Dumb Test
Take the Dumb Test at Quiz Rocket.com! *****************************************

Sunday, May 22, 2011

From me to you...

I remember you crossing my path once in a while. I remember you bringing a smile on my lips once in a while. Yes, there were times when you would walk with me, but then, you walked your own path till we met again. I do remember you crossing my path once in a while.

It rained a lot one day, I remember. The sun was fierce that day, burning down anything that came on its way. You ignored the heat and walked with me for a while, a long while may be. You shared your thoughts with me and shared mine, yes it rained a lot that day, on my soul and may be yours too.

You met me again, and you continued crossing my path again and again...we walked together, side-by-side, under the scorching sun, the pouring rain, the moonlit nights and through foggy mornings. We parted our ways, knowing when we would meet again.

One day, yes I remember, I found you walking with me.

One night, yes I remember, I found you sleeping next to me.

One day, yes I realised, you had been walking with me for a while.

That day, yes I knew, I needed you by my side, always.

I do remember, you holding my hand tight as we circled the fire, you leading me and then I leading you, I remember your voice as you read out your vows, and I felt your glance as I shared my consent across the purdah...yes, I remember, when we promised to walk all our walks together.  

The memories are not so vivid after that. I do remember our journey together, some of it, or most of it? The dreams that were fulfilled, the bricks that made our home, the pages that we turned on lazy Sunday afternoons together, the songs that we felt in our fingertips, the rhythms that we danced to in our souls, the tiny toes that we felt in our hands, the small steps that we guarded, the nappies that we changed, the parties that you threw at my success, the trips that we took at your success - yes I do remember some of it.

But mostly I remember that night, while sitting on the terrace, I looked by my side, and suddenly realised that you weren't there. I reached out, but could not feel you, I tried to listen, but could not hear you, I tried to speak, but you could not hear, although I remember you handing me my scotch, two ice and one dash of lime - you knew my drink so well. I looked out for you again, the next day, as you waved at me on your way to office, I could not find you - that day the sun came lashing down...I do not remember any rain.

I sat there, on our way, and realised we do not walk side by side anymore. Were you ahead of me, did you take a wrong turn, were you following me? - I could not figure out. I knew we were not walking together anymore.

I sat there, waiting for you to come back, and walk with me, as we took the boys to the school, prayed together, held hands and crossed roads...yes, I knew you would come back. To walk with me.

It was raining that night, a lot. I was cold and tired. I was rushing home. I should have listened to you, I should have waited for you to pick me up. I retraced the steps that I had taken innumerable times, ten steps and turn left, I counted, my stick clanked the cobbled street as the Hummer lost control, and skidded, they say. They say it blew the horn, how would I know, they say it had the headlights on, how would I see - I was still counting my next 20 steps to our door. I remembered falling down, through eternity, like the kite breaking free from the spinner wheel, enjoying its heady moments before hurtling down to the ground or like the subdued river forcing open the floodgates in a heavy monsoon and cascading down the dam walls in all its fury. They say I was holding our photo when they found me, they say I had a smile on my lips when they lifted me. I remembered falling down...I do not know how you look, I do not know how a smile looks like - I can just feel...

You took my hand and held it to your face. You allowed my fingers to trace your eyes, face, lips and tears. You held it to your heart and my fingertips felt it beat. You said, it beats just for me. Caged within the white walls, covered by the white sheets, attached to a number of machines, in my dry lips and tired heart beats, and in my numbed pain, I realised, you are walking by my side now, you were walking by my side, yesterday, and will tomorrow.

For I am, because you are, and you are because I am...

*(An attempt at fiction. Let me know how flat it fell! :)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

She is...

She stood there, in front of the mirror, naked. Her hair framed her face, ever so lightly, poignantly lifting her chin as her eyes dropped. The street lights lost their way into her room through the glass windows. Carelessly glancing through her body and caressing the mounds and the curves, creating a drama. Her eyes, she felt, were tired. Her thoughts, she knew, were exhausted. Her body, she saw, was a shadow. With a broken marriage, mutilated ovaries and few desperate wrinkles etching her tired face, she wondered for a while, at the milestone of 50, how does she define her womanhood. Is she, she argued, any more a woman? 

Is it her thoughts that make a woman a woman? The famous 'caring and sharing is all about'? Or is it the relationships that make a woman a woman - the father, the brother, the sister, the son, the daughter, the husband, the lover? Or is it just the hair, the softness, the curves and the societal glances that make a woman a woman? 

She knew of a woman in her childhood, complete with the sindoor (vermilion) and the shankha-pola, who visited their house everyday to finish some daily chores. She had not seen her husband for 10 years, she did not know where he was, but she continued wearing the sindoor. Several years later, the aged lady still had the same smile and the sindoor on her forehead just as red as before. Is this why she is a woman?

She also knew of a woman, who chose to raise her several siblings after a bitter partition, fought shoulder to shoulder with several authoritative figures in the 1940's in politics and remained dedicated to the family till her last breath. Is it her tremendous courage, in a troubled world that makes her a woman?

Or was it when her best friend's husband flooded his 'facebook' page with his wife's photographs and published 'notes' for her, that she knew her best friend is a woman? Or was it when someone she knew chased her fiance' to the other side of the world to salvage a relationship is what makes a woman, a woman - the grit, the determination or the desperation? She wonders...

Is it when with a battered body, and an abused conscience, her domestic help gets up every morning to pack food for her husband and her kids makes her a woman? Or is it the calmness with which a woman handles a terribly upset client or a stakeholder that makes a woman a woman? Is she, the one who adores her husband and her child, enjoys few short-lived affairs on the side, but always walks back to the comfort of the four walls of her husband and children - and it is her discretion, her celebration of her life or her bold choices that make her a woman? Or may be when her husband of 30 years, looks lovingly at her, shares his terrible fear what if she passes away before him and her comforting him makes a woman a woman - her beauty and her indispensibility to her family? She continues to wonder.

She walks the streets alone, she buys her own jewellery, she rules the catwalk, she dominates many podiums, she destroys the demon every year amidst dhak (drums) and the autumn clouds, she stares at her tired palms bearing the evidence of years of housework, she refuses to give in, she obeys orders ever so diligently, she nurtures a dream in her heart, but she rarely dares to live it - is this why she is, who she is?

She kept staring at her 'shadow' on the mirror, the hair and the curves. May be a face muscle twitched a bit or may be there was some moisture in her eyes, we do not know. May be she wondered for a while what if she had a complete family, a loving husband, couple of kids, few children in law, membership to kitty parties, she would have felt her womanhood. Or may be she wondered, in her manicured heart and mascara-lined soul, that her setting beauty, her broken life, her failing reproductive organs and her pride in her freedom, proclaims every day that she is...

*Dedicated to many remarkable souls that I have come across in my life. So, what makes a woman a woman! Your thoughts?