Fear rules me

Fear of the unknown. Fear of the dark. Fear of loneliness. Fear! Fear has dominated me. When fear settles in, it leaves little space for emotions like self respect, integrity. I have been plagued by my fears from time immemorial. At any given point of time, I have feared some thing or other. The constant fear has been the fear of time. Time is a sadist adversary. It stalks and slowly tortures you into submission.

Run, run, run - a sermon

Life is a marathon :o
It is a test of our endurance ;)
In this race we need to be disciplined and determined (WT*)
Perseverance is also a must (yawn!)
Like true marathoners, let us be willing runners, and not take part grudgingly (oh!)
Running is an incredible feeling and a very pleasurable experience (yes! yes!)
The pain of this journey is beautiful (???)
It can also be a very lonely experience (of course!)
Let us not run too fast, lest we tire too soon. We ought to maintain the right pace (No probs!)
Let us not let boredom, fear or loneliness bog us down (of course not!)
Let us not give up, not stop (uff)
Keep on running and emerge triumphant - tired yet content! :P

I want to live

I want to breathe. I want to see. I want to hear. I want to feel. I want to sing and dance. I want to love. I want to live. I don't want to die.

When loneliness attacks

I have been attacked many times. Boredom, failure, self-pity, helplessness have tried to take over my mind. But the worst experience I have been through was being attacked by loneliness. This has stalked me and preyed on my mind for decades. I have defended myself successfully and not-so-successfully many times. At last, I have fought bravely and pushed the enemy out of my territory. However, I have realised why I was not able to defeat this enemy all these years even though I had put in all my strength and effort. I was trying, in vain, to win the battle all alone and that was like having a spy from the enemy camp on my side. All my strategies and techniques were failing. Then, as a last resort I took help and lo! loneliness vanished and I(we) emerged victorious.

Losing faith

Gruesome deaths tend to linger on our minds for a long time, maybe forever. Take the case of Aarushi's death, the fact that she was killed in her home and probably by her own father shakes the foundation of our belief in the social system called family. Sowmya's ordeal when she was pushed out of a moving train and raped terrifies us. It is indeed a great cause of concern that there are such abhorable men in this world who can be cruel enough to rape a dying woman. What kind of a person can commit such an act? Our faith in humanity becomes the casuality in such situations. Every time you read about a 3-year-old getting raped by her neighbour or a 12-year-old being murdered by his friends you undergo a terrible loss, the loss of faith in goodness, in mankind...

Uma rants

What do I want? Either I want too many things or nothing at all, how else do I explain this dissonance. I can't even hear myself. Panic-attacks, palpitation, cold-feet - I am experiencing all. These don't affect my desire to just let go and run. Run, run, run....run over the plains, over the hills, roll over the slopes, swim against the tide, plunge into the valley...nothing can stop me or cause me any harm. I have me on my side.

uma is bugging me

I can't be positive all the time. The overstress on the need to be optimistic and positive always is taking a toll on my honesty. If I have to be honest to my feelings I have to give more outlet to my crappy thoughts and feelings. I don't know if there are people who feel good about themselves all the time but I am definitely not one of them. I go through these periods of absolute self-loathing. This loathing can take physiological or psychological dimensions. I may hate my appearance or my nature but I would surely hate me. Like, now, I wish I could shake myself roughly and ask myself to go and take a hike. What the hell! too much is too much! Somebody save me from me..

Bloodthirsty centipede

I was enjoying my early teenage dose of romance with my tall, dark and handsome guy when this shiny, multi-legged, slithery creature let itself into my bedroom. Here I was, lost in my M&B-laced fantasy world with my prince charming on a white horse, and here was this centipede, which did look like a knight in his shiny armour. It crawled in and my heart crawled into my mouth. I am sure even the centipede could hear my heart go thump...thump...thump...because it too froze. The clock and I synchronized our beats. I was paralysed with fear. Then I started to sob uncontrollably. Outside, my dad and mom were horrified, they feared nothing less than a tiger in my room. When I told them, in between sobs, that it was a centipede they had mixed feelings of disappointment and disgust. Not that they ever had any false notion about their daughter's courage-quotient. They did not expect any display of guts from a daughter who told them to come looking for her in case her singing stopped when she went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.
Dad asked me to open the door but I could not. The centipede was metres away from the door still I could not make myself move. I kept on howling and staring at it. My dad started to bang on the door as though he was going to break it open to save his daughter's life. The centipede knew it had crawled into the wrong territory. There were three people's lives at stake here - the centipede, my dad and I. The centipede took a smart decision and in split seconds slipped out of the window. One thing is for sure, I must be a legend in the centipede folklore for all the wrong reasons. That centipede would have got the title 'The Human Conqueror'. I still am terrorized by the memories of that creature. I, at times, do tell about this uneventful incident to some hapless beings. So what if I have to resort to little harmless lies like, the centipede was a foot-long and had huge, red bloodthirsty eyes...

Set her free!

We will have to call her alive so that we can grant her death. For the last 36 years Aruna Shanbaug has been confined to a cot in a hospital where she is force-fed and kept alive. Suffering ought to have a limit, a boundary. Here, there has only been ceaseless misery. Aruna's vegetable existence has caused many animated debates on euthanasia. The brutality of the act of the janitor who raped her is dwarfed by fate's cruelty. Her plight is unnerving. She can't feel, think, talk, emote or express. Her body lives because it is made to live forcibly. People talk about good and bad times, they talk about the rainbow that is the hope after the rain. What about her? What has been the rainbow in her life? I wish her death! That might be the rainbow after the unrelenting rain...

My Kutch konnection

I visited the land of theplas, dhoklas and fafdas recently. I had been to Gandhidham to ring in the new year with the people I share my genes with. It is quite an experience to meet people you share your patchy complexion with or speak with a cousin sister who has a voice as irritating as yours. It is fun to watch the play of genes and the interesting outcomes of those games. The instant bond and affinity were so reassuring. Especially when the only green colour I could see around me were some thorny bushes and some dresses! Pigs, dogs, cattle, pigeons and my relatives dominated the landscape. All looked khate-peete ghar ke. Only difference was that my mallu relatives were well-oiled whereas the rest had a dried look to them.
Ten short days we ate, talked, laughed, argued, and ate and ate and ate. It was a little unnerving to see so many people so similar in looks and behaviour. There was much display of emotions. Hugs and kisses were in great supply. There were many get-togethers. All the members seemed to have perfect understanding and love for each other. Yet one could not miss the undercurrents of hatred. However, they have to be lauded for the fact that inspite of some misunderstandings and grudges amongst them the place has taught them to remain together. They do need each other in a place like Gandhidham.
I did feel like an outsider. Though they were my family I had not grown up among them. They could share jokes and laugh about stuff that had happened years ago. They had been through many crises together. I was just there trying to be the family, they had really been the family. I am happy that I could share their lives with them for some days. I have brought back a little bit of everyone with me. I admire their resilience in making a life for themselves in a harsh terrain.
I got back to my city with some Gujarat-special peanuts and memories - both roasted..