Leh & Bareli - Part II

The decay of  the incorrigible idealist

This felt like an extraordinarily solitary moment. A night of intense madness and passion had given way to a morning of bodily pain, mental fatigue and emotional disorientation. He felt sick to his knees. He didn’t want to wake up and face the world. There was so much hatred everywhere including within him. He wished the night would have swept longer so that he could have just been lost in somber and avoided thinking of everything, especially of her. She was extremely precious to him. He’d loved her with everything he could have. He had placed all his emotions and faith in her. But there she was, accusing him repeatedly of being a failure, of stealing her happiness, of ruining her life. Her happiness. Could he have even dreamt of stealing it? He could have sold everything he had, including his soul for it. Why would he steal it? He had no answers. But he did have the guilt. The guilt of unknowingly, unwillingly destroying her and shattering her into small uncollected pieces. He knew, he was responsible for the lion share of all her miseries and all her complaints. She had howled like a dying fox, the previous night. Because she was pretty fox-like. Did he hate her for being more calculative and practical than him? Did he hate her for being more accustomed to this unfair world? Did he hate the fact that she was what she was? But he’d loved her only for this reason. He had no clue what was happening. His mind spinning, his heart ached and his body refused to feel any life. Motionless, he tried to hide in his bed. What had suddenly happened? When did things begin to get this ugly? How could they have treated each other so badly? Where did all the promises of love and life disappear? Were they fragile enough to have been broken by a few miserable happenings? Apparently, there were. He had hoped otherwise, though somewhere in his heart, he had known this was inevitable. Finally, the reality was in front of him to face. The incorrigible idealist in him had started decaying. It was the final beginning of their decay.

A very cold winter morning in Delhi had brought nothing but chills in their minds. She sat like a rookie typing nervously into her laptop. She wanted to write him an email. Because having a conversation was out of the window. He had walked out on her the previous night after having destroyed everything that she had, including her self-respect. Now she had nothing more to lose. Despite having been through so many ups and downs in life, she had never felt like a dead body. Today she felt devoid of emotions. She was a nervous wreck who was edging on becoming psychologically sick. She wondered if she should seek medical help. But then again, no doctor could have truly cured her. Did medical science known how to knead a heart back into its shape? However, somewhere she was also taken aback at her own ability of surviving what had happened. She had lived. But she was angry, at herself and at the world. She wanted to hate him but couldn’t bring herself to do that. Because she knew he was as miserable, maybe more. But she was supposed to be the stronger one – so she decided to carry on routine, albeit most mechanically. Surprisingly, she didn’t seek any company for distraction. She was beginning to love her own company as she’d started to loathe her personality. There was multiplicity in all the emotions and contradictions in all her wishes. She didn’t know what to hope for, not for the fear of those hopes shattering, but of those hopes coming true. It was actually a pretty screwed up place to be in. Then she thought of those two people for whom she’d have to be strong and get past this. Her parents were now to become the central focus of her life, once again.

Leh & Bareli

It begins with a whatsapp message – ‘This is when I was reminded that I had really loved you once’. The guy was in a strange depression having watched a zillion times a documentary on the insanity and helplessness of a young father who drowned his baby girl. This documentary had caught fire on media and was being aired on major English news channels like CNN and BBC. No one knew why he watched it over and over alone in his dark house at Bareli. His state of mind and state of house was dark, melancholic and lonely. The scene outside was very noisy though. Violently noisy. There were railway tracks being broken, people were being hacked, communal riots were once again at their peak. The common public didn’t know any real reason behind it. There was maddening spirit, dust and lawlessness. The state was quiet, as it waiting for all of it to end automatically. There was little police action and a state of helplessness. Just violent reckless hunting. The scene could be equated with the 1857 freedom struggle when the peasants hunted their landlords or the Punjab riots at the time of partition. Sense, compassion and sanity had gone to the dogs. In this dark moment, he gathered the will to set all the past memories of weakness, love, lust and ingenuity apart to message her.

It was almost as if she could sense that he had sent her a message and what it read,  that she instantly gathered up her wits and shamelessly replied ‘ I loved you too, and still do’. Very well knowing and not knowing the consequences of her text, she hoped everything would just stay put. No status quo should be challenged or it could lead to more pain, more heart breaks. The question of their coming together couldn’t even be considered, unless of course, the divine intervened, if the divine existed.

She was far away from Bareli, in the lifeless mountain of the Leh rock land. It was so barren and brown; it almost looked ugly to her. She looked outside of her hotel window only to find the colors of white snow capping the shades of brown treacherous rocks as if it it could cover up its rude, unfriendly landscape. Even the sky looked colorless. She had hoped to be happy in the mountains. But here she was looking disdainfully at the deep, dangerous passes and steep slopes and wanting to desperately look out for some life. Maybe some grass. A small plant. A bird in exile? Anything that could breathe. There was nothing.

She opened the window and to her surprise it wasn’t stuck. It slided smoothly to the other end to let her experience the freezing air on her face. There was snow on the window shills too. She was a little excited to touch and feel that frozen snow as she remembered how they’d promised to watch and touch the snow together.  The snow was supposed to bring joy. Today it brought back only memories and a sense of quiet. A bewildering quiet. Not angry or dangerous. Just a maniacal sense of quiet. Quite the opposite of frantic sounds and loud anger prevailing in Bareli at that time.

The news of Bareli riots had made its way to every part of the country.  She had heard it too and hoped he’d be spared alive. She knew who was behind this. At-least she knew a bit, somewhat. After having spent years in politically charged spheres of Delhi, she could trace these riots to the involvement of his family member. His own brother’s wife. She wanted to tell him, who was behind this madness. But how could she? Why would he believe her? It was her, not anybody else who kept lying to him all her life. She couldn’t accuse his family on a phone-call and expect him to trust her so-called instincts.

But there was some evidence. Why did his sister-in law-abruptly fly to Singapore with absolutely nothing in hand? Why did his sister-in-law never love his brother? Why was she always aloof? It was so clear she was up to something when she used to team with random men who came home and held long meetings with her? No, there wasn’t a bout of doubt on her character as is usually inferred about women who talk too much with unrelated men. She was detached from bodily love. All she loved was revenge and massacre.

Poetry: Be the voice, you want to raise!

When words begin to lose meaning and the storm in your heart is building strong,

You know time has come when arms should be picked, breaking the convenience long

You could have lived endlessly for a purposeless end,

But remember you aren't an animal and shall not be forgiven to sit and stare

Your apathy is the cause of many deaths, your love is aplenty, that you could share,

Move your spirit, get up and act,

It’s now or never, both fiction and fact

Let’s not say we’re a democratic bunch, not while we eat our gluttonous lunch

Raise your voice and end the tragedy

Let them know, we’re the people, we’re the authority,

The power of the constitution is vested by us

Everything else is just an outcome of cuss

Let’s be blasphemous and let logic prevail

In the imaginative realm, reality and detail

Let the storm of your heart spiral and rise

To be the wisdom of needy and voice of the wise!

Thoughts we want to always erase!

 Sometimes while climbing up a staircase, or walking down the street market, sudden and abrupt thoughts pertaining to everyday personal and social life hit your mind, the kinds you want to suddenly note down or think about for a little more than a fleeting few seconds, but let them go passe because there is neither the time nor immediate & direct relevance to ponder over these snippets of subconscious activity of thought and conscience. Here are some of mine, which I happened to sort of remember -

1. The art of begging

Looking at the local-station side beggars of Mumbai, I wonder if begging was an organized profession. If it was, it had all structural and behavioral aspects to it like any ordinary organization - There were timings, the office timings during which there was maximum footfall at the stations, there were focus areas, the stations which saw extraordinarily large numbers of people boarding and getting off the trains, the right communication, whether to say "aap ki jodi salaamat rahe" or "uparwala aapko bohot dega" or "khaana khaalungi beta", the target audience, an ability to pin point who will dwell down their pockets, the advertisements, whether to look handicapped or beaten or famished or simply pregnant and finally the account keepers & controls, handling collection, counting, division and distribution of salaries.

It may come across like a very cruel thing to compare begging to a profession, but it seems very likely that it either has or is shaping into one. I wonder if someone could do a dipstick research on it and understand how it really worked - whether it is a machinery in place or whether it is what it is supposed to be - impoverished, ill-fated people begging for their daily survival with no place in the world to go to and no ambition of a possibility of a better life for themselves and their children.

2. Last few minutes of my life

Articles of abrupt hanging of Afzal Guru, reports of 12 year old being shot at five times by army men and more citing of this genre of news compels me to try and imagine what those last few minutes of life during which the sudden demon of death had appeared would have felt like. What could be the thoughts and what could be the questions that came to the mind of the person who was facing death? Could he have felt like it was a nightmare? Could he have lot his mental stability? Did he feel disoriented? Did he give up, feet helpless and want to cry? Did he want his mother to come save him or visualize his beautiful wife? Would he for a split-second cursor through the possible scenario at his home when his death would be communicated to his family? Did he want to remember God? Did he want to attack? Would he be desperate or simply compliant? Would he think whether he deserved it? Would not a 12 year old be mighty scared? Would his belief in human compassion and general faith  have not died a quick silent death before his own mortal one? Would this not be a true example of failure of humanity once again? How could we then expect people to be born and grow up to have a sane mind and quite composure? Who are we? A bunch of nations or people or their governments? What do we compose of? Political systems or human interactions? What are our priorities? Business or Happiness?

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!

Detached in 20s

Happy Detachment

The way I had been brought up, I thought attachment was so necessary that it could almost take the place of something that brought merit. Being attached to home was considered to be a desirable quality. Being attached to family meant that you were a good child.

However at 23 and having learned a lot of lessons, some of which I would like to perhaps unlearn and some, relearn I can bet on the fact that attachment in a sin one commits only for his or her own downfall. Now I really do not want to sound preachy but this has been pretty much the most important learning I have had from a variety of different incidents and their outcomes.


                               


Beginning from adolescence, things that matter the most to you is your your home, family, sports and food. As a teenager, one gets attached to friends, beauty,  music, fashion and sports again. As we grow up, the level of attachments rise up to reach more dangerous stuff like social image, ego, peer affability and a lot of times, money as well. Then concepts like ambition, travel, fame, luxury etc also creep in to the extent of making a person go cuckoo. Then there are super concepts like family, religion, lifestyles and the likes, attachment to which can make anyone go haywire.

And this just goes on and on until one day you sit up straight and tell yourself - This is not how its going to work. It may work for others but does not happen for everyone. You tell yourself, I am not going to bend myself to be liked or tell myself to like things and people if I dont like them. You tell yourself, if you are not attached you are free to fly. Detachments gets you rid of troublesome good-deeds, endless expectations and forced commitments which are by products of feeling attached.

One would want to argue that he or she wants to have a feeling of belonging. But truly speaking, that feeling is only in one's head and does not exist for real. Its a concept that has been fed into our heads to tie us down to families at micro level and political boundaries at macro level. When I was younger I always felt the need of having a stable household to keep going back to it. Then an older friend argued that you would never feel homesick (which I used to quite often and ironically do so even now) if I considered the world, my home. Here fits in the concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. How wise early mean really were. I dont always vouch for all such concepts because most of them are quite contextual but a lot of them do make a lot of relevant sense even today. Another example could be the Geeta Saar.

Anyways, not digressing further I would just say the mountain of attachments keeps building up if we don't keep a conscious check over it and may reach a point where we are bound to crumble under its weight. So as a young person, I would like to say to all those like me who think a lot, are very curious about life and do not want repeated disappointments that not having something is a thousand times better than having it and then losing it. So if you are yearning for something, achieve it and move on. If you dont get it, its cool because then you will not have the responsibility of preserving or protecting it. So just stop waiting on events. Quite simple, ya!

Poetry: The Unmistakable She

---------A-young-bride-to-be----------

Ladden with gold, smelling so divine
Clad in red, intoxicating like wine...

she believed in her fate and of course her life
her definitions would change, from a maiden to a wife...

her future was sealed, a seal of hope
ignorance was indeed a bliss, as preached by the pope....

--------A-forced-sex-worker----------

She blinked twice, clock was way past nine...
Bathe, groom and report, or pay her fine..

she feared her credits and of course her debts
they would not be cleared, not unless she gets...

a sum unthinkable, and responsibility of a whore,
sensuality was a curse, as Mahabharata bore...

---------An-unwanted-girl-child----------

Some toys, some bangles were enough of a shine...
her father didnt have to beat her, for his personal crime..

she loved her family and of course her tribe
unaware of her rights, that she could subscribe...

to make her choices and give them voice....
to be raided every night, and still hold her poise...

------An-apparently-successful-and-a-powerful-business-woman------

She had power she knew, so much in her sign...
It could manipulate traders, of either mineral or mine...

she held nothing back, of course there wasnt a need
she could bet on her ethics, her actions and every deed

she was the kinds, kings would desire..
however she would deny, and incarnate herself to fire...

-------------An-old-mother---------------

A long piece of cloth, an ageing skin and a priceless beauty
of mind and heart, of love and duty..

she had nothing more to lose, she had given it all
sometimes to save her children, sometimes to let empires fall...

she awaited her end to escape the fud
of ill treatment and hatred, as the Vedas had said would bud...