The Rational Romantic and the Wanderer

I grew up in India watching bollywood movies, believing in the 'made for each other' and the 'one true love' sort of notions. But when you really come to think of it, we all know what love is, independent of lust and sex. Love is when you care for somebody, a lot.

But romantic love is a little bit different. It isn't just love or concern, it's also an expectation, or a desire. Romantic love involves the wish to have a right on another person, to possess in a small way, and be possessed by them. This is what sometimes grows into obsessive love.

The rational mind knows that everything in life is transient. All states of being eventually come to an end and that even emotions are fleeting.  The rational accepts this and looks to experience all there is to experience, to develop and mature with each experience and find a deeper understanding of the world and the self.

The gap between the romantic and the rational is dangerous territory. Here you fall in love with people, places, emotions, and want to hold on to them, knowing all the time that one of you will soon leave and move on, and most likely it is you who will feel the need to find another life, if you haven't already put an expiration date to your current life.

You can't help yourself from falling head over heels in love and you cannot stop yourself from breaking your own heart, over and over and over again. That is the curse you live with. You hurt nobody more than you hurt yourself.

You are a traveller
Of both time and space
A collector of memories

But one day, some day,
Those invisible strings will
Finally hold you down

They will let you go no further
You journey will end
But you will find peace in captivity

The strings are memories
Raw, boiling emotion
Sentiment and unshed tears

One day there will be no more space
In the museum of
the antiquities of the past

And the present will be
More beautiful than the promise
of another future.

Stay, stay with me
Hold me down right here,
This is the place
From where I will never want to move on.

Afraid to live

I've always believed that who we are is the sum of our experiences and life is about living each moment. There is no grand goal for us to reach, no higher state of being to achieve. This right here is who we are and who we will ever be.

But despite this rationale, it is surprising how difficult it is to be fearless and put oneself out there to go through all those possibly amazing experiences. To allow yourself to experience all the good things in life, you have to allow yourself to experience all the crap as well. And hardship only makes us deeper, more mature characters. Still, it is difficult to walk out into the scorching sun. It is hard to go to the gym the first day after having lived like a bum for months. It's hard to let yourself fall in love when you know you will soon leave. But life is for those who embrace it. Without life, there is little more than existence. 

The Song

I wake up  as the sunlight falls on my face from the gap between the curtains. Nobody expects growing old to be fun, but one can not quite be prepared for it either. My joints, especially the knees are painfully stiff. Slowly, i sit up, looking down at the floor as my eyes adjust to the light. I walk over to the window to draw the curtain and let the soft sunlight into the room. My eyes fall on the picture on my bedside table. She looks so much like her father. I miss her. Maybe I should call her today. In a few hours. She must be asleep.

I go to the door and open it. The newspaper and packets of milk are lying carelessly on the doormat. I clutch the door handle as I bend down to retrieve the milk and newspaper. This is getting harder everyday. Maybe I will stop reading the newspaper and drinking milk altogether. But I might need the calcium for my bones. Never mind. I can think about this another time. It is time to go boil the milk and make myself some breakfast.

This is my favourite part of the day. I sit with my tea and paratha in my backyard on days when the weather is as beautiful as it is today. The sunlight is soft and there is a cool breeze blowing across the backyard, rustling the leaves and sounding the wind-chimes. My chair waits for me in the shade of the guava tree. He had planted it just after we got married. We spent many such morning here, in the shade of this tree, before destiny parted us forever. But this is not a day for such thoughts. I take a bite of the paneer paratha. Then I hear it. The sweet tlee tlee, that invariably accompanies these meals and good weather. The little bird flutters down to the bird bath and begins to peck on the seeds left over from yesterday. The brown of its feathers changes to a darker hue as it gets wet. I first heard her a few days after he passed. I was sitting alone under the guava tree, eating my breakfast, sobbing as I saw the vacant chair beside me. That is when she came and sat in it, tlee tlee tlee. She has regularly joined me for breakfast ever since.

As I am about to finish my meal, the bird takes flight, not to be seen or heard until another day of pleasant weather and tasty breakfast. Slowly, I make my way back inside. I put my plate and cup in the sink and go and sit in the chair beside the window. It is time to read the newspaper. The headlines tell me about the arrest of a certain convict. For some reason, the words and letters start to get blurry. I am unable to hold up the newspaper any longer and it falls to the floor. I grab the table with my right hand, breaking my fall, but my left arm and leg seem to be out of my control. This is all happening so fast.

