around, the thrill didn’t last long.

Everything has this ominous, dull, morbid and negative air. Negative experiences piling upon one and other. I feel threatened, I feel lost. Going out; for work, for shopping, for a walk, to an event, to an eatery anywhere seems to be exhilarating. Now the journey and the effort don’t seem to be worthwhile. The city doesn’t seem safe anymore. There is too much harassment in the subtlest forms. Life for a single woman, even if she dresses modestly, isn’t easy. Harassment isn’t nothing new for me, but there are times when it just seems to be happening every day, in many forms. There would be a sleazy doctor, who would touch you in the wrong way. There would be cars following you around, towing behind you, with creepy guys calling out: “App ko kidhar jana hae?” there would be bike walas swerving and screeching in front and back, saying: “kidhar jana hae, hum chor deti hein!” in the public transport, there would be prying fingers of men, as they refuse to let women sit on the only two seats they have claim upon besides the one near the bumper. Then we sat in the public transport and saw the person sitting in the female section, facing us and staring and staring and staring and then touching himself….unbelievably gross. Then there is this pathetic character at the workplace who likes to hit on anything moving. He barges in my room (jointly shared with another femme coworker) without knocking, despite the fact that he has no coordination with us and receives  no encouragement from us, and no matter how many bored looks and monosyllabic responses we give, he refuses to leave. I have to tolerate and humor him, because he is powerful and the so called gender laws aren’t effective. And if some action is taken, not only your good name gets dragged through hell, as well as you end up making additional enemies. So there are times when you can confront and raise a hell and there are times when it’s not worth it, even a dangerous effort. Hurling of insult at a car inviting you for a joy ride at a quiet stretch of road: dangerous! Confronting a sleaze bag in the public transport: workable! 2 weeks back, I screamed at a guy with a prying finger and the one sitting next to him slapped the offender so hard that it echoed in the whole bus and everyone started hurling abuses at the sleaze bag and threw him out. But many a times the public becomes passive onlooker, organizations enforce laws that are not effective. Usually, none of this bothers me too much; but these days, it is making me increasingly angry. As if there is a lack of space in the world, as if there is no space left for me in any paradigm.  

As for the end of engagement business, as anticipated, the in laws and the ex decided to get in touch out of the blue and started badgering my parents with a lame, half assed and half hearted reconciliation attempt. In a firm, polite and brief manner, my parents asked them to spare us the honor. As for me, I didn’t attend to any of my ex’s calls, despite his attempts to call from different numbers so as to fool me into picking up the cell. I didn’t, although I really really want to tell him off, for hurting me, for hurting my parents, for playing with my future and our family’s reputation like that. But since the last time, I have realized the futility of argument with such breed of low lives. Their lives aren’t governed with values or the fear of God but arrogance and pride. I need to figure out where I want to go next, what I want to do, how I want to live and how I have to help my parents in braving this. Now I am compelled to attend this stupid birthday party of a cousin’s son, and I am figuring out how to keep my cool in face of the consistent relative badgering of “When are u getting married?” Relatives are weird; they only tend to give you respect and acknowledgment if you get hitched. Otherwise, they tend to gossip about you and treat you with a cold shoulders and high noses – all the incessant badgering, grilling and questioning, as if decisions like when you get hitched, have a child or how much you earn is in your control. This
Alice isn’t traveling through a wonderland. She still hasn’t figured out what is at the end of the rabbit hole or if there is an end to it or not.

After the Rain Has Fallen…

I am one of those odd bunch of people, who after sometimes- begin to find the rain dreary and depressing. There is something over powering about the dark skies and pouring droplets – it makes me want to stop the time, the clock, to sit somewhere and muse, away from these activities, hide myself in the crevices of some empty, unclaimed moments and gaze onwards in some direction. The rain washes away sins, reminds us that there is a higher power looking on to us. Yet sometimes, it seems that th very sky and heavens are crying. The rain externalizes the feelings, the down pour of conflicting emotions.  Long after the rain has fallen, I still hear its beat against my heart – drop after drop, lighter, heavier, lighter, heavier – till it ebbs away at an ungodly hour. The crickets’ lazy anthem is keeping me company, while I stand against the cool glass pane of my window and stare outside. The road looks clean, dark and shiny, like a snake. The building stand unabashedly, having their paint washed off bleached stark! A solitary car dashes ahead at the full speed, splashing through the puddles on the road.

