Risk Management

I was talking to H. We were discussing the sad dismal state of affairs at this recessionary time.
H.: Soni, dekh toh hamari company se 15 logon ko nikaal diya hai. Apna Jignesh... uska bhi contract nahi milega. He was also sacked.

Me: Its is sad. We keep assuring ourselves that recession isnt being felt in India. But i guess thats really a sham.....

H.: Mere liye naukri dhoond toh. Tere bank mein koi vacancy nahi hai kya?

Me: Kya vacancy? Kya karega tu mere bank mein? Tujhe kya pata hai?

H.: I am sure you can refer me to your department heads.

Me: But Rana Pratap, I am in Risk Management which is a very specialised field. Tu kya jaanta hai Risk Management ke baare mein???

Two second pause....
H.: Soni, main Condom use karta hoon.....

Solaah Somvaar

Its been almost a year since I came here and today was the first time I traveled in an air conditioned bus. Excusing the agonizing time it takes to actually get to your destination, I quite enjoyed the ride (or is it drive?). Everyday life is also a reminder of the fact that though we may be a generation that head bangs to Iron Maiden, we are still so Indian at heart. I know the word “Indian” itself encompasses space, so I wont try and explain what I meant by that statement. However, consider this:

We were having dinner with some guys and the conversation went from alcohol consumption to dwindling capacity for alcohol consumption to abstinence from liquor and non vegetarian food on some days to my frequenting the Babulnath temple on Mondays. (Babulnath FYI: dedicated to Lord Shiv built by the great Raja Bhimdev. A shrine whose mystery and enigma make it look distinctly out of place in the bubbling cosmopolitan uber chic of South Mumbai).

I go there every Monday. One of the guys nonchalantly blessed me with a great husband since he thought that I am following the austere custom of fasting every Monday for 16 weeks in hopes of a Sapno Ka Rajkumar whose company I would be blessed to endure for the next Saat Janams.

Me: “Hello! What the hell made you think that!.”
I was irritated by the fact that something that I do so selflessly, so wholeheartedly, for my own peace should be attributed to yet another tangible want.
Me: “I don’t go there to ask for a unknown, unseen stranger to come into my life to finally make it meaningful and justify my existence on the planet, as according to you guys, MY life as it were has been bereft of the aforementioned phenomena”

A Boy: ‘So why do you go there?’

Me: Because…… I like Shiv Bhagwan. He is innocent to a fault, brave, powerful, kind, forgiving, generous, gregarious, virile, strong, tender, esoteric….. I like that place. I like…..it.

Another Boy: So you go there hoping and in anticipation that you would also find someone like him. Rite?

Me: Well semi right……Id love that my “utopian” guy be adorned with all these qualities but that’s not why I go there.

A boy: The why go to Babulnath Mandir. Why not any other temple?

Me: Oh for Chrissake. I like it there!. I don’t know as to why out of a three million Hindu Gods, I choose to go to a temple dedicated to one of them. It just makes me feel good. I like it there! (I have started getting rhetorical and they have started loosing interest. Fergie and her number “Shut up, Just Shut up Shut up” is now occupying their attention.

Another Boy: And why go there on a Monday? Why not any other day?

Me: Because a Monday is supposed to be Shivas day.

Another Boy: ‘Crap! Any day is Shivas day. You just go there because you feel that going there religiously every Monday, practicing abstinence, climbing those umpteen number of stairs is the right thing to do. A customary feel good “Prayashchit (Penance) that you do to assure yourself that you are still a good girl. (Why the reassurance?) Unaware but still rooted to image of the traditional Indian Girl who follows customs and rituals to the letter. The middle class, virtuous Indian girl whose mind since childhood has been fed with ideals like: “A pious life = Presence in Heaven. Good Deeds, service to the poor = Road to Nirvana, freedom from the cycle of birth and death. 16 Somvaars = Great Paati, Rich Pati, Great Shaadi, Khoob Saare Bache and Happily Ever After.