I wake up  as the sunlight falls on my face from the gap between the curtains. I open my eyes slowly. I feel awful, unable to move, as if I were weighed down. The door opens and she walks in. My daughter! What is she doing here? I ask her what happened to me, but I don't comprehend my own words. They are not really words now. I am slurring. I understand what she is telling me. I had a stroke. That is why I cannot move. She looks grave. I try to tell her not to worry about me. I think she understands as she smiles weakly. She tells me that I might recover slowly. She inclines my bed and brings me my breakfast. Soup. She smiles and tells me that my breakfast companion is with us. She shows me the bird by my bedside. The little brown bird in a cage, right here in my room. But I don't hear it, no tlee tlee.  I try to tell her to free the bird. She does not belong to me, she is my friend, my visitor. I don't know if she understands. She looks puzzled. I refuse to eat my soup till she listens to me. She is getting annoyed. But I manage to explain to her that I want her to free the bird. She still looks angry, but takes the cage out. Through the window, I see her open the cage and the little brown bird fly away to freedom once again. I know I will never hear her song again.

The Ghost from the Past

I was weak once
Young and vulnerable
Broken.

A ghost used to live in the mirror.
Empty eyes
The lights were always too bright.

I leaned against the walls
for support and comfort
The walls that caged me within.

My sobs were empty
my voice was hollow
My cries died before they left my lips.

I was weak and broken
And I lay here shattered
Building myself back bit by bit

I am strong now
I might have my scars
But scar tissue is very tough.

Today I am inside these four walls again
Feeling a little weak
Looking for myself

Today I saw a ghost in the mirror.

Sex and Hypocrisy

Rape and feminism have recently come to the forefront as important issues for the society in India. The reasons for the high incidence of rape have been discussed constantly since the bus rape case late last year. One major concern has been the upbringing of children and how parents often give boys special treatment and do not teach them to respect women.

For some reason, sex is completely left out of the debate. Nobody is comfortable talking about it or even mentioning it. It is obviously an important part of people's lives, given that they are people and the fast growing population of the already over-populated country. Then why is so much shame attached to sex?

It is commonly presumed that a bride is a virgin and the idea of unmarried people engaging in sex is often nothing less than blasphemous. Of course there are the progressive few who have gotten over the stigma or the taboo, but here I write about the masses, the large majority that clings to its culture and values for dear life.

Marriage, in this society is so important that a person being able to live unmarried is absolutely imaginable. A major reason for the preference of a boy child is that there is no requirement of a dowry for his wedding, but the dowry is received instead. A price gets attached to a baby the moment it is born. This infant is a cashflow, positive or negative, depending on the sex. Boys have the pressure to study hard, find jobs or join the family business so they can be able breadwinners for their future families. The more successful the boy, the more dowry his wedding will bring to the family. A girl must be pretty, must cook well, because these are the qualities that will help her marry a successful boy.

Marriage being such an important thing, pre-marital sex becomes a problem, because, of course, a virgin is always preferred. If a girl cannot have sex, a boy cannot have sex. And voila! the perfect recipe for a sexually repressed society. Girls must preserve their honour and as good girls with good values, they will stay virgins till they get married, or at the very least, are in committed relationships. Boys often end up dating for years before they can finally be intimate with someone they really do love. On the other hand, the absence of the option to just 'have some fun' leads to all kinds of situations from lying and cheating to prostitution and rapes.

Now suppose a young couple decides to go against the tide, or they decide nothing and just go with the flow. The idea that two young people in love could be physically intimate is so shocking for the average person that it must remain a secret to be guarded under all circumstances. Do not put it past certain rural citizens to murder the couple in the name of family honour. Marriage is the necessary license, where this society with such superior moral values grants two people its approval to engage in carnal activity, never mind the possibility that the bride and groom may never have met before the day of their wedding. Of course normally, as their parents become more understanding, they are generously allowed to meet each other a few times, maybe even frequently over a couple of months, before they get married.

