She was a mess - forever

She was a mess. She learnt every lesson the hard way. She loved and she lost. She fought and she fought. Nothing ever gave her strength for more than a few moments. She pulled people towards her and then pushed the same people away from her. She was often confused. She would make a plan, dress up, and in the very next moment she would be sad and in two minds to go or not to go. She was a mess and it wasn't cool.

She was love. She made happiness out of every emotion. She found joy in little things. She loved herself. She was organised and excited and beautiful. Her heart was of gold and silver and glitter and so many different colours. She gave strenght to many. She would crack jokes and make people happy. She had moments of despair but those wouldn't last for more than a few moments. She was happiness and made up of love.

She loved and she lost, yet again. Only this time the love lasted a little longer than usual and she believed it is forever. But she was wrong, yet again. She was a mess again. And you know it is more difficult to be a mess after being happiness. Because people don't believe your head and your heart. They say it's temporary because a women made up of so much substance cannot lose so easily. But who knew the depth of those scars. They kept saying 'It will be okay', 'You will be fine'. Who knew the transition was difficult, time consuming and painful. When those hopes are crushed again and again and again, it becomes harder and harder and harder to be able to walk again. Untill then, she dragged herself through, because contradicting to everything, life had been unfair enough to give her those small chunks of strenght.

She didn't need the advice, what she really needed was a hand to hold, a ear to listen and a heart to understand. She wanted that 'everything will be fine' to change to 'you are beautiful'. Sometimes all you need is someone to remind you that  'You are beautiful'

I'm guilty!

As I was beginning my morning meeting on a Wednesday , Arman walked in with his sister, crying. Unusual, because Arman had started to love school and would enjoy learning, unusual also because his mother hadn't come to drop him. As he entered class, I asked him why was he crying. He ignored my question and kept asking me, whether his mom or dad or someone from home will come to pick him up from school in the evening.

I assured him they would, but he wouldn't stop crying until I let him cry and continued with my morning meeting. Sometime later he got angrossed in the classroom activities and stopped crying.

In the recess, I took him on a walk around the school and asked him what was wrong. He said nothing. I kept trying to know what was wrong because I was sure something was extremely wrong. After a while he opened up. What he said got tears to my eyes and stabbed me inside.

'Didi yesterday I made a mistake, my mom got angry and she hit me, and she said I don't want a son like you, tomorrow I will leave you to school and not come to take you back'

'Arman does she do this all the time?'

'No Didi, but whenever she does, I feel she will really not come to take me back, didi what if she does not come today? Am I a bad son?' Tears rolling down his eyes.

No Arman, relax, she will come back, she is just angry, she loves you, she will definitely come to take you'

So many kids, including all of us, may have had similiar experiences like these. Do we as a parent or a teacher or even as a human ever think about these small things that affects a kid so much? Do we realise that these small little things, build up to damage the confidence, the feeling of security, of a child? Do we realise that this little kid might grow up and become the most insecure person we know? This little kid will have a huge inferiority complex, that will hold him back from being the best he can be? I ask myself these questions, and I feel guilty for saying whatever I said to a friend who was being stupid, because she wasn't sure if she should buy a expensive phone or save money for her grad school and she choose buying the expensive phone. I feel guilty for telling my mother she did not do anything to solve her problems in life. I feel guilty for shouting at a kid when he could not speak in a loud and clear voice. I feel guilty when I unknowingly made fun of that boy in my school who was the most quite and secluded person I have ever met.

I'm guilty.

Needs and Wants

“What is the point of this discussion?” I asked my mom in anger as the discussion on whether financial independence is a primary or a secondary quality in a potential groom. She obviously is of an opinion that it is very important for a successful marriage, but is it really that important? No, before you start guessing the background of my mother, let me tell you she comes from a well-educated, open-minded (as cliched as it may sound) Sindhi family, so much so that she was married off to a Gujarati boy very happily in the early 90s after dating him for good 7 years.

I don’t deny that money is important, but does that mean you can compromise on the understanding. I have seen couples earning lakhs together and yet so unhappy. Does money decide your happiness? She argues, you cannot knowingly jump into the fire. But maybe knowingly jumping will hurt a little lesser than getting a shock later. If there is no emotional attachment, no understanding, how do you think will you ever be able to earn to be happy? Earning money isn't easy, why? Because most of us don’t earn to live, we earn to survive, we earn because of a lot of external reasons. Society, People, Luxury, Peer pressure etc. And then we call this HAPPINESS. What are we really confused about? Definition of money, definition of earnings or definition of happiness? I wonder, as I think about all that I hear each day. Is being materialistic a cool thing these days? Why is there such a wide gap between poor and rich? Because we have created that rift, right? Poverty is when you can’t afford the basic things in life, and rich is when you can afford everything in life. But do we really need everything? NEED? Maybe our WANTS have taken over our happiness. We look for happiness in that one dinner we spend on in a luxurious hotel and check-in to show the world. We look for happiness in choosing to travel by flight where we can easily travel by train. We look for happiness when we buy imported cookies instead of those Parle-G biscuits. I don’t say, all this is bad. It sure isn’t but do these things decide how happy we are? They don’t. I don’t know how people without all these comforts of life survive but the belief that we will survive and remain happy without all these temporary things is real happiness. 

Hopelessly Hopeful

She lay down there, on her bed
You know how it is to struggle to keep your eyes open and close
At the same time?
Darkness and light.
It feels like you can't walk a step further nor a step behind.
She lay down there all alone, dreaming the real
Imaginations can cause harm, she never knew
The real was all a imagination come true
He walked in quite, lay besides her
Hand on her head, on her shoulder he had his head
She felt heavy in her head, like something unreal would hit her head
Her eyes wide open, she could feel the pain
Hopelessly hopeful as things always get
She gave her hand for him to rest

Into her eyes....

