Shut Up

 

Its so dark i cant see anything 

but the granular blackness of them all

no doors open all windows shut

In dead silence I lie

prodding with my hands 

looking for a space to escape

the claustrophobic hole of nothingness.

As the quiet lets out a deafening shriek

my ears ring with pain and i plead

Mercy, mercy, Im asking of you

Let me be, let me go

Im so worn, so torn in this endless trap

Im so shut up inside these confines

that wrongly define 

what i mean to be

Is it too late?

Is them too far, those lights that trade hopes with fear?

Is it too silly to wish for a second leap?

Can i turn this around? 

make it stop, this all?

Theres no space, no light, no definite sound of encouragement

In this dark I can only see within 

and there too i see an endless abyss

Maybe ill jump and see

maybe ill find the answers 

and the way that leads me 

to me.

 

Letting Go

How hard is it to let go?

It's hard. Really very hard.

It is excruciating at times. Beyond words… beyond thoughts.

Then how does it happen? How and when do people let go?

It certainly doesn't happen overnight. Don't people wait for years yearning for closure?

How then?

I look back at myself for answers. I don't find them initially. But when I rummage further, I find a beackon that beckons me towards a forgotten memory... Lost in the process of life. So much so that the only memory of it is what I have been told. Nothing else.

Then I see. I know life had already made me do it. It was the first thing I did before I opened my eyes and spoke to the world, much before i sat up, walked and felt... I had learnt to let go.

Life taught me to let go of the damp, dark comfort of the uterine world, my umbilical cord was slashed off without second thoughts as I was pushed into this side of living - so full of light, noise and confusion. I hated it. I resisted. I cried. I revolted.

But then I blended in. It took time, maybe. But I did it finally. I let go.

Wasn't that the first lesson I learnt in life?

Nonetheless, letting go is still painful.

But with this knowledge that I'm wired to do it, there is a sense of emancipation. It may take time, I may hate it, I may want to resist it, but it shall finally flow into me and I, into it. And like immiscible liquids, we shall become an entity that was seemingly always there, waiting to happen.

So I shall not be in denial... let me embrace it, own it this time. Let me appreciate the presence of this excrutiation. And let it fade away on its own. So after some time, it shall throb no more... it'll remain as the residue of a sweet memory of something that I seem to forget - A nostalgia that brings smiles with it and not tears.

And then I shall have done it.

I would have let go.

The Universe of Thankless Living

Sometimes thankless people amuse and intrigue me. How they manage to live with themselves is beyond my understanding. Then this bizarre idea of putting them on a giant petri dish rushes into my brain. Maybe add a situation or two with the quintessential pippete and study whether that changes color of the blot on them. Then i step back and realise that this would be unnecessary. Perhaps they are already on that petri dish. I should save my brain for the kids.

Gyaan!

We are born to change. My Four and a half year old was a different person two years ago. And i realise she will change more as time shall pass. Dont we all? I am not the same that i was five or ten or maybe fifteen years ago.
But though we may change, our souls remain the same. At least they should. So we feed it with good thoughts and good deeds and save it from getting scarred to the extent possible.
We may then change multiple times, but would always remain good people. 

Intro-Spec-Shun

Today I'm in a total look at myself mood. And contrary to what the wise would do, I turn to facebook - a world where every one looks so skittishly happy that the gunk literally explodes in your face. Of course, that's not true.. i tell myself. Look at the brighter side in life! Wait a minute, most of the wise would certainly do that!
Then i see a pic of a friends friend who traveled to some remote 'hilly paradise'. One of the pics was a giant hand (well, it was a close up) holding some food served in a giant leaf which was drying at ends and showing off particles of what seemed like dust. My mind instantly wanders to the newspaper article that talked about tapeworms and a relating interview in a shady news channel (yeah, they are all gung ho about how tapeworms are invading the Earth and shall rule humankind for the times to come).
I bury my head into my tired arms and sigh. Forget it.

Kriya Karma

In death, her face looked disgusting. Unlike the death of Pishi Ma's character who died with a smile on her face in the story of 'Debyani', published in the weekly Bangla magazine, Daya Ma's wiry figure looked scary. Indira looked at the still body without breathing, as if she may wake Daya Ma up if she inhaled loudly. Was she afraid she may wake up again? Oh, so was she happy she was dead at last? Indira waited for tears to appear. But her throat was parched and her brain blank. She was devoid of emotions that moment. Paralyzed. So she continued staring. Sans words. Sans tears.

Daya Ma's white matty hair was scattered across her face. Her mouth was half open partly showing the lower gums and a bit of her tongue that was attempting to peak out of her toothless mouth. Her eyes were half open too, as if unwilling to close, unwilling to give up living. Her sinewy hand lay resting above her head, the ingrown nails displaying an ominous blackish blue sheen. The other hand lay on the other side, marked with obvious atrophy owing to lack of use across so many years. It was just pulp and bone now. It was the hand that Indira stroked every night for the last eleven years, before she went to bed. She knew it couldn't detect her touch, but she refused to relent. So she went on with her daily night time ritual of massaging the right arm, in hope of waking it up from the stroke that paralyzed Daya Ma. It never did. And now, it never will.

Indira slowly rose and hobbled towards the door. The creaky little wooden box that held Daya Ma's dentures stood smiling on top of the chest of drawers. She made a mental note of throwing it away at last. She was disgusted at the thought of someones teeth being outside his/her body. God knows how she put up with it till now. As she trudged along the corridor, she tripped on her pallu and lost her balance. Ushering her giddy self up she walked towards the telephone. Was she giddy due to shock or relief, she couldn't tell. And she coudnlt tell whether it was the demons within her or the demons outside that were devouring her brain with such sick thoughts.

She picked up the receiver and dialed a number.
"Hello?" Said the voice.
"Come home.." She said.
"What? Whatever happened?"
"It's... It's Daya Ma. She wouldn't talk."
"Come on. You know her tantrums. Talk her out of it!"
"This one, I cant, Bijoy. Come home. She wont wake up now... Please, come home!"
There was silence on the other end for a while. "Im coming."

Indira sat down and hugged her knees. Daya Ma had not been not the best mother in law. Indira still remembered the first holy day of shravan after her marriage, when Daya Ma had showered her with curses on for having imagined she could visit the temple with Bijoy before finishing all the chores of the house. She was distraught. And that was just the beginning of the ordeal. But she hadn't also thought for a moment that fate would have her nursing Daya Ma in a vegetative state for more than a decade. It was a dirty job alright. She doesnt remember a day when she hadn't retched at the smell of urine while washing the bedsheets. Neither does she remember going out of the house without thoughts nagging her about a helpless woman back there who may need to be attended to if need be. When was the last time she visited her own sister? Amu would fume at her for having not bought even a little toy for her boys.

"You both spend every dime on that hag!" She would retort. "Why, isn't it enough that she cursed you so you never even bear a child! I tell you, she is the Devil!"

But Indira would take care of Daya Ma. That was a part of her life she had come to accept. And it was a part of her life she could not imagine without. She would wipe her clean every day, feed her, wash her soiled clothes and read her the Ramayana. Sometimes during the sponge baths, the old eyes would well up. Then Indira would look away and wipe away the tears with the end of her pallu and pretend to focus on her work, trying to picture Daya Ma shouting at her with tiny drops of red syrupy betel leaves spraying out of her mouth mimicking her fury. She knew how it was to be left alone to fend for oneself. Hadn't her life before marriage rife with sorrows with her single mother? This was the least she could do to undo the wrath of Karma.

Indira's eyes scanned the room to fathom were the ringing was coming from. She rose from the corner and walked towards the door. Bijoy stood there, his hand resting on the wall on the side, his eyes partly red and partly wet. Indira watched Bijoy and Bijoy stared at Indira. And when she put her forehead on his chest, he sighed and held her for moments that seemed like forever.

Liberum Arbitrium

"Sometimes you just require to be strong, Hema.", Says the counselor. Hema watches the doctor's beautiful majenta chiffon sari and her chest lightly breathing the air conditioned oxygen in and out. She nods. She has always been the strong one. There was never a problem with that. But dealing with death was another thing. All that running around along the hospital corridors, queuing up at the TPA desk, listening to the doc with acute concentration, seems juvenile now.. almost unnecessary. Why all the drama when she always knew she this was how it would have ended? If it were not for those anti depressants, she would have been a vegetable by now.

"My child was just fourteen, Doctor.", She says studying her nails and trying to appear calm.

"You have another daughter, Hema."

"Yes i do. In another years time, i shall know if she suffers from the same gene defect. That means another round of running around and preparing for death. Well at least next time, i would be prepared. Sorry, more prepared."

"If that gives you the strength to move ahead, i wont stop you."

Hema nods and leaves the room. On her way back her eyes linger at scenes that have been a part of her life since the last six months of weekly visits to the counselor. The Nimbu Soda vendor wards off flies from his cart, the little old lady a large mole on her forehead nods to sleep in front of the many jasmine garlands she intends to sell to the vehicle owners, a young couple sits at the bus stop with their backs to the road.. the guy's hand on the girl's beaded dupatta, watching it chime against the steel bench, his jeans hanging dangerously low revealing a part of his butt crack.

Hema stifles her giggles and walks by, both marveled and disgusted at how monotonously everything around her goes on as if nothing happened.

A few steps ahead, her car is parked with Ameya watching her walk towards it. His large eyes have become more droopy than ever and the hair near his temples suddenly seem to have grown more strands of white than black. In his eyes, she reads love, expectation, hope and... need. He is in no less distress than her. But he shall never show.

She musters a smile and quickens her pace.

Not yet. She tells herself. I dont have the mind to give up yet... and opens the door of the car.

"Hi Dear, wish to have a Nimbu Soda?"