The incidence of rape has always been astonishingly high in this country, but until recently, the people did not want to acknowledge it. They did not want to see, hear or speak about it. Talking about things exposes people to different perspectives and different possible solutions to the same problems. Turning a blind eye accomplishes nothing. The hypocrisy with which this society treats something like sexual desire is a the result of this inability to acknowledge that it is something we all experience. It is time that we start acknowledging that we're not asexual beings. It is time we talk about sex. It is time to grow up. 

A Story of Kindness and Generosity

My mom likes to tell me stories from when she was younger. The theme of this story was about how people were more helpful in those days.

In traditional Indian weddings, the groom's family, in a sort of procession called the 'baraat', travel to the bride's home, where the wedding would take place. My grandfather was part of one such baraat, although he was close to families of both the bride and the groom. Unfortunately, the groom's older brother met with an accident and passed away while the baraat was en route to the wedding. 

My mother proceeded to tell me how my grandfather intervened at this point and ensured that the wedding rituals proceeded as planned. When this surprised me, she explained to me that if a wedding ceremony got interrupted, the bride would be considered unlucky, and in all probability, would never get married again. The return of a baraat is considered an extremely bad omen. However, this did not have any bearing on the 'luckiness' of the groom. He would proceed to marry a 'luckier' bride. Therefore, the wedding proceeded as planned, with a little less enthusiasm on the part of the groom's family, on the insistence of my considerate grandfather.

Afterwards, the bride could not be taken to the groom's family home, as it had been rendered unlucky for a new couple, having recently been visited by death. My grandfather, therefore, invited the newly weds to his home, where my mother and her sisters prepared food and arranged for the remaining ceremonies to be completed.

This was a story of the generosity of my grandfather, of the closeness of friends (he was close to the father of the bride) and of a time when people readily helped each other.

The anxiety or excitement of a young girl over marrying a boy she had never seen did not matter. Her fright over being labelled unlucky and her being considered a terrible burden on her family concerned nobody. This was never her story in the first place.

Let me.

Let me get drenched in the pouring rain
Let me get scorched by the burning flame
Let me burn under the scorching sun
Let me drown into the ocean

Please, oh please, save me no more.
Won't you please help me no more.
I want to walk on my own two feet.
Just please do not carry me no more.

You held my hand and carried me,
Broke my fall and guided me.
You shielded me from everything
And always mended any damage

But now I need to walk away
Stumble and fall and find my way
I need to get lost in the winding lanes
And find myself all over again.

The wind will carry me with it,
The snow will freeze me for a while.
But I will emerge stronger, as I always have,
And be who I am, my own destiny.

A Perfect Life

She sat at her polished wooden table by the window, softly sipping her tea out of the exquisitely crafted china teacup. Her chair was comfortable, with the cushion that she liked and all she had to do was ask if she needed another scone or some more honey. The day was unusually pleasant. The sun had come out after a long, cold winter. The birds chirped in the trees and the cool breeze caught in her hair, which slowly began to tangle from the perfection it had been in. There was perfection in everything around her, from the scratch-less surface of her table to the carpets of thick pile that covered the wooden floors. A handsome man smiled at her through the picture frame that decorated the corner table. She had loved him since the day they had met and could not imagine her life without him. He had been kind to her, provided her with everything she needed and never given her any reason to complain. Her life, in every way possible, was perfect.

She sat by the window every evening, drinking her tea. She looked at little boys jumping in the puddles as their mothers led them by the hand. She saw young women scurrying to work in their cheap dresses and shabby shoes. Some days she could see young couples kissing in the street in a moment of passion. Sometimes a stray dog would sniff around the street, probably looking for something to eat. She wondered about the lives of these people, so devoid of the perfection that she had become so accustomed to. She wondered what made the poor, unmarried, skinny girls smile, and she wondered why that little man who wore the torn jacket always whistled while he walked. What did all these people find in their lives that left a song in their heart, even though they did not have the perfect home, the perfect husband, the perfect life. She scoffed to herself, perhaps they just did not know what it meant to have what they had never had. It was time to return to her perfect life, leave those poor bastards in the street to go on with their lives, what did she care. She called out to the girl to help wheel her back into her bed.

