How I burnt my Lohri

Many years earlier, I think almost six; a small enthusiastic wish in me had died. The funny thing is that a lot of wishes followed suite. However only this particular one had hurt as much. It was winters of 2007 and I was nearing towards the end of my first year of engineering in Jaipur. Year is a misleading term as the session had started only in july and till January it was a period of some 7 months. So basically I had been away from my perceived reality for 7 months, a period which wasn’t enough to turn me into a master socialite of the pathetic social systems that had existed around my college and home there in Jaipur. But I will talk about it some other day. 

Today on 13^th of January 2012, as I hear the drums and dholaks being beaten on almost every third street of Mukherjee Nagar in North Delhi to celebrate Lohri, a section of my heart wants to leap out of the balcony, swing open the door and let my feet do what they love doing the best..dance to the tunes of raw beats in heavenly cold winds of Delhi winter while going around the clumsily created fire by families and children. Roast pop corn and nuts in it while trying out different steps of the famous Punjabi Bhangra. And the other section of my heart, stops me, locks my feet with the invisible chains of pain and helplessness that I had suffered 6 years back at the event of Lohri. It was being celebrated by my friends and neighbors right across the street…I too had been invited and needless to say I had gladly accepted the invitation. But little I knew that I would be locked inside my house at 9 pm to only be able to catch infrequent glimpses of flames rising up in the air…to only be able to hear people dance and cheer as I stood stuck to the wooden door which locked my freedom and independence to be and live. Now I realize it had meant a lot more than not being able to celebrate Lohri. It was a symbolic lock my on freedom, to try, to travel, to move out, to talk, to share and to basically just live! For 4 years till I finished my engineering degree and moved out of my habitat, which ofcourse was home in a lot of ways, but also hell, in many others. I remember how I used to pain to look at a star studded sky. I used to miss looking at the dark, sometimes barren, sometimes adorned sky all those years. Irony being, I had grown up staring at the sky whenever I had found an opportunity, which I did in plenty till I was with my parents. I remember the time I used to finish studying at 12 in the night and then stand by my window and stare at the sky till 2 am. It used to freak my mom out! She had often found me sitting aimlessly in my balcony at supposedly wee hours of the night. During the day, she didn’t mind me staring at the sky though. I remember how blissful it used to be to sit on my recliner by the window, hold a book, read, stare and just sleep off. Such comfortable, cozy afternoons I could never experience again. Sometimes I wish I could relate everything I have felt about these small-small things to someone, someone who mattered, like my parents but then had I told them everything, they would perhaps not been able to bear the pain than my heart has soaked in it all this long. People have often criticized me and judged me according to their understanding of right-doing and wrong-doing. It is however strange that they never took context into account. I don’t blame them really. Maybe I am the mysterious wrong-doing woman that men claim every woman wants to be. Getting back to the trauma of Lohri, today I can make the decision to step down and celebrate this festival, but those memories haunt me. They ask me to punish myself for not breaking loose then, by not breaking loose today.  So even as I hear people dance and kids cheer and clap, I am going to shut my door to the world, put myself in front of something that passes my time and close my eyes to tell myself- Yes it did really happen to you!