A Vista

Taking pride in the knowledge

That I have accumulated,

I stand over the roof.

I look right, I look left.

My visions stretch over the thatched roofs,

Where people look so menial,

Diminutive and of lesser beings.

Lying out-stretched on

The ground and covered in the dust.

Their finger nails soiled in hard-labour

And every breath is breathed for survival.

A dog sleeps next to the man,

There is no shame.

They breathe the same air,

Walk on the same land

And they are under the same sky.

They both worry

For two meals a day.

They are kicked out like garbage

Or pitied by a passer-by.

Charity buys them luck

And sometimes sympathy.

A man in born naked,

He is still naked.

Naked of joys and pleasures,

Laughters and merriments.

He is filled with grieves and sorrows.

He is clothed with struggle and dust.

I see a child not more than fifteen,

Pushing the loaded cart,

Enduring his body to feed his family.

I see an infant unattended,

Left on the floor, wailing.

I see an old lady on the road,

Stretching out her alms and singing boons

To all who throws a penny at her.

I stand on the roof

And observe, and anticipate,

And visualize, and introspect,

And witness, and survey,

And imagine, and watch,

And watch and just watch

And taking pride in the knowledge

That I have accumulated.

A Wall

Brick by brick,

One over the other

For a wall thick.

A room of one’s own

Cannot be broken or torn.

Seldom entered or even known.

No beam of light penetrates

No vagabond air dances

No thoughts wander.

There is a bondage-

a lumber

Of words.

Bound by memoirs

Locked in the past,

I’ve prisoned my own self.

The Hunger

She could have only been seventeen, but he was twenty-nine. He had charmed her in his masculine attitudes and lured her to his bed. She was waiting there and anticipating. He gazed at her immensely until she lowered her eyes and turned her head away. He progressed towards her and swayed her on to the bed.

He unclothed himself and pounced on her as a greedy monkey. He messily peeled her off her clothes and flung them over the floor. He kneaded her body as dough and squeezed and pressed her to the bed. His tongue ferociously began to tread her body. His beard frayed her cheeks. His teeth consumed and began chewing up on her nipples. And finally, he was ready to have the whole pork for himself. Her groans and moans filled the room until he had, had it all.

Thus, their hunger was satisfied.

Out from the window came a loud shrill. A screeching sound of a baby could have been heard very distinctly…

The house was not very far away. It was a small hovel with no proper doors or a window, where a mother had just returned home. It was almost eleven in the night. She took the crying infant out of the cot and patted it. The infant would not stop crying. She fed it with some fetid water, but no good. She later unhooked her blouse and got the infant’s lips closer to her breast. The infant promptly began sucking in whatever it could. Not more than few moments, there was lout cry yet once again.

Her breasts were dried. She had nothing for her to eat. She hooked her blouse and left the infant crying on the floor. She sat there, on the floor, her elbow on the knee and slapped her forehead.

While Studying “The Remains of the Feast”

I never thought I would have looked my granny the other way. The Other Way as in, would never think of her plight in a different perspective. For half a century, she has remained a widow, a loving, caring, giving and never asking daughter-in-law, mother and grandmother. But, never a wife or a beloved; too caught up in her rituals of being a woman than being herself. I do, really, do wonder what it would be like to lead a life so Chaste, so Pure and so unprivileged.

“The Remains of the Feast” is an interesting, ironic short-story narrated by Gita Hariharan. The story is told by the great grand daughter, who teams up with her dying great grand mother and helps her break all the shackles of tradition, caste, age and widow-hood. There are funny incidents in the story that makes one chuckle oftenly. She smartly juxtaposes traditional-ity and moderni-ity, old and young, conservative and progressive beliefs. It is a story where the writer makes one introspect of the life one leads and how often do we forget the desires of the body.

It was in this story where the light was thrown on the plight of Hindu women in India. My grandmother fits perfectly in the frame that is drawn by Gita Hariharan. We see that the old woman in the story has interesting sense of humor, a body so resilient and healthy and learns to absorb her own pain. That so made me remind of my own sweet granny. She voluntarily gave up on wearing coloured clothes, stopped eating onion, potatoes and garlic, voluntarily avoided going out to family functions and dinners.

