Memory loss

Something had an effect. I can't even remember anything in detail. But from bits and pieces I know it was the best Christmas Eve in my life. For forgetting every minute right after that minute was over. In complete oblivion I enjoyed some moments. The something was just marvellous. It did its job. I am still high !!!

FEAR

I don’t like men. But I am not a feminist. There are some men I like. But if the world calls me and all of us without a moustache and also them without breasts as ‘human’ I refuse to say I am not a feminist.

Chalo, is it something to talk about now?

SILENCE.

Living under control, under laws which are not equal to all, fearing darkness, crowded trains, office lift, way home, home, room, the one sleeping along have been called as LIFE. Who said that, to be in pain is fair? Would I ever be asked if I am, is the only question.

Am I a lovely dog to say “NO, STOP, COME, RUN” ? 

Ok.

But why do YOU remain the master always?

To you who will never understand:

I don’t like to be touched if I don’t want to.

You raped me several times.

I hate those memories of rainy days in the buses, fully packed general compartments, busy walkways, jackals in sheepskin in the new office, friends who looked for benefits, friends’ dads who brought sweet boxes, fruit vendors, tailors, hotel staff and many more (almost all looked the same).

Ha ha ha!

Corrupted lot, corrupted race

കുഞ്ഞു വലിയ കാര്യം

" ഈ പെണ്ണുങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് ചെറിയ കാര്യങ്ങളൊക്കെ വല്ല്യ സംഭവമാ...എങ്ങാനും birthday ക്ക് നമ്മള്‍ ഒന്ന് wish ചെയ്തില്ലെങ്കില്‍ തീര്‍ന്നു. പിന്നെ സമാധാനം തരില്ല. ഞങ്ങള്‍ ആണുങ്ങള്‍ ഞങ്ങള്‍ടെ birthday ഇങ്ങനെ ആരാദ്യം wish ചെയ്തു എന്നാലോചിച്ചല്ല ആഘോഷിക്കുന്നത്. ചിലപ്പോ ഓര്‍ക്കുക പോലുമില്ല. ഇതൊക്കെ ഇത്ര  വല്ല്യ കാര്യമാണോ ... ?? "

പല ഭര്‍ത്താക്കന്മാരും കാമുകന്മാരും ചോദിച്ചിട്ടുള്ള ഒരു ചോദ്യമാ ഇത്.

വലിയ വിശാലതയില്ലാത്ത , അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ ലോകത്തിന്‍റെ വിശാലതയെ കുറിച്ച് കൂടുതല്‍ അറിയാത്ത പെണ്ണിന്‍റെ കുഞ്ഞു മനസ്സിന് ഇത്തരം ചെറിയ കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ ചിലപ്പോ വല്ല്യ കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ ആയിരിക്കും. അതല്ലേ അതിന്റെ രസം .. പ്രകൃതി സ്ത്രീക്ക് കൊടുത്ത വ്യത്യാസം.. ഇനി അതല്ല പുരുഷനെപ്പോലെ ലോകത്തിനെയും സമൂഹത്തിനെയും കുറിച്ച് ചിന്തിച്ചു നടക്കുന്ന പെണ്ണിനെ എത്ര പേര് അംഗീകരിക്കും ???

സ്ത്രീ വീടിന്‍റെ വിളക്കായിരിക്കണം . അവള്‍ ഒരു generation നെ വാര്‍ത്തെടുക്കുന്നവളാണ്. കുടുംബത്തില്‍ അമ്മയുടെ സ്ഥാനം അച്ഛന് ഏറ്റെടുക്കാന്‍ പറ്റില്ല. ആ സമയത്ത് അവള്‍ സമൂഹവും നോക്കി നടന്നാ അത് തെറ്റ്. അതുകൊണ്ട് അവള്‍ വീട്ടിലിരിക്കട്ടെ.

ഇപ്പൊ എന്തായി ?  TRAPPED from both sides. ലോകവിവരം ഇല്ലാത്ത common sense ഇല്ലാത്ത  സീരിയല്‍ മാത്രം കണ്ടോണ്ടിരിക്കുന്ന പെണ്ണ് or കെട്ടിയോനേം പിള്ളേരേം നോക്കാതെ നാട്ടുകാര്യോം നോക്കി നടക്കുന്ന തന്‍റെടിയും നിഷേധിയുമായ പെണ്ണ്. എന്തായാലും കുറ്റം ഉറപ്പായി.

