Momentary (or is it)

Defeated crushed and humiliated. Feeling betrayed while making others feel they have been betrayed.
Suicidal too.
Too cowardly to commit the act. Waiting for an act of 'god'.

Relief

I think he would be relieved if anything happened to me. Thank god if I died and jump in joy at the thought of losing me.

How do you wind up with someone as this to be the one person you are destined to lead your life with?

Taboo (1)

Since when did religion become a taboo subject? Especially my religion. The sanatana dharma. Hinduism if you like it that way. My country is and has always been largely populated by people who choose sanatana dharma. So since when did bad mouthing this way of life become the 'in' thing?

I know. I'm an atheist. Most people look at atheism as rejecting everything that has to do with the word 'god'. Religion. They believe is THE biggest thing associated with God.

One could not be farther from truth. I am an atheist. On some unfortunate days, I am an agnostic at best..... but every single day.... I follow the sanatana dharma. The oldest and the most mature compilation of leading ones life. I am a PROUD Hindu.

While I could talk about how religion and god and atheism are separate till the cows come home.... I choose to for now postpone that discussion for later.

My religion accords me the freedom to be an atheist. My walk of life doesn't threaten me with eternal damnation or promise me a certain number of nubile virgins in the afterlife.
Instead.... It tells me stories. Fairytales and grim bloody gory stories. Each charecter object or quest standing in for a metaphor. Stories about the black and the white and the grey. Stories that end differently in each retelling. Stories that have a different hero when looked at differently. Stories that lay down and at the same time give you the freedom to question,pick and choose the ways to lead life.

Such is my religion. All embracing. All loving. All tolerating and above all.... open to change.

A million deities exist. Because this religion is about charecter than the nomenclature. It is about the deed and not the doer. It is about respect accorded to every living and non living objects. It is about gratitude towards those who helped in times of need.

Hence a cow, a tree, a horse, a motorcycle even .... is accorded the elevated status of a diety alongside the others.

This religion is all encompassing. One cannot convert into this religion.... and this is because the sanatana dharma is not a club that preaches exclusivity. One is a Hindu merely by following 'dharma'- Righteousness.
Empathy tolerance peace justice equality generosity hardwork honesty trust and love are the hallmarks of this religion. Anyone can be a Hindu.  Nowhere does it talk about 'spreading the word' and nowhere are we required to call the others who tread a different path as 'infidels'.

I have had people argue with me about superstitions. I have had people tell me about godmen. I have had to listen about lame traditions. And the biggest of all.... treatment of women and the caste system.

With them. I do not bother. They bring me down to their level and beat me with their foolishness.

To argue that superstitions and religion are two Venn diagrams that have nothing in common, or to say that cheats and charlatans owe their success to gullible people than to religion or to tell people that interpretation of texts and the texts themselves are two different things or to say that "janmane jaatah shudrah" is what our ancient stories tell us.... is immaturity.
Commenting on one of the world's oldest and most mature relationships is not an easy task.
Especially when confronted with 'secular' people who believe the word secular implies demeaning ones own religion.

Am I an advocate for hinduism? Am I a fanatic? Am I a right wing fundamentalist?
I don't think I am.
A religion as huge as hinduism doesn't need an advocate carrying placards on the roads. It doesn't need someone to kill and maim in its name.

What I do want, is the right for me to be offended when someone speaks ill. What I do want is the right to tell such people to actually understand the metaphors on the stories or better still read the stories first... before they denounce and decry my religion.

What I do want is freedom for me to be able to teach my next generation about my religion and not have them be frowned upon for knowing a 'dead' language or for giving way to a cow on the road while uttering thanks to the species for sustaining us. It might seem silly to you but my kids will grow up being far more respectful of the environment the world and everything in it than you or your kids ever hope to be.
And my religion taught me that.

Ab jo kiye ho daata. ... aisa na kijo.
Agale janam mohe bitiya na kijo....
Ab jo kiye ho daata. 

Stranger (4)

She was sore all over. Her body hurt from exhaustion and from the beating it had received from him. The telltale white strands in her hair told her that she was too old and too tired to fight it anymore. 

She hadn't bother disguising the swollen red cheeks or the fact that she was deaf in one ear thanks to all the eardrum shattering slaps it had endured. With a sigh... she willed herself to walk when the music wafted in.

Hamsadhwani she muttered. The notes of the flute mingled with the rock and roll of the drums and struck her rooted to her place. She hummed along... she knew the arohanas and the avarohanas of the raaga. Eyes closed, hands and feet in sync with the taala of the raaga .... The soreness in her body drained away. Music is spiritual. Even to an atheist.

He spotted her in the crowd. Her presence was like the smell of mogra and jasmine. A breath of fresh air in an otherwise rank odor filled life. He watched her sway to the music.... imperceptible movements of her fingers tapping rhythmically on her thigh. 

Her hair a tangled mess, her dress a little too tight and a little too middle class. No makeup no jewellery and a red swollen cheek. A stark contrast to the beautiful and coiffed ladies and gentlemen around. Yet he was drawn to her... His eyes never left her face though a million and two people walked about.

The song tapered to an end and it seemed like the weight she was carrying flew back on her shoulders. Soreness and pain returned with a vengeance and she fell back to reality with a thud. She opened her eyes to find him watching her and a wave of self consciousness swept over her.Her dress was faded, was a size smaller for it was a dress that was a decade old. Her hair in a messy bun... her face streaked with dried tears and wet sweat. She wished he hadn't seen her  .... not this way. 

Averting her eyes, she walked away. 

He stood watching her .... oblivious to the words of the world.

And no. He didn't know how the events transpired as well. Little did she know. But there they were. 

Her hot fingers touching his cold earlobe. The clink of her earring with his watch... His palm on the mole on her cheek. Her hands in his hair.. The little tickle of his stubble, a drop of blood from his lips.. her gasp and his tongue kissing her teeth.

The drawing away of his mouth from hers. His lips on her nape. Her hands on his back. His fingers on her neck. A hickey that would need to be hidden, a scratch on the back that would need some creative explanation.

The loudspeaker announcing the next band. The quick parting of the couple (?).hurried steps in opposite directions.

It wasn't love.

It wasn't love.

It wasn't love.

It couldn't have been. 

Because.

It wasn't love.

It wasn't love.

It wasn't love.

It...........wasn't. ......... love ?

The stranger (3)

As she sat watching the sun disappear to wherever he went at the end of the day.... she felt anythingpu calm.

The scene was like out of a storybook. The warm sea water at her feet.... The cool breeze playing with her hair. The lonely beach with a vast expanse of sand to keep her company.

She should have felt at peace as she stared at the drowning sun.... The sun was being flamboyant.  It looked like he had set the whole see on fire and the sky and the water were doing some sort of a primal dance that involved a riot of blue orange and red.

And yet.

It is what it is.
We are who we are.

She heard him say. So lost she had been, in her thoughts that she hadn't seen him come.

It seemed so innocent. Two people out on the beach. Was it?

He sat at a distance.... beyond arms length. She kept her eyes fixed on the sun. 

2 people on the beach. 2 people and silence.

silence that sang. Silence that took them away from the world and on to the drowning dying sun.

There was squealing and laughing and patter of feet. The world had caught up with them. It was time to.

I love you honey

 

She told her husband. 

I missed you sweetheart he kissed his wife.

It wasn't love. It was just silence that sang at a time when it was neither day nor night. When they were neither here nor there.

It wasn't love.

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.