You want to be a Power Woman, the sole definition of a perfect woman. The woman who delivers Sales presentations by the day and the parties hard at night. The woman who jet sets from one client meet to another and yet manages to look fresh as a Daisy. The woman who has had twins but still had the bod of a Hoorie. The woman who seduces her guy clothed in satin and silk and the next morning takes his Mom out for shopping. The woman who argues for freedom of sexual expression by quoting examples from our scared texts. Don’t you ever get tired? So many roles, so many facades……

You are a hypocrite. You know why? On one hand you parade for sexual freedom and on the other are miffed when a guy does not find you “marriage material”. On one hand you dress to give every guy on the scene a hard on and on the other hand want respect and mutual liking to be the foundation for initiating any kind of relationship. Sipping a Dirty Martini, flicking ash from a Benson Lights, in clothes that leave little to the imagination you maintain that you don’t want to be judged. Why bother about being judged if you are as liberated and as independent from peoples opinions as you think yourself to be. You want a guy to get into your pants, seduction, enticement, manipulation, coerced attraction all play a part to get you what you want If a guy wants to get into your pants and God forbid you want to “hold hands only”, then He is labeled a Dickhead and You the injured party. Forget the fact that for majority of Indian males, “letters to the Penthouse” and “playboy” have been the major if not only outlets of suppressed sexuality.

Bull crap that you go to Babulnath because……. "You like it there!”

Sorry. I didn’t mean to get personal. I am four drinks down and am just bitching about the fairer sex in general and for the record, I like my women on top!’

Star Movies that was airing Psycho saved the remainder of dinner. He has however set me thinking.
In a perennial battle of values and ideals am I forgetting to be ME?
Torn between being a rebel and the perfect daughter do I even stop to think of what I really want?
Mouthing F*** You, MC, BC at the slightest pretext, would I get uncomfortable if I were judged as loose?
I do want Shiv as my Husband. By wishing that, do I stand downgraded to the status of a “confused, desperately wanting to fit in wanabe?”
My life is on the fast lane. But I don’t want to be judged.
Am I really free??

The nook of your arm.....

These days I have Baali to sleep beside me. He is warm, silent, accomodating and undemanding. His fur however could do with a scented bath. From the nook of your arm to Baali's dust induced smell..... i have proceeded, progressed. The flat is homely, the bed is small and the bedspread is washed every two weeks. Ambu Bai vents out her frustration on the bell and wakes me up every morning. Bathed, scented, creamed and sunglassed, I leave for work.

In the train-Mumbai Central, Grant Road, Charni Road and Marine Lines pass before I reach Churchgate. There, among the multitudes, I walk head held high, shoulders erect, stomach sucked in and a practiced smile on my face. I see tired eyes and eager smiles, hunched shoulders and hastening heels, mobile phones and silent stares, aimless loitering and purposeful strides. How many of them are hurting inside I wonder. For how many millions is the hysteria just bubbling beneath the surface? I have established camaraderie with the routine and the mundane, you know. They dont irk me anymore.

If it werent for them I would be celebrating my depression every morning with addiction and escapism. When there is work to attend, trains to catch, reports to be prepared, meals to be had, indolence and lassitude to be embraced, bills to be paid, maids to be worried about, gyms to be visited, facials to be had, temple Gods to be appeased, the idiot box to be satiated; unhappiness and unfulfilment do not knock with the same persistence.

Iam happy, I have the boring to fall back on. Yes it is my support system.
And then, there are the good times..... when I ran with thousands from the city, cheered by thousands in the city, when we just talk till wee hours in the morning, when S makes dal and i make the curry and we have it watching melodrama unfold in the idiot box, when friends come over and decibels and spirits both run high, when I get to watch dreams woven in technicolor every week, when I saw that I lost 800 gms in one week, when choclate can be had guilt free, when i saw the sun rise in Daman, when we got lost in Goa with stray dogs and empty fields for company, when i cuddled baby Shaurya in my arms, when I saw sun light breaking on the Nanda Devi, when I dipped in the gorgeously green river Kosi, when I bought the amazingly hot saree...... when I know I can pen down my mania.....