Into her eyes, the world I see Is the world that breaths on humanity. I have no faith for I know its fake, But those beautiful eyes make me believe otherwise She asks me to walk away And my only hope is fizzing out I struggle to breath , longing for her love, that keeps me around The ocean of tears that her eyes shed each day, If only I could take charge and control them I have no hope, no faith, I know there is no humanity But somehow I like to tell myself I'm insane. For into her eyes the world I see, is the world that breaths on humanity I want to see her win the fight, And make me believe that she is right. If I had a choice to make her mine, I would not think once, I wouldn't think twice. Into her eyes......

I'm just as human as you

I’m a woman. I’m a citizen of India. I’m a HUMAN.

There have been times, when I have been labelled as a ‘loud’, ‘over-reacting’, ‘short-tempered’ girl. But I have never understood why a normal reaction about an issue is as heinous as rape, or child labor, or even women-empowerment an over-reaction? Aren’t we all supposed to do something about this? Aren’t we all supposed to get up and walk miles for this to stop?

I remember reading a news about a molestation incident some years back, I reached college and got into a discussion with a male friend. The incident that I had read about was about a young girl being molested on a busy street and nobody came forward to help or even had the guts to call the police. The friend I was talking to said, ‘In India, messing up with the police is the last thing anyone will do? It is just too exhausting and you never know you might be put behind the bars’. I asked him, ‘What if a girl is being molested in front of you, what you will do then?’ He had no answer to that.

I remember watching a film – ‘Lessons in forgetting’ at a film festival while I was on my college IV. I kept crying the entire movie, and couldn’t get over the helplessness of being a women even after the movie. Two of my male friends while trying to console me said this is India, you can’t do anything but protect yourself. Changing the mindset will take infinite time. I said, ‘But it has to start somewhere, it has to get somewhere, this isn’t the problem of one woman, there are thousands out there’. The conversation still remains incomplete.

I kept denying the fact that nothing can change, there is no hope. I kept arguing about how India is our country, the people who do wrong things are us, and the people who are victimized are us as well. I kept fighting, I kept thinking, I kept feeling outraged. I could never think of running away from the problem. People kept saying, don’t do this, don’t do that. It is unsafe to go out in the dark. It’s unsafe to wear body-hugging clothes. It’s unsafe to party with friends. It’s unsafe to travel alone. I would never listen.

March 2013: I remember being pulled in a car by four unknown guys, taken to a deserted place in an attempt to ‘have some fun’. As they say, ‘Luck favors the brave’ I escaped with no physical scars. Reading this, there will be a lot of people thinking, why the fuck is this girl revealing this online. My parents might feel angry too. But this incident shattered me. I would give all the excuses in the world to not go out of the house. I started feeling inferior. I started to break-down too often. Mood-swings. Anger. Self-pity. All this made me so vulnerable, that I hated the fact that I was a women. I would cry all day thinking, if ever I get married, I won’t give birth to a girl child. I would cry all day feeling powerless. I could not confide in anybody. I couldn’t talk to anybody. I was dying each day, and it was directly effecting all my relationships.

I’m still figuring out what got me out of all that negative thoughts.

February 2014: I applied for a fellowship at Teach For India.

I know a lot of people who talk about Indian economy and how they want to settle in some other country. I have really close friends who think India isn’t the country for higher education and how other countries have a lot of offer. What I don’t understand is aren’t we all trying to run away from the problems? When we talk about civil rights, why do we forget our duties? ‘I pay my taxes, I’m doing my duty’, really? Aren’t you and me responsible for the Delhi gang rape? Aren’t we responsible for a brilliant kid saying, ‘what’s the point of studying so much, I’m going to end up where I was born anyway’ Aren’t we all responsible for global warming, lack of opportunities, crime rates rising?

A lot of people will still say, ‘hum kya karr sakte hai’ But to be honest it’s not because we have no hopes, it’s because we aren’t working hard, we don’t want to take the efforts, we don’t want to put ourselves in trouble, because we always want a guarantee, because we are lazy, because we are selfish. Because we think money can fucking buy happiness.

Well, that’s how it is. And I don’t know when we will take the efforts to live in this country, face all the shit with utmost courage and be a part of the history.

I’m a woman, who has gone through things that is only a certain percentage in this country. I don’t mind just surviving and not living (as people view comfort today) if I have a purpose in life. And a purpose is most definitely not a luxurious life. It does not count as a purpose. I will die hoping that none of the kids I see in my teaching career commits any kind of crime but instead works for the betterment of the society (which is highly difficult, considering the statistics of different crimes in this country) but I won’t give up. Because I’m not only a woman but I’m also a citizen of this country and most importantly I’m a HUMAN.

Sometimes.

Sometimes all you want to do is run away. Somewhere where there is no one. No human to feel any emotions other than bliss. Too much of a human contact is terrible sometimes. It just makes you more and more vulnerable. You are not you around people. You are you only when you are with yourself. I'm a people person, I can't be alone for a long time. I'm terrified of the people who don't like interaction. But sometimes I feel that is what I need. No interaction. No one to talk to. No one to hang out with. No one to expect anything from. No one to be a reason for my happiness. Because my happiness is mine after all. No one can understand my happiness nor can they understand my sorrow.

I'm a mess. People will label me a drama queen, but who are these people? People who you are running away from. People who in the end are the reason you are writing this. People who somehow inspire you to not give a fuck about them. People who are nothing but just another set of humans who are messed up in their own head, just like you are. You can write about it. Maybe they can't. They are just living with it, without uttering a word.