Thursday, November 10, 2016

To Remember...

Dear woman who has been told to quieten down, speak softer and be less angry all of her life,

You thought if you spoke less, and in a softer voice he wouldn’t notice the anger oozing out of your lungs in the form of words.

You feel like fire in an ocean.

Most days you question yourself. Interrogate yourself as if you are a felon on trial for having a big mouth.

You question whether you are too loud, too opinionated and too damn angry.

You have been taught to accommodate, absorb, and the back of your neck aches sometimes from nodding so much.

Every question you ask in class begins with “sorry.”

You are always made to feel like you are infringing with your opinions, as if your words are a burden to bear.

I know you. I know who you are, how you feel, and what goes through your intricate mind. I am you.

You’ve been told that your anger is counter-productive. That you’re just wasting your energies and that (this part hurts the most) you have too much passion.

You don’t understand how anyone could have too much passion.

You wonder if your brother, male colleagues, and friends are told that they are too passionate.

You recall your mother telling you to speak less while your brother dominated the dinner table discussion. They called him “confident” and you, “fiery.” You wondered why he had to be ocean, and you had to be the fire.

You’ve practiced speaking softly in the mirror, but even then you didn’t recognize yourself in the reflection and hated yourself for trying to change.

This way you’ll find a man. You said. No one wants a girl who’s all fire. You told yourself.

You promised yourself that you wouldn’t get so angry so quickly.

You fixed a vapid smile on your face, but even your cat wasn’t convinced of it.

You made goals that you’d exhale and re-think before you said something that sounds angry. It never worked.

One day you met a man who smiled when you raised your voice and watched your tongue as it rolled around inside your mouth as though he was watching artwork. He loved your fire.

But, even he questioned your loudness. Asked you to be less rough around his mother and friends. He shouts at you now and then. But, you tell yourself that you deserve it.

No one can contain your passion, anger, and spirit. It is yours and it adorns you. You hate having to stifle it for anyone.

The worst part about being less angry is all the hard work it would take. Anger is a permanent tenant in your body. All the years of having to suppress your sexuality for others, the doubts about your body, the pressure from everyone around you to be a lesser version of yourself. How can you not be angry?

Were you expected to watch with glistening eyes as your father planted bombshells in the heart of your mother? The shrapnel hit you hard and you cried every time you saw your mother wince from the injury.

Your teacher, your congregation leader, your uncle, they all said you were too much to handle. How will she possibly hold down a husband with that kind of attitude? They mocked. You just stood there thinking about how you would prove them all wrong.

All the arguments with men who insist that you are overreacting.

The countless times you’ve been called “dramatic.“

The exclusion. The loneliness. The isolation.

But, your spirit, your fire, your anger always prevails.

To the woman who has been told to quieten down, speak softer and be less angry all of her life, you are my heart in human form. I wouldn’t want to be in a world where you don’t exist.

A Letter To All Women Who Have Been Told To Quieten Down, Speak Softer and Be Less Angry: http://www.thefeministwire.com/…/a-letter-to-all-women-who…/

Horrors of Impending Motherhood

October 8, 2015:

I am writing after a hiatus.
It seems like a hiatus, although I made an entry in my diary the other week after months.
I haven’t worked in such a long time, my mind seems to have left its abode and gone on travels I can only dream of embarking on
It’s been eons since I have thrown myself into something and created something out of it. I can’t remember the last time that happened.
And all this free time and nothing to do has brought me back to the emptiness of my existence.
You see, I am planning on starting a family, on having a little babe of my own.
Which makes me think, in spite of all the ensuing happiness and triumph and pride I will feel when I do become a mother, it will really be the first thing I would have created in the span of my entire existence.
There would be nothing extraordinary that I would be able to tell my child about having accomplished.
It guts me, shames me, makes me feel so guilty of having wasted so much precious time.
I feel so unfulfilled, and it feels so unfair to think I would be burdening my little one with giving me the one thing I couldn’t give myself : fulfillment
You see, I have always despised people who had kids to fill the voids in their lives, always judged them as being inadequate to have kids, seeing as they hadn’t found, with all their efforts, the meaning that they are looking for in the little one. The little one who itself is so helpless and dependent upon coming into this world, let alone give us purpose and direction.
Maybe it’s symbiotic, the parent-offspring arrangement? Excuse the language, I don’t mean to think of it in such crude terms (the miracle of life is, after all, a magical and other worldly experience, or so I’ve heard) But maybe it is a mutual give and take? We take meaning and purpose , direction and energy, inspiration for new undertakings and the motivation to be better from and for our little ones, and give them protection, love and support in return?
Maybe.
But I’m not as good as I want to be before I welcome them here.
I don’t know who I am. A QA engineer? A writer? An artist? I don’t know.
To think that they would expect me to know , not only who I am , but also who they should be, is terrifying.
It paralyses me, petrifies me. I can feel my insides shrinking with nervous tension when I think the thought, just like a student who KNOWS she hasn’t covered the entire syllabus before sitting in an exam.
The possibility of failure is eminent. Clear as day. I can almost see it and most certainly feel it.
Even then, I don’t let the thought draw me away from the idea; the idea of having the responsibility and power to mould and shape and carve someone’s life for them. To have the opportunity, the sheer luck to give them their most permanent impressions. Sure it sounds daunting, it is. But I don’t think I have ever been more ready in my life for it.
Sure I might not know all the answers to the universe, but we can find them together. I’ll have a pristine mind to accompany me on the quest, a mind unaffected by cynicism and adulterated thoughts and twisted views. A mind I am hoping would side a little towards optimism; It would balance me out nicely.
I’m thinking selfishly even in this endeavor, in motherhood, the one thing that is supposed to be centered around the helpless little soul, I manage to make about what I’ll gain from it. This is what makes me think maybe I am inadequate in the first place. I’m looking for fulfillment already, for a soul mate that I am missing, for a friend here in the middle of nowhere, for a companion. There is so much of a burden of expectation that I am already placing on someone who hasn’t even existed yet. How can I be trusted to put their needs first and above mine? It baffles me, and makes glaringly obvious the chances that I have not yet taken, and travels I have not gone on, and the risks that I bypassed for a safer life. All things that could’ve counted for something, I have not done. And all of that baggage is landing on tiny, fragile shoulders that MIGHT some day exist.
The idea that I don’t know who I am, and the idea that there would be even lesser time to find out after, is harrowing.
Its eating me alive.
 Maybe I am uninspired, or maybe I’ve forgotten what it felt like after a good day at work, where my mind was occupied and busy all day, and there was a sense of achievement at the end.
The problem is, I don’t know which one it is. And I’m  very, very afraid that it  the latter.
You see, when I think of actually putting in the effort of excelling in what I do, I don’t want to do that either.
I have been horrific to myself by giving up my words.I loathe myself for every time I gulped down the urge to write and let it all out, even when it was brimming so close to the surface. I swallowed it, and it went down with the burn of bile that rises in your mouth and isn’t vomited out. I don’t know why I did that.
I vow to never do it again.
No matter how feeble, lazy and ordinary my words seem , I will not stop writing them.
They are the one thing that have come so naturally to me all my life.
I will bring my mind to create. In all adversity, in all circumstances.
My excuses are over.
If not for me, then for my future child.

