“Life
has no more faith left…
No
more meaningful depth…
Only
silence resounds…
When
nocturnal pained screams resounds…”
In
this hot Summer, this lone girl, bruised amidst tears and pain cries. The
alphonsoes from Delhi seem no longer sweet. The rajnigandha at the window died
down in spirits. The moon ,no longer,
lull me to sleep. Out of the many things, the deed accomplished has a wonderful
flow. The wandering spaces of my heart just widened. The many moons of toil and
nurture, breezes across the screen, looking in the mirror.
The
blossom bloomed and blew like a red silk mekhela across a maiden’s shoulder.
The ‘breezer’ too didn’t go down well, the throat threw up. The golden bird
glanced my side and waved its head in delirium.
In
this Summer morning, I was the sugar plum fairy playing pink mischief with
Lakme-
There
was bright simmer on her eyes. Fushsia on her lips. And rose blush on her lips.
Sometime ago, a neighbor peeped at our balcony and made a comment,
“You
are looking like a moon. Be careful.”
What
did she mean?
Guwahati
isn’t heaven. It felt like one now. As Osho says, “Mind’s nature is to move
from one extreme to another.” So, I flutter my mind with idyllic reason and
move further down.
In
this Summer afternoon, I extended my hours with the sitar. Brother got jealous
of my indulgence and so I walking- half stopping by the fridge. The watermelon
tasted tasty keeping summer ailments at bay. And the trinkets in my hands make
fine music. Father says: “They are
useless. Women vanity. Throw them away!”
I
am very concerned about these comments. Nowadays it’s just difficult to raise
your head and look at one’s parent. They have always something to say.
Mother
came. She was smiling. Infact, she was laughing. I heard her doing so. But now
her brows are crossed and she screams too-
“Why
your tummy needs to be fed on demand?”
“But,
my brother too…”
“He’s
a growing man. He needs it.”
“But,
I, I… your daughter too….”
“Shut
up. Don’t argue. Go to your room.”
Yes.
I know it. It always happen. Happened.
2
P.M. And I am still inside my room with my – ‘Anne Frank’s Diary.’ I read it
more than 100 times. I don’t think this’s a recommended book for 20
something. I hate wars and reading it
makes me sick thinking about all life’s complexities. The exploitation bring
tears to my eyes.
I want to own an island. I want a tiny
cottage there. My own hut. It will be made up of woods and bamboos. I need some
books there. Maybe, three bookshelves. And a pretty bed with soft big fat cushions.
And I will need a laptop too preferably ‘Dell’. No, I don’t need an ‘Apple’ . I
have no intention to show off. ‘course. I will have no one to show or rather I will not want anyone to show up in that
island. I will take a jute bag, walking around collecting red Kashmiri
forbidden fruits. Oh! I mean apples. I
keep redefining my mind, so I guess, I made you confused. Well! I will plant Kashmiri
apple saplings and loads of them too. I love Kashmiri apples and no other breed
across the globe can beat them. Just as no other flavoured leaves can beat
Assamese tea. It’s no. 1 still. I saw some packets in a Washington D.C. store,
the rack was loaded with them- ‘Assamese chai’- yes, that was the name.
No, I didn’t go there. My
parents won’t allow me. Though I am sharper than my brother in studies, he’s
going to London. He gave some few lakhs
as donation to a college. I can get
there easily with my marks and maybe get a scholarship too. Mother says, “You
can’t go. It would be wastage of money. You are afterall going to be a
‘parayadhan’.” And she said so many things. Don’t ask me. I was hardly paying
any attention. I was trying to recollect
the lyrics of Dido’s : Life for Rent. It’s funny how mother can talk such
nonsense daily. She’s a KK serial
fanatic. Now, don’t ask me, what’s that. Maybe, the person who’s writing about
me can tell you. He’s not intelligent but sometimes his memory is good.