രണ്ടാമത്തെ വിഭാഗം വളരെ ചുരുക്കമേ ഉള്ളൂ . പത്രം വായിക്കാത്ത ഇപ്പൊ Indian Cricket ടീം ന്‍റെ ക്യാപ്റ്റന്‍ ആരാണെന്നറിയാത്ത പെണ്ണിന് ചിലപ്പോ അവളുടെ birthday ഒരു വലിയ കാര്യം ആയിരിക്കും. ലോകത്തിന്‍റെ ഏറ്റവും അറ്റത്തെ കൊണിലെത്തി " YES I DID IT " എന്നു പറയണമെന്നല്ല അന്നത്തെ അവളുടെ ഏറ്റവും വലിയ ആഗ്രഹം. എന്നെ ആദ്യം wish ചെയ്യുന്നത് എന്‍റെ ഭര്‍ത്താവായിരിക്കണം എന്നുള്ളതാ. എങ്ങാനും മറന്നു പോയാ ഒരു കുടുംബ കലഹം ഉണ്ടാക്കാനല്ല , അതിനു വ്യക്തമായ കാരണം ഉണ്ട്.

ജനിച്ചത്‌ മുതല്‍ വിവാഹം കഴിച്ചത് വരെ പലരുടെയും അഭിപ്രായങ്ങളിലൂടെയാണ് ജീവിച്ചത്. സ്വന്തമായ തീരുമാനങ്ങള്‍ക്കോ ആഗ്രഹങ്ങള്‍ക്കോ യാതൊരു സ്ഥാനവും ആരും കൊടുത്തിട്ടുണ്ടാവില്ല. കൈ പിടിച്ചേല്‍പിച്ച പുരുഷന്‍ ആണ് ഇനിയങ്ങോട്ടുള്ള കൂട്ട് എന്ന പ്രതീക്ഷ , ജീവിതത്തിലെ ഏറ്റവും വലിയ കാര്യം തന്നെയാണ്. അവന്‍ കാണിക്കുന്ന കണ്ണിലൂടെ കാണുന്ന ലോകത്തിന്‍റെ നിറം സുന്ദരമാണ്. എനിക്ക് വേണ്ടി എന്ന് എല്ലാവരെയും സാക്ഷി നിര്‍ത്തി താലി കെട്ടിയ ആളെ എല്ലാത്തിലും ഉപരിയായി സ്നേഹിക്കുമ്പോ കുറച്ചു selfish ആയിപ്പോകും.

" നീ ഇന്ന് ജനിച്ചതുകൊണ്ടാണ് എനിക്ക് നിന്നെ പരിചയപ്പെടാന്‍ പറ്റിയതും, നമ്മള്‍ ജീവിതത്തില്‍ ഒരുമിച്ചതും. അതിനു കാരണക്കാരായ നിന്റെ അച്ഛനോടും അമ്മയോടും എനിക്ക് എന്നും നന്ദിയുണ്ട്. നീ എന്‍റെ കൂടെ ഉള്ളതാ എന്‍റെ ഏറ്റവും വലിയ സന്തോഷം. Happy Birthday My Love..! " 

How romantic ! how boring !
ആരാണല്ലേ ഇങ്ങനെയൊക്കെ പറയുക. പക്ഷെ  ഭാര്യ ഭര്‍ത്താവിനോട് പറയാനാഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നതും അവനില്‍ നിന്ന് കേള്‍ക്കാന്‍ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നതും ഇതാണ്. അവളുടെ ജീവിതത്തിലെ സത്യം ഇതാണ്. അപ്പൊ ഇത് കേവലം ഒരു birthday wish അല്ല. This is the grand total of her love and respect to you. Please don't underestimate it.

That someday!

If there is a someday
That day would be mine
I'll forget the sad yesterdays
And the worries of the next days
And that someday would be wholly a today
And truly madly deeply
I'll be happy,  happy and happy!

Stories of Marriage #2

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Read and shared based on tendencies to re-read !!

Through the nine months I was pregnant, I received a lot of (often unasked for) advice. Everyone told me that my life would change forever. About how that little human inside of me would steal my heart, along with my sleep, privacy and free time. I was told the stretch marks would never fade; that I would never lose all the baby weight.

But...

NOBODY warned me about the counter-effect our baby would have on our marriage, and the strain and pressure it would undergo.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Three years after having our child, we are still happily married. But I’m not going to lie. The last three years have tested our sanity, patience and yes, even our relationship as husband and wife.

Because as first-time parents, everything is so overwhelming, so new, so frightening. I was a zombie the first few months – lost in an endless, mind-numbing cycle of feeding, changing nappies and adjusting to weird sleep schedules. My husband, while being my constant support, was also learning to juggle work with sleepless nights and caring for a newborn.