I am jubiliant in bits and pieces, dispairing in shards. This city.... has jolted me so upright, i can never slouch anymore!!!The city gets on to you... like no other does.... takes u to the precarious and brings u back saying, "Its ok kid... lifes not that bad!".

You Know, my necklines have got deeper, my collar bones more taught, my curves trimmer, my nights longer, my addictions wilder, my cheekbones more pronounced but my eyes..... drier.
I dont have the nook of your arm to sleep on.......but sleep still comes, a trifle later than usual but nevertheless it is blissfully peaceful.
Strange as it may sound, I like going to bed with Baali by my side and Psychedallic trance blasting my eardrums!!
Life!!

Yesterday.....

Only you are capable of doing that to me. A constriction in my gut, a hollow abysmal feeling, of blood stopping, not feeling my limbs….. its so profoundly physical, this feeling, that its difficult to actually put it in words. Yesterday, S. said that she saw the two of you together in reel, in Orkut. She said that She was looking very nice and that you were holding her and the two of you looked very happy together. I saw you too. She is so good, so loving, so true, so real, so grounded, so devoted that try as I might, I cannot hate her. But I need to. I must. I cannot be happy for you for the sake of my own happiness. I cant selflessly wish you away to a birthday remembering, present buying, thrift cultivating, ration keeping, butter chicken cooking, dutifully orgasaming wife.
I hate Her. She is perfect.
I hate You. You are filth.

But you were MY filth. Love is selfless. Love is limitless. Love is wanting the happiness of your partner at all costs. Is this really true or is this nothing more that horse shit laced with pig urine up for the takes? I hate you. I DO. I cannot be happy for you. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve Her. You, who strummed his guitar, planned his moves, shed the right tears, smoldered at the right time, caressed when it was actually needed and manhandled me into kart wheeling in love with you and then….. didn’t appreciate me when you had me. I always knew you loved Her. Why? How did I know it? I don’t know. I just knew it. I just could never figure out why? Common backgrounds? High school girlfriend? Bhojpuri? What?


She would never call you a Bastard. She will take all your drunken brawls in her stride. You would never have to worry about her flirting with your friends. Sex with her is great. She wants You, she wants Your children and that’s all she wants from life. She would sacrifice whatever career path she can chart out from that excuse for a job that she has to sit at home and cook you Biryani. Simple. Sorted. Planned.


I slap. I punch. I lie. I dine with other men. I read. I am opinionated. I throw tantrums. We always did whatever I wanted. We always went wherever I took you. And when I grew desperate and needy for you, I became obsessive, insecure, abusive…….Good Riddance from me.
But that was eons ago. We have now reached the “Stay Happy. God Bless You stage”.

But, but…..did you know that…..
Stupidly optimistic I used to run to pick up the phone every time it rang, thinking it was you.
I had saved the numbers of every PCO booth you ever considered calling me from.
I used love smelling myself, smelling of you after I had met you.
Knew there was shelter in your arms.
Already started saving because I knew we would never be rich.
Constantly did everything in my might to goad you into shouting at me, getting rough with me….it used to give me pleasure. Perverse. Yet true.
Would want you to loose it. Completely. Because of me. I was so scared of you. You thrilled me so.
When you left Me and S. stranded, penniless, soaked in the highway, I was still worrying whether you would get home safe.
I always said sorry because it made you happy.
I always said sorry because you could stay without talking to me- you had booze, girls, your guys but I could never stay without talking to you. You were IT for me. I never seemed to need anything else.
Even when out with friends, even when being wooed by other men, even when I was the center of attraction of men, your laugh would constantly ring in my head.
The others didn’t really matter once you were there.
You were, you are, the only one who looks at me like that. With the arrogance of possession, with the scorn of appeasement, with desire and revulsion, with fascination and dejection.....

But one must be thankful for His little mercies. I do not want to begin everyday as a roller coaster ride. Sex, lies and thankfully not videotape. Four Years, too much to sacrifice to nothingness. Four Years too little to understand deceit.

I remember another such Yesterday, when I came to know. When Ss. had called you to ask about W. and what did you say…..
“Haan yaar Ss. We are seeing each other. Bas ho gaya yaar.”
What did you do? You cheated on me. Made a joke out of four years of togetherness. I could be pragmatic and say who doesn’t? Maybe I would have cheated you too. But I didn’t and you did.

Did that make me better than you?
No.
Did that make me more loyal?
No.
Did that make me more committed?
No.

You had an opportunity and you chose to embrace it. I hadn’t had one, hadn’t even been close to one. I couldn’t pretend to be shocked and throw the holier than thou garb on your face. That Yesterday, I was hurting. I had already forgiven but will never forget.

That Yesterday WAS the worst day of my life. This Yesterday isn’t. But this Yesterday pains so much more that that Yesterday. Today I am in pain. That Yesterday had given me anger, disgust, remorse, hate.....

This Yesterday has left me staring at a picture of a man holding a woman in a saree- content.
This Yesterday has left me with a constriction in my gut, a hollow abysmal feeling, of blood stopping........nothing I am falling.

Something else happened at Versova….

She is walking, escutcheoned under Darkness- dark, silent, soothing, unpretentious but overwhelming. I see a white skirt, bare feet and large, luminous eyes. Does she know that the skies are plotting to burst asunder to echo her tumultuous thoughts? The wind has become her ally as it moans her indignation. The milky white orb that hangs latent on the sky that you people rave so much about, is eyeing her with pity. The waves, blissfully oblivious to her agony play with her. Tenderly caressing her ankles and daintily retreating and then, as if on an afterthought thoroughly drenching her with their sticky, salty spray.

I – emotionless, impartial, detached and infinite. I- Time, stand and watch her as she ignores my enormity and walks aimless, goalless, a void in her eyes and heart. If she were to relate this, she would not be able to. She would get emotion into the picture. She’d bring in the mystical, she might even get in romance. I, I will not mince words, will not underplay the horrendous or overplay sheer luck. Its better you get to hear all this from me.

The last argument between her parents was more than clear in her mind. The shouts, the bickering, the fights, the insults, the accusations had built into a crescendo that evening, the zenith being reached when the beating began. She had stood and watched- willing herself to feel emotion, desperately trying to force away her obdurate numbness but giving up halfway in the attempt.

It had been six months since she last saw him. The acknowledgment- crippling and stultifying, that He was never there when she needed him the most. The intransigent and abhorrent truth was that He would Never be there. She was slotted in between his rehearsals, his drunken brawls, his vehement soliloquies against fate, his barren, thin lipped, dull eyed wife and his plays which died a silent death in his leather bound diary. She felt alienated from the love that he had never given her but the illusion of which, had offered her at least a temporary solace. The thought hung heavy that love was within her but she could not bring it to life in any form.

She hadn’t touched her pen for as long as she could remember. She started at paper and saw emptiness. Then, there was the problem of money. There was never any money. NEVER ANY MONEY. The house seemed to echo it late at night, when its inhabitants were wrapped in a soundproof dormancy that did not scream, “Bills, debts and ration”. A dormancy that did not bring with it, the horror of an uncertain future. Never Any Money…..
The curtains, the plants on the window sill, the trees in the garden, the dilapidated, teetering mansion all seemed to whisper conspiringly, “Never any money”. The creditors seemed to say it although they never mentioned it audibly. Her clothes seemed to reek of its scarcity; her eyes seemed to illuminate its paucity. Her nicotine stained lips seemed to mouth it continuously. Never any money. Never any money.
There had to be more money. There had to be but there never was. So she sat with fissiparous thoughts, the high tide and a gentle breeze till….

“Shit! The true meaning of population explosion never really hit me until now. A man can’t even find a place to shed tears alone! People like vermin- ubiquitous. Welcome to Mumbai, gotta love its guts!” She turned around sharply and caught a stitch on her neck. Cursing, she turned around sharply but not sharply enough to face a lighted cigarette, wind blown hair resting on an angular face, which was resting on a lean body. She did not grace his statement with a reply and started steadily ahead.

He didn’t leave the place. He didn’t ask her to. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there, