the freedom

She shut the door closed. And then, that was done. The flood gates opened up. Finally, they could run free. As she wept her anger way, the tears left her with a sense of void, a vaccum that surprised her. She had expected relief, not this dull throbbing nothingness.
There was no telling about what she wanted, after a long bitter battle , she had finally closed the doors and had vowed never to look back.
Why the ache in the pit of her stomach then?
~~~~~

she had opened herself up to accomodate him.
Her body, her mind, her life, her habits, everything moved to accomodate him. Everything she did, now had his tinge, his musky smell a mixture of deospray, cigarettes and his sweaty chest- which she hated at the beginning, but had now begun to tolerate, and God help her, almost even like.
She began to accept those phone calls which irritated her in the beginning to be a part of life, as did she began to accept those stubby hands that crept up her waist destroying her REM cycle. his baritone, his slight deafness, his "Im always right" attitude,
she had just adjusted herself to work around this. She had retailored her life around him, his whims and fancies.
And then came the daughter, and life, if she did have any semblance of it left, just ended as she knew it. Equations changed, words and their meanings changed, colors changed. time warped. everything was distorted now; everything was lost, and nothing was found. It was this nothing that she still held on to, she told herself, if I think hard about it, this, uncomfortable feeling, this sense of being choked, might actually feel good. It might actually turn into love.
~~~~~
What triggered it? She would later think about her history teacher telling the class that the wars that changed the landscape of the earth, often began with a small transgression, which otherwise would go unnoticeable in the canvas of world history.
Whatever led to it, however it had shaped up, she had reached this point today.
She was back where she started, albeit minus her youth, her vibrancy and her will to live. She was altered in a way that could not be "unaltered", she had changed in ways that were almost unimaginable, her outlook to life, her responses to life, everything, including the color of her hair had changed.
Time isnt furniture that once changed, you can drag it back the place that lounge chair was, so the room looked the same again.
Time was everchanging, to yearn and want the past might be human nature, but is the impossible, the one thing that Man hasnt learnt to manipulate.
~~~~~
The aching void gave way to a fit of laughter. The realisation that she was now alone. That she could finally smell and hold silence, that she could sigh and hear the sound echo around the house, that she could order a pizza without being lectured about cheese, that she could watch TV and play a game all at the same time, without demands for coffee and milk and a thousand other tiny things.
That she could be a human being, and not a work mule from egypt, that she could stand in the mirror and like what she saw, without having to avert her eyes.
And she laughed. the sound felt foriegn to her ears. It was ages since laughter had bubbled up like this, ages since laughter had actually emanated from the depths of her soul.
She looked at the papers she clutched in her hand, un-creased them, re-read them, tears streaming down her face, tears of joy, of happiness. and in that instant, she almost believed. that instant, she WANTED to believe. in god. for delivering her freedom back, for allowing her to respect herself, her gender, her likes, her demands, her sense of self, her soul.
Divorced. she whispered to herself. Divorced, she shouted out to the world, heard the echo in the empty house, Divorced - she called out to her dead parents.
Divorced, and she began to laugh again. Laughter filled with joy and relief.
Laughter that came 10 years too late.

Maybe

She had everything, and yet nothing.

"Yun to koi gila nahin. sab kuch tha, kya na tha
phir bhi jo ek kami si thi, uska pata na tha"

Feeling lost. unloved. unwanted. feeling dead, while breathing.

I need a hug. a big large loud hug. I need someone to tell me that they care because no matter how many times I tell this to myself, it sounds hollow and false.

I need someone to believe in me, tell me that they know that I am perfect, and tell it to me like they are sure of the morning, day and night, despite me being imperfect.

I need someone to help me find a reason to live. All I do now is, breathe.

And breathing, is suffocating. It feels like Im gasping, gasping and gasping for air, to survive, to ... to to live and all I can do is, gasp.

Why is it, that I am back to venting on a blog ... on just words and letters when I supposedly have SO many people around me?

Dammit. I hate you, you stupid stupid world.

Where's my Antartica?