In the middle of this chaos I began to feel jealous of my husband. His life had gone back to normal but mine wouldn’t for some years. Even though I was extremely happy to be a mother, I admit there were times I wished I could just dress up and go to work, rather than clean bottoms all day! These bitter feelings, coupled with exhaustion (neither of us had slept properly in months) and stress (if our son so much as sneezed, I’d get worried) was beginning to take its toll. On us. And our relationship.

So as we adjusted to our new lives, we started doing things in turns rather than together. I ate a hurried dinner alone whilst he entertained the baby. After which I nursed and rocked my son to sleep – often falling asleep with him – whilst my husband ate dinner. Alone. If I did the night feeds, he would let me lie-in on the weekends, but then would take an afternoon nap whilst I babysat.

We soon realised we were doing everything separately; not by choice but as a means to survive. This had become our new routine, the new ‘us’.

There were times when our son was asleep that we had time to ourselves. But one or both of us would be too exhausted to attempt to rekindle that spark. Or get intimate. We preferred to catch up on sleep or watch mindless television, just to ‘shut off’ for a while.

Talk. And fantasise. Basically, that’s pretty much all couples do sexually for a long, long time after becoming parents. I could literally count the number of times we got intimate after the birth of our baby. And that number didn’t even reach double digits! This was because of (among other things): Exhaustion, feeling very unsexy and smelling of milk and puke, and because I was still sore.

Slowly, without even realising it, our marriage no longer revolved around us, but centred around our child. We ceased to be husband and wife and had instead morphed into Dad and Mum. Naps, feeding times and burping took precedence over dates, anniversaries and romance.

However, after the first few months, some sort of normalcy reappeared. For me, this wasn’t after one particular incident or something my husband said or did.

It wasn’t a sudden light bulb moment. On the contrary, it was in the small things that he did as a father and husband - and in the things we did together as Mum and Dad - that I came to realise that this equation is working out just fine.

No, not fine, it’s perfect.

Little acts of consideration, such as giving me a morning to myself while he looked after our son; making dinner because I was exhausted after a tough day or planning a holiday just for us to get away from the routine and spend time as a family – these were the things that made our bond stronger even when it seemed as though everything was falling apart.

Yes, we are still tired. There are still some sleepless nights. And our life still revolves around our precious son, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Stories of Marriage #1

Read and shared based on tendencies to re-read !

I was on the bed, feeling terrified. I opened my diary and wrote, ‘I married a stranger’ and quickly hid it under the bed. My whole body was shaking.
“What do I do?” I questioned myself.

“Do I act like a virgin?”

“But what if he finds out? Do I tell him to wait for it for a few days? But what if it makes him angry?”
The front door opened and my heart jumped in my neck. I was breathing heavily. The sound of his footsteps gave me goosebumps. I looked down and pretended to be calm. I saw him stopping at the door though I wasn’t looking at him.

“Ghauri”, he said with ever-so-calm voice. I dared not to look at him.

“Ghauri, I am going to sleep in another room”, he said.

‘If your husband doesn’t want to sleep with you, you have failed as a wife’, echoed my mother’s voice in my head. But I didn’t look up. I stayed quiet.

“Don’t you want to ask me why?”, he said, with little humor in his voice, clearly trying to cheer me up. I looked at him for just a few seconds and looked down again.

“You are my wife”, he said and paused, and then he continued, “not a prostitute.”

I really didn’t know what he meant as my mind wasn’t working well. ‘When you don’t know what to say to your husband, keep your mouth shut’ came back my father’s voice. I obeyed him as usual.

“If we sleep together when we really don’t know each other, what different you would be from a prostitute? We will sleep together someday, when both of us wants it, and that day, I’d be making love to my wife. I definitely won’t be having sex with a stranger.”

He turned off the light and just few seconds later, put it on and said funnily, “I am not a secret gay by the way. I promise you that.”

Despite how scared I was, I giggled. He smiled, turned off the light and went to another room. I was still giggling. As I slept on the bed without removing my make-up or anything, tears rolled down from the corner of my eyes.

People say it amazes them when we shed tears while we are happy. They say, it didn’t make sense, but to me, it made more sense. We felt something so strong that a part of us couldn’t stay inside us, that’s what I thought anyway. To me, shedding tears while being happy meant more.

I woke up and made myself ready to make breakfast. I went to the kitchen but he was there, cooking. I don’t know how horrified I looked because it made him really scared. He quickly ran to me and said, “Ghauri, are you fine?” and his voice was filled with worries.