I’d better be able to tell them I’m trying to be a brilliant writer, than an ordinary quality assurance engineer.

Revelation Day

Golden Conversations! I've come back to this chat over and over to return myself to the root of all emotion.

Me: i have had a revelation today
S :.
S :which is?
Me: that i have unwillingly moved on, and that i am ruthless and cruel once i've moved on.
S :that is a good revelation, there isnt any mellow sort of moving on
S :in time the ruthlessness would subside i think
Me: i am naturally ruthless, not on purpose
Me: and i was horrified at it
S :its sense of preservation
Me: and i am feeling guilty about moving on
S :your just keeping urself whole its a nice thing :P
S :dont
Me: how can it be..
Me: itna sa time kaise lag sakta hai (worry)
S :its like this
S :you shock ur senses into moving on
S :which leave little room for milder emotions like sympathy
S :its like getting on to safe ground
S :the truth is you dont really move on
S :you get stable and cut paraphenlia that brings you down
S :but everythign stays
Me: i hope so !
Me: because if i can move on , like really move on from this, then there will be nothing constant in my life, which is a scary thought
S :hmmm true but there is another thing
S :things end all the time
S :or change atleast
S :end is sorta final and wrong to say
S :but the point if something does not last forever does not mean its not real
Me: hmmm
Me: true
S :our parents have stayed toegther all their adult lives mostly their type of love has not remained constant
S :its changed obviuosly
S :or mayeb they have fallen over and over after periods of falling out
Me: is that even possible?
S :yes i think so
S :our moods are constantly changing even when we are "in love" we are not in loove all the time
S :its more like knowing that yeah its there when we need to go back to it
Me: hmmm
S :sometiems we we need me time, sometiems we need space, sometimes we need to be with someone constantaly
S :we confuse the promise of real love with eternal love
Me: hmmm
Me: true
Me: can it be eternal but not real?
S :i think most of it is, because we dillude and obesess over the idea too long
S :delude*
S :jo bhee
S :xD
S :i think there is a fine line
Me: it is what?
S :for someone obssessed long enough that would be reality
S :so depends upon how you define it
S :love could be an obessiosn
S :it could be an inspiration
S :i think something good needs to come out of it
Me: it could be both in different moments, obsession and inspiration i.e
S :like learning something more deeply for it to be called love
S :yeh
S :depends which is predominant
Me:
“like learning something more deeply for it to be called love”---explain?
S :hmm!
S :we know right from wrong
S :we know most of them anways and take granted most of them
S :i'll just tell what i've learnt
S :i used to be more anti social and despised most people
S :i learnt ( obviuosly not an active thought all the time :P) to like them better, to care and be open about it
S :i learnt to let go of bohat saree self appointented restictions
S :i learnt why when and only i could beleive in a god
S :sort of things i knew were "nice to haves" but wernt in me
S :i've gotten somethign good out of love
Me: haan woh to sahi hai
Me: you learn, you horizons widen
S :yeh later walee baat hey
Me: you explore yourself
Me: chalein oka
S :ur scared keh tum numb aur regid hpo jao gee?
Me: yeaa
S :meree spelings farigh hein
Me: hehehe
Me: rigid :P
S :ho saktee ho
S :yeh i thought somethign is wrong
S :woh tum ko actively counter karna ho ga :P
S :dont panic though
S :there will be lasting things as long as you understand nothing stays execatly the same
] Me: haan
Me: i know that
Me: i've adjusted to change alot
Me: lekin this was supposed to last, and now i discover that i had let it go from my end, unconsciously
Me: and i was horrified at it
S :ok
S :yeh thats reasonable horoor
S :Horror GOOD GOD
S :wth