Trapped

If she had felt trapped before, that feeling was nothing compared to this. This feeling was not emotional. It was as though she was having a physical reaction. This feeling, it caught in her throat, choking out the words, wrapping its fingers around her lungs, cold and clammy, she could hardly breathe.

It was as though she was dying, the hole in her stomach kept growing each day, the future, the uncertainty, the anger, the dissappointment, and more than all that - the entrapment.

She was trapped in her body, she was trapped by her fate, and she, was trapped, by her own progeny.

the shackles so bound, that the only way to freedom was no way at all.

wateva!

Love, is single handedly the biggest generator of crime.

All this flowery rosy poetry about love and its grandeur, is all just bull crap. It makes you lie, cheat. It makes you guilty, and feel dirty. even when you are the victim, it makes you feel like the perpetrator.

A friend is in love. for the 4th time. how can that be possible? beyond comprehension. Love is like boobs. even man boobs. it is like a vagina, a penis. once you have it. you have it. how do you get rid of it?

all modern medical practices would say boobs and vaginas and penises can be surgically removed. what else do cosmetic surgeons get paid for? unnatural removal of body parts.

Modernists would tell me to bother about more important stuff in life. Like the politics, or the elections or the poverty or hunger, or marrying film stars ... that is the big stuff. Stuff that the universe is made of. I cant get my head around the small stuff. Nauseatingly sickening small stuff like love and emotions. How am I supposed to make sense of the big stuff?

How does one stop being in love? does it happen like when you get out of a theater  Okay - it was good for the 3 hours it lasted. I am going to think about it now, and forget it by the time I reach the bottom of the escalator? Which movie do I watch next?

I need to know. For I need to fall out of love. I am in love. Far too much out in love. I am at a point where hate, disgust and love - they all meet. Like my own little Narnia or my own sickening version of Far-Far-Away. I need to get away from the looking glass. Alice needs her life back. So, when this friend marries the man she thinks is Mr. Right 4th time lucky, I tear my hair apart, figuring out just how is it possible. I need to know.

I need to get rid of this man living here in my head and heart, at the same time disgusting me, and at the same time evoking all those emotions of supposedly true love. I am stuck with someone whom I cant hate entirely or love completely. So for the sake of the end of the world - how does one get rid of emotions? whom do I pay for a surgery that strips me of my metaphorical man-boobs and penis - for now, it is unnatural to have it.

guilt

this song here  is bittersweet. 

It was 2005 I think, and I was active in the 'Bangalore Music Lovers' group on Yahoo. It was a rare opportunity to see BalaMurali perform Live in Bangalore.

The tickets were on the higher side, as was expected for a BalaMurali concert, but I went ahead and bought 3 tickets. I expected mom, me and gran to go, but when gran refused, I took dad along. we went in our Indica - the car dad had bought in the excitement of wanting to begin a travel business. It was the ultimate pride for him. A car he owed, driven by a chauffeur, with his wife and daughter to watch Balamurali in action, with the tickets his daughter had bought for him with her earnings.

Dad enjoyed the evening to no end. That ad where they say "papa ki chatti ko chattes se chaalis bana deta hain" it actually happened. It did.It truly and totally did.
He did not forget the evening ever. He kept singing that very song over and over again, he must have sang it atleast a thousand times in the short span that he was alive after this incident.

It drives a knife through my heart to listen to this song. It was dad and daughter, sitting next to each other laughing, clapping each other palms to match the Taala of the song.

This song always makes me feel guilty that my first choice was Gran. It taints the happiness of that evening with a huge guilt covered brush.

I make it a point to listen to this song everytime I feel good about myself, because it is important to know that you can never allow yourself to feel too good about yourself, too proud. you need to remember the people who matter the most. you need to make sure you are taking good care of them.you need to love them as unconditionally as possible. because, you never know, when life decides to paint your moments with that ugly color of guilt.

And truth be told. this is the only true and deep rooted guilt I have. Nothing else comes close. nothing else measures up. This is the only true emotion I have. all others pale. even love and hate. they pale. just pale against this one incident.  everything i will ever do in my life, will always pale - there will always be this pain in the pit of the stomach which hits you harder than a punch in the lungs which is so raw and emotional.that nothing can compare against to.