Connections

the perfect smile. perfect teeth. soft, full lips. a smile that spreads to the eyes. those deep pools of darkness, momentarily loose focus.
like a pebble on the still surface of water, the smile spreads around. from one mouth to the next. from teary eyes to frowning faces. from crying babies to giggling schoolgirls. white teeth, stained teeth. powdered faces to dimpled cheeks.
a bond that lasted an instant. an small exchange of emotion. a little warmth from one heart to another.
the heart is imperfect. emotions are not straight lines. reactions are not perfectly predictable. smiles are not cut to perfection like diamonds.
perfection requires not the heart, but the mind, intent.

the perfect smile. the perfect cloak.

The Length of Time

Cleaning my room, I have come across a lot of things today. Old birthday cards (which I keep so I come across them on days like this, every time I move to or from home), love letters, silly poetry, and all kinds of things that remind me that life has always been filled with love. I decided to post this one. I do not remember how many years ago I wrote it, but it has definitely been a long, long time.
Seems rather appropriate for the year that just went by.

The days pass one by one
Sometimes they drag and sometimes they fly away.
It's always the not-so-happy ones that drag
And the nicer ones that fly away.

Every day is a new beginning
Another end is every day
Every day is another mystery
Every day a cliche

Everyday we meet new people
And every day is still the same
Every day we part from someone
And all we are left with, are memories of yesterday

It's amazing how fast life moves,
But how slowly passes each day.
We just keep living, and in the blink of an eye,
Today is already yesterday.

It's just a matter of perspective,
That makes our lives short or long.
A happy one will seem short
And a gloomy one, oh so long.

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What matters is how you look at things,
Your happiness depends only upon you.
If all you see is dark shadows, don't worry,
Turn around and you will find the sun shining upon you.

Elephants and Tigers

Eastern cultures are focused on community, like a herd of elephants, while western cultures focus more on the individual, like tigers, living each day as it comes. Given the changing world with increasing globalization, how does one understand these varied, contradicting perspectives? What is considered selfishness in one part of the world is simply self-expression in another. How does an individual who lives by whatever they believe to be right, or best, figure out what really is right or best?

And once a person does figure out how they would prefer to live, the values they would like to live by, what happens if these conflict with the views of their community? Human beings are afraid of change. Anything that threatens to change their way of life is met with strong opposition. The homosexuals continue to fight for their rights while women, in many parts of the world, continue to consider themselves inferior to men.

What the world needs is courage. Courage to stand up to our beliefs. Courage to fight against those that suppress us. Courage to accept change when it comes about. The ability to truly consider another's perspective requires the courage to lose. I wish we'd all find a little more courage.

How much is too much?

Hope and ambition are two very closely related emotions. The only difference between the two is that to be hopeful is to sit and wait for the miracle and to be ambitious is to make the miracle happen. Both hope and ambition help us survive and then make the best of ourselves. Without hope we would wither away in depression and without ambition we would make no progress at all. But as is with all good things, too much of them can be painful. Too much hope leads to being delusional and too much ambition leads to... god alone knows what. Personally, I don't see a down side to too much ambition as long as one's vision is not too narrow, that is to say, that one does not lose oneself in the pursuit of whatever it is that one is pursuing. But I do know that ambition can be the cause of much suffering.

So the question really is, how much is too much? When Leonidas fought for Sparta with his 300 men, he did the only thing he could, ambitious or not. He thought of the consequences of not fighting, and in comparison, even this ambitious battle seemed to make sense. It seems as though hope and ambition are but survival tools, that help us live our live the best we can. 

The Indian Elephant.

An elephant never forgets, or so they say. Recently I was told that Indians are good at forgetting. They take to the streets and protest against something, nothing comes out of it, and then everybody forgets. 

A couple of years ago Anna Hazare mobilized an anti-corruption protest of massive proportions. Various petitions and bills were drafted, a hundred commissions were set up and eventually the public/media lost interest in the issue. The same seems to be happening with the issue of women's security/equality. Some quick-fix measure have been taken or suggested but the issue is no longer inspiring much reaction or even emotion. 

The question worth asking is, are all these protests in vain? i would like to believe that it is not the case. No issue can be sensational forever. It cannot inspire burning passion for a very long time, but once a nation-wide protest brings an issue to the forefront, people no longer hesitate to discuss it and a process of very slow change begins. Nobody is camping at India Gate with a burning candle or torch in protest against rape any longer, but that does not mean that we, as a people have forgotten what happened. All of the Justice Verma panel's recommendations may not have been accepted, but the new legislation is undeniably a big step forward. 