Ustad Sultan Ali Khan’s voice rises up and fills up the solitude of the night in a natural manner:

Katee nahi raat mori

Piya torey karan karan

Kaley Kaley Badal chayeee

Dekhi Dekhi Jee lalachae

Kaise
Aoon
Pass tiharee

Bhool Gaey morey Sajan

Bheega Beega Mausam Aya

Piya Ka sandesa laya

Manwa ko chain na awae

Tarsee haein morey naina

The beauty of the moment, is that I miss for no one in particular, rather something, some emotion, a feeling…of having someone. Yet over time, it has lost intensity and vigor. Faith flickers briefly and then dies. Hope fades away. They tell you tomorrow would be a better day, yet tomorrows pile upon tomorrows, and a life time has passed in a mere blink……aik lamheey mein simaat aya hae sadioon ka safar. Good days are still far, yet to come….but how long is this yet, no one knows.

Lovers and beloveds are all stuff fashioned out of fantasies and legends. The real life is a dark and unwinding road full of pot holes.   Each one of us has to make that journey alone. Sometimes a person doesn’t need philosophy and wisdom to go through it, hind sight would be better.

You  accept misfortunes, you reconcile with them, you philosophize them. And when you are unable to do any of those, you become numb. You begin to drift through life, live day by day, no attachments, no dreams. “Why?” Is an echo. Friends in their utmost sincerity, sometimes end up doing stupid things. Such as trying to dig and go after your ex- crush without your knowledge or consent. Thinking that somehow karma has automatically made this ex available, or to fantasize that the person must have realized his folly in ditching me and was lurking in the shadows. They only learn and make you learn that the person is married now. It was supposed to happen inevitably and since that person chose someone else in the end to take this journey with, I decided to bow out with the shreds of leftover dignity but not without living in  a silent vigil for years, making an appeal, making prayers, waiting for an apology, waiting for some sign. No one wants to live off the crumbs of an engaged or married guy’s attention. “I deserve better,” I told myself. “The next time I run into you, I ll be happier, with someone better.” Yet when a deliberately etched out fragment of your past catches up with you just like that, at the worst possible time– it knocks you out, takes your breath away. That searing pain! 

Talk about hitting a person when he/she is down. The well meaning friends make a gazillion excuses, and upon realizing their futility – apologize. The damage is done! “Do good things; good things happen to you! Do bad things; bad things happen to you!” That’s the simple yet most poignant definition of karma – given in the comedy series “My Name Is Earl!” It’s the jest of the same message that you have been weaned upon; in form of religious and ethical education, books, wisdom shared by adults. Yet none of it seems true to me anymore. I have seen my father on the verge of tears while dealing with those in laws, and it has burnt a hole in my memory. Your core values, the respect you show to other people, are hurled back in your face. While the people who have hurt me in the past through lies, deception, and cheating seem to be getting along just fine, even after years. My life is coming undone. “It would all be all, you ll see,” everyone keeps telling me. But I have been hearing the same message for the past 9-10 years. I no longer know what to believe.

Fake Smiles- Fake Lives

The late Daniel Pearl once told his wife Marianne something to the effect that a person only has managed to really hurt you, if he has taken away your smile. When I recalled this while ironing my clothes yesterday, I immediately made an effort to smile. Telling myself: “no no, I am not the victim!” for a while I did manage to smile, gathering the skin and creases around my lips into a half moon, darts pointing upwards of course. In the same ambitious vein, I managed to flash some caffeine stained teeth in the process and went overboard. The result was predictable, having taken too much effort; from being the Cheshire cat, I went back to my droopy blank stare. There would be days, when it’s better to go thru the days wearing a blank smile, a blank face, a blank stare, rather than to feel. Because the minute you feel, you end up feeling too much, end up questioning, end up the downward spirals of depression, of heart aches and the whys. And the whys are more focused towards god than anybody else. Smiling is too much effort – most of the times, because one ends up wearing this fake smile all day long. I mean I manage to flash a smile, the minute I encounter and run into a coworker, a student, a neighbor, a relative – people’s whose names I don’t know, just the familiar faces, passing each other in the daily toils of life. A smile is something that one then takes off like a veil, brush it off, prep it, buff it, iron the creases off, and put it away in the closet like your business suit – one to be worn the next day.