My eyes swelled up with tears in Dr. Ghosh’s lecture where she kept on revealing the quandary of widowhood. I kept on imagining my granny, not smiling because it was not appropriate, not going out because she has no male protection, not wearing colored clothes because she cant woo or attract any male gaze. Barely, I could concentrate for a while and my mind kept on swaying between the stories of her life and the on-going lecture. I could clearly recall what she told me once:

“I was sixteen when I was engaged, seventeen when I was married, eighteen when your father was born, twenty-your aunt and at twenty one I was a WIDOW. That’s it.”

Not a word after that and she would turn her head and start to fold her clothes again and sinks into her memories of the past and leave me with more and more questions. Questions of how she could take that much of oppression, why was she not allowed to be free and make her own choice? She became too much of what society expects of a woman. And she became one.

She made a life of our ignorances. She harnessed her tears under the blanket. She accepted what she dint deserve and courageous enough to wear a smile on her face. Embracing the silences, she carried the yoke of widowhood all through her life, for almost fifty years. I guess that is what is moving on. When I cried, those tears were not out of pity or sympathy of her predicament, it was because I never realized that how I had failed her, failed her in understanding her miseries, difficulties and apathies. It is too difficult to give up on what you desire; she readily gave up hers, her wants, her life and her self.

Being Human

I walk down the skywalk over the Santacruz Station. Watching people pass by looking up-to-down at me; a stray dog has nothing to follow; so he wanders off to any strange sound, just like me. In a dingy corner on the bridge, which locals treat it as their own personal spittoon, is a beggar, very old with his palms stretched out to every walking person and simply pleading with mercy and calling out blessings for all who spare and don’t give a penny.

It was out of the blue where I will to share, only share a penny that belongs to me, give away and dish it out only because of my polite heart was filled with sympathy. Some more blessings from his mouth were transferred into the pockets of my karma. I walk away and stand aside to wait for my friends. Engaging myself into a Derridian talk, I divert my attention to something more significant and advanced.

On my route back, I check my pocket for the change given to me by the bus conductor. Finding it missing, I check again. The missing penny had its root in the morning when I offered it to the beggar. I then realized, how easy it was for me to forget the charity that started my morning. The CHARITY, perhaps, only namesake was actually an act of sympathy, pity, shame and self-loathing. If it wasn’t for sharing or sparing a penny but offering, it would have been a genuine charity. I heard bells ringing in my mind recalling a poem by Eunice de Souza “Feeding the Poor at Christmas”.

Lucky was that poor man, who didn’t have to think too much about morals and virtues. I, the giver is now muddled of not knowing what is genuine and ingenuine. We should be great liars to call ourselves connoisseurs and aficionados, while we can barely differentiate between our mind and heart. Playing GOD, is all we like to do but we are turning away from the real essence of being what we truly are, a simple human.

I...I...His

I am-

His daughter,

His sister,

His friend,

His girl,

His wife,

His mother,

I am his.

I am-

His ambition,

His virtue,

His inspiration,

His passion,

His desire,

His love,

I am his.

I am-

His angst,

His shame,

His insanity,

His foul,

His torment,

His sorrow,

I am his.

I am his,

But never me,

Never free,

Or a floating spirit.

I am clouded with,

Whatever his is,

But never me,

So, I am his.

I am his,

I was his,

I will be his.

I don’t want to be his.

I don’t like to be his.

I want to be mine,

Mine in time,

Mine in place,

Mine in soul,

Mine in me.

I want to be me.

I want to be myself.

I want to be mine.

I want to be I.

Waning Sun

It is almost to sun set,

Where the stars and moon would have met.

I see her eyes stretching across,

Over the horizon measuring the loss.

Un-disturbed sight tells tale,

Of misery, wisdom, strength and frail.

Tender hands have wrinkled in winter,

Sorrow and pain has been its marker.

Deep cracks on her face,

Life, now has no grace.

Alone, lone in the dark,

An idle waiting has made its remark.

Long sighs of her breaths

Are the reasons of her deep regrets.

The greyness of her hair

Leaves no experiences bare.

The furrow on the brow

And head hanging so low.

While she makes her way back

I follow her limping track.

Not assuming what I can fetch

Of her grieves and suffers I make a sketch.

Not a word, she utters,

In her own deep thoughts, she slumbers.

Dark curtains envelopes her,

The vista soon becomes blur.

I see her walking away,

Her image will always stay.