What the people of the country really must learn from the entire sequence of events is that the responsibility lies with us, "we, the people" and we should take this responsibility a little more seriously. When we care about something, change comes about. The system may have failed us many ways, but our democracy stands as strong as ever. So let's exercise the power that we do have, let's not make peace with the way things are, let's be a little more demanding. 

We Indians are not good at forgetting, we're good at making peace with things and improvising to make the best of a situation. We have learnt how to live with long power cuts, without water. We've learnt to drive very well in heavy traffic, maneuver around potholes. Unfortunately, we've also learnt to live in an environment that is no less than hostile towards women. We just need to be less accepting of tough situations and demand change. And from what I have seen at India Gate, at Jantar Mantar and in the streets after the Commonwealth Corruption scandal and the delhi-bus gang rape, I think we're getting there.

Fear and Rage

I moved to Delhi eight years ago as a seventeen year old, excited about a new life as an architecture student. I lived in the city for seven years and came to think of it as my city. Inspite of the high rate of crime in the city I was comfortable because I did everything 'pragmatically'. I loved the city for allowing me to live my life at my own terms.

The rape and brutal murder of a young girl suddenly jolts me out of my sense of comfort and I wonder if I was really living life on my own terms. I could not leave my house after sunset without feeling extremely aware of my surrounding. Everytime I found myself in a quiet street, even walking from my car to my apartment, I would instinctively reach for a sharp object, so I could feel safe. I often clutched at my keys, as if jabbing them at a potential rapist would be of any help. Wearing a short dress in the street is out of the question, unless you really enjoy being ogled at by a mob, no less.
There is no way of knowing how many parties, birthdays, concerts, dinners and dates I might have missed out on because me or my family was too afraid.
Once in a blue moon, when you dare to feel comfortable while walking in a street with a friend or a sibling you let your guard down, you might get groped and be left to feel sick to your stomach, too shocked to even cry as you watch a hand retract into a car speeding away. Such memories, that had been so carefully repressed, begin to surface.
Small measures like calling and letting your friends know you have reached home safe and sound are a way of life. Fear, is a way of life. So much so that I never even realized it.
A young woman got raped and tortured in the city that was home to me. I am angry. Not because of what happened to her, but because I know it could have happened to me, or worse still, it could have happened to my friends, my sisters or my aunts. I am angry and I want change. We all want change and we, the people of Delhi, take to the streets to ask for it.
Some of us in the streets realize that this change cannot happen overnight. Some of us ask for some small measure that we think might catalyze this process. But most of us are just there because we are angry. With the government, the system, the patriarchy, the violence, but mostly because we refuse to live in fear any longer.

Feminism from my eyes.

A girl gets brutally gang-raped and tortured in a bus in New Delhi and suddenly, after decades of delay, the city wakes up from it's deep sleep. I am convinced that every report of a rape troubled the people but somehow this time 'what can we do' turned to 'whatever we can do'. This one fact is extremely encouraging.

Personally, this issue affects me immensely. It fills me with emotions I cannot quite comprehend and makes me reflect on how this system that treats women so much more inferior than men has affected me my whole life. I grew up in a small town where the purpose of a woman's life is to get married, bear children and take care of her home and family. Somehow I got lucky and landed the two people who thought I could be more than that for parents. But growing up in the small town, I saw women feel pressurized to have another child so that this time it might be a boy. I've lost count of the number aunts who wanted to know the sex of their foetus, so the pregnancy could be terminated were it a girl. Mothers are supposed to fast once a year for the long lives of their sons. I have a younger brother and once he was born, my mother was expected to fast for his life too. My mother would hide and eat a bite of food she wasn't supposed to because she cared for both our lives, not just his.

I grew up being told that I was too immature to understand when I asked them why they wanted sons. I was too immature to understand why a girl should lose half her weight before she may be 'shown' to prospective grooms (or their families). I was too immature to understand why my grandmothers lived in mortal fear of my grandfathers, despite the love that I know they shared. I guess I never understood because I did not want to accept.

But now if the women of this country are to have the same rights as the men, if they are to be safe walking in the streets be it night or day, then the system must be challenged. It is not I who should consider accepting the system, but those in the system who should accept a new way of life, it is them who should accept me.