“Why are you cooking?” I said with a low voice.
He seemed lost. And finally he realized what I meant. “Ghauri, look at me. I like cooking, okay? You can cook when you like and so will I.”

“Ghauri”, his voice was authoritative this time, “you are not my slave. You are my wife!”

‘If you let your husband step inside the kitchen, you fail as a wife.” mocked my mother’s voice as I came out of the kitchen.

I began to open up with him, little by little. I didn’t share any of my biggest secrets with him or talked about my ex boyfriends, but I started talking with him. Once, he asked me some important suggestions about his office and my jaw dropped.
But I quickly remembered, my dad doing the same with my mom.

My mom answered and my dad got so furious, he slapped her in front of me for the first time. He looked at me and said angrily, “When your husband ask you about his works, he isn’t really asking, so keep your mouth shut.”

But they have been wrong ever since I came here. I started suggesting and he listened. I used to shed lots of tears at home and I did the same here too, but the feelings of why it came, was different.
I felt confidence building inside me. I could have never imagined asking him about going with my friends for trekking but I did.

I looked at him and said, “Can I go with my friends for trekking? It is only for two nights. I won’t do anything stupid and will come back as soon as I can. Or you could call me if you want me here and I will come back here sooner.”

My mom asked about going out with her friends fo for some religious purpose and I still remember my dad’s expression. My husband made the same.
He looked at me disgusted. He was clearly angry. I felt naked in front of him for the first time but little did I know, he was going to teach me to not be shameful when I am naked.

“Ghauri”, he said frustrated, “how many times have I told you that you are my wife? Why are you taking my permission like that? Like you are a prisoner? In fact, why are you asking at all? Inform me and go. Don’t beg for it!”, he said and walked away angrily.

My parents gave birth to me and they raised me, but I was only starting to live. My husband was teaching me how to live.

I went behind him. He was looking down the balcony. I stood behind him and looked down as well.

“I am learning, please be patient with me”, I said looking down, probably opening that part of me for the first time, “My mother has given me thousand lists of what I can do to fail has a wife and my dad has given me thousand lists of when to shut up. So, I am learning”.

He laughed though I wasn’t joking. He said, “I apologize for laughing and for my earlier behavior. I will keep that in my mind, if you promise me to remember that you are not in your home anymore. Ghauri, let the past be in the past.”
He touched my back for just one second as a comfort but it was his first touch to me after I entered his house. It was, in all honesty, special. And the more he called my name, the more it sounded special.

I started calling my friends home for dinners. We sometimes drank the wine my husband brought for us. I was living. My parents’ greatest gift to me wasn’t giving birth to me, their greatest gift was marrying me off to a stranger.

One night, my husband and I were drinking. He asked me what I want to become.

I barely whispered, “I want to become a writer.”
The expression on his face was priceless, something I could never forget. I had never seen him so happier and I bet there were tears in his eyes. I would have never thought but he had always wanted to be a writer too.

“Got too busy. Will you do that for both of us?”, he asked me with smile filled with sadness and joy.
I could only manage a nod.

That night, I cried like never before. I covered my face with pillow tightly to protect the sound. I didn’t know why I was crying so hard but I wanted to scream. I saw a black shadow near my door. He was standing there, watching me.

I stood up and went to him and I kissed him. I hugged him and kissed him again. I dragged him in the bed.

“You sure it isn’t the wine doing?” he asked me.
I rolled my eyes and replied, “You sure you aren’t a secret gay?”

He laughed, “You are about to find out.” he said and pushed me on bed and kissed me while undressing me.

It was typical of me but I had to say it, I thought I owed it to him. I stopped him and said, “Before we start, I just want you to know. I am not a virgin.”
He waved his hand off and said, “I thought you were going to say that you have AIDS.”

I laughed and pulled him close and kissed him.
And we did it. I had sex with him after three and half months of our marriage. Let me scratch that, I made love to my husband after three and half months of our marriage and sure enough, he was straight.

I woke up the next day and looked at him sleeping peacefully beside me. I was sure of one thing like never before.

I took out my diary and turned to the page where I wrote with a blue ink ‘I married a stranger’. I picked the black pen and wrote, ‘and I fell in love with him’ because I really had fallen deeply in love with him. I smiled and decided to keep a promise I made to him. I was going to write, I was always sure of that but what I didn’t know was what I was going to write about. Now I did. I was going to write about us.

Sonnets of self love

Your voice is like the strings on my guitar
When it goes wrong, I can just turn them right.

Unattractive, pale and skinny in the green maxi dress
But there is a self that grows underneath the warm skin
Drinking the elixir of her life, that is love!