It’s Summer’s hottest evening now. The
weather seems to echo me nowadays. I am usually hot these days. Temperedly. I
am. Look! I wish to study more but my mother wants me to get married to some
bearded ‘bhaijan’ in the block. Father’s eyes tinkle whenever he speaks about
it. Somewhere, I heard brother’s foreign educational expense is borne by ‘that
old hag!’ Once, I even told mother, “I am a literature student and I won’t
marry.” But being illiterate, she can’t measure the fruits,
“What that has to do with you?” And
she will end,
“SHUT UP. And go to your room.” The
experiences as a child was a heart warming intimate reality. All these seem
like a meaningless jigsaw puzzle now.
It’s Summer’s coolest night now. And I
just lied. It was one of those lies that gives me occasional respites from
homely irritations. I’m happy India is building development. So, I was supposed
to be at Maggie’s house by now and sleeping fast after having dinner. But
Maggie is a modern girl and she has no restrictions. So, she celebrated her
birthday at the pub. We were four friends and she cut the cake amidst ‘HAPPY
BIRTHDAY MAGGIE’ and I cried. I poured out my sad story. But Maggie hugged me.
I was being a selfish doll to cry and grab the attention accorded to Maggi but
she’s a real angel. She didn’t mind.
The ‘breezer’ looked like an
architechtural beauty. Orange droppings with a sense of refuse inside a tiny
piece of work! It didn’t go down well though. But, anyway, it was a process.
Silent but constructive and there’s a certain beauty in it. Silent, but constructive and there is a
certain beauty in it. The hand that worked the brew might have been beautiful
but it didn’t have the desired effect. My understanding of desire comes from
Father’s cellar and that night when my uncle molested me as a kid. The human
touch and gesture gave a revolting and thoughtfulness prowess and I threw up.
The proximity of comfort received with urban designs didn’t cheer me up. My
mind was numb… to integrate the past with the present, the change is epic now.
We’re tuned to think like that by decades of acidic bottled spaced. In the years
to come, what we see on an Indian’s mindset- just a liberated idiomic women?
We have fantastic colours of people
here and they are formost in their ability to read, respect, rely, encourage me
as a woman. But, what about the world outside this pub?
Though the tests and the audience
profile changed here, I belong to these people. Anybody who wants to come
looking for me may find me here. There’s a whiff of a positive change in the
air. And the people in the chaos seem teddy bears in A. A. Milne’s play. The intimate friendship with a
bunch of young, upcoming artists of different streams makes me to be a lucky
one here at the right place, right time. It’s a collective effort and
will be a movement soon. Just because, I am a girl, a sin, a second to a son,
doesn’t mean I am so! I am more than an individual. I am a power myself. And I
am never going to consent to ‘paramparik monstrosities’. I am a ceramic Goddess
and I will mould my Life.
And I am tap-tapping to
the background score but my brother who walks in for a drink with his friends,
spies me and slaps and bloodies my nose. And I strike back to his surprise. And
who cares?
I am a Kali now. I will sprinkle fire
to every male chauvinist pig. And it’s worth it too! My eyes are red as cherry
and my tongue out. I am dancing like Kali!
I finally have a new city to call
home!
And I sing,
“I walk through the paddy field and
sing songs of the mountain,
Unaware, innocent strain of freedom
like a clear fountain,
From you, from him, from his grip and
his peek,
I long to be free: like a bird, I
seek.
But, you won’t leave me, will you?
You won’t let me BE. I want to be ME.
A ‘me’ whom I can call my own, my
being, my smell and my blood.
And you still poke fun at me and say,
“Women are born to level to dust.”
May I know from where you got this
part?
Do you still think, ”Am I always going
to be hurt?”
I know my part yet I sing my silence.
And you shall see, my monstrous
glance,
The day when I will come as kali,
And cut away your phallus of which you
lure lust,
Your cabalistic desires will have no
mercy at my slashing sickle,
It will be gushed with your dirt, your
lost bloodline!
And your papered locks will forever be
soiled with clothed red pickles,
My centres will widen and let flow an
army,
Of Amazon warriors, of like you never
heard!
And the poses you give will be roses
all away,
I implore thee try and mess my Grecian
nose,
And live to see next day no more!”
