There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable..

The Scare of “Being Scared”

I am scared. Very very scared.

Mostly I am scared to be a woman in my country’s capital. Then I am scared for the fear that I am slowly but surely losing my independence which I am fighting for everyday since I was a child. I am scared to get on a public transport – at any time of the day. I am shit scared of travelling alone at night even though I feel angry @ feeling so. I am scared of trusting the autowallah I wave to stop on the road. I am scared of even driving my own car!

I am scared of wanting to enjoy a normal life – the life which most men take for granted. I am scared of the fear and anxiousness I see on my family’s faces every day when I kiss them good-bye for office. I am scared when I hear the same anxiousness growing manifold when I tell them I’ll be working later than the day-light hours. I am scared of the uncertainty that my every step brings – to myself and those who care for me. I am scared of opening the newspaper everyday – for fear of the number of new rape stories that I shall read – each of which depicts the woman as the one “shamed”. I am scared of trying to argue with the world why I should not have to put a full-stop to my life ‘cuz of the animals roaming around.

Why? Why should I have to think a zillion times before planning a late-night movie? Why should I be questioned for wanting to save my hard-earned money and not splurging on a cab-ride everyday – which again isn’t safe? Why should every time a rape case happens, the whole world questions the “circumstances”  - the girl might be travelling alone, she might be with a male friend, she might even be “alone” at her “own home”, she might be coming late from office working hard to meet deadlines, she might have been coming back from a drinking spree with her friends. Why should the girl be questioned at all?

And what right does anyone have to question a girl’s “morality” – her wearing jeans, her being educated, her befriending people of the opposite sex, her even drinking and smoking, and something which all of us read but chose to ignore – her being put on the same pedestal as a woman who indulges in sex for money – and even she doesn’t deserve to be raped! Is it “moral” for people to refuse to see women as people of the same race and giving her the well-deserved “Right to Live”? Is it “moral” for the people to even THINK that a rapist might EVER be justified for any God-damn reason?

How low have we gotten? As a nation? As a society? As the human race altogether? And inspite of such repeated acts, I read about the police officers and politicians and courts asking the people to pat them on their backs for “quick action”. Excuse me? But isn’t that something that MUST happen – not just this one time – but rather ALWAYS? And what use will that be when the “guilty” might never be punished – a case in point being the Aruna Shaunbaug case among many others where the guilty went scot-free after years of trial?

We are not safe on the roads. We are not safe in the malls. We are not safe in the moving vehicles. And we are not safe even @ our homes. What exactly are we supposed to do? And why should me or the million other women in this city be scared – EVER - of wanting to live their lives as a “normal free woman”  living in a so-called democratic and free country? I am still not FREE and I shall not be till I know that a rapist might not be lurking at each and every turn I take. And he might just take “offense” and try and hurt me even more if I refuse to accept his sexual advances?!

I so hate, despise and am disgusted of this feeling of being forced to be “scared” when I take pride in being anything but? 

Emotions

Emotions : So powerful and consuming; they have the ability to make you see life vividly - colorful & bright; yet at the same time, sometimes they blacken everything to soot. Love and Hatred : 2 sides of the same coin!

The clay mold's gonna break very soon!

Yes, may be it's the right time - may be it's not! But I can feel it feel it coming. A lot of circles have been forming lately, the web growing thicker, making it even more difficult to find the way out. However, the mold must break some day, never too soon, sometimes late, but it must break one day. And it should, or else the weight become too heavy to take. 

Not sure if it's for the good, but I guess the decision to go with the flow is also a two-edged sword. On one way, it makes you sit back and enjoy the mockery life tries to make and so do people, on the other hand, it makes you even more determined to CHANGE - yourself as well as the situations. Sometimes we wait too long, sometimes we go in too deep, but then again it's always not so necessarily bad. You stretch your limits, you see life going topsy turvy - in  all possible places. Obviously, that doesn't surprise you, for you have been used to the rut. In fact, sometimes it makes you ticklish just thinking how bad it can get. But till then the clay mold's become so strong - it can either break or be broken. 

A change is underway. And CHANGE it shall be!!!   

Lost in the mêlée

I hear your footsteps behind me,

I turn around but all I can see is you walking away.

I feel your breath on my neck,

But all that is left is the air you touched while you passed by.

I search for your eyes among the crowd,

But all that I can see is the emptiness in your heart.

I try to reach out and touch your hand,

But all I can feel is the cold she left in your soul.

I sometimes see you talking to her,

I sometimes see you walking to her,

I sometimes feel you crying for her,

I sometimes know you are dying for her.

How things take such a vicious turn,

When all you can do is look away and burn.

How life stabs a wound in your heart,

When all you wanted was a fresh start!

I come again from where I started,

Lost in the mêlée, quite outsmarted.

The smiles are still there, the eyes still twinkle,

But there’s no life left there, if one must tinkle.

~~~ Deeksha

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask! 

~~Paul Laurence Dunbar

Set up and stuck!!

Have set myself up.. again!
This time it would be harder to stand up.
The slide down is faster... harder..
But there's nothing I can do to stop the momentum..
This is the worst thing
When you know you are in for a loss
But you keep playing, fighting it out.. all for NOTHING!!!
Wish I was stronger..
to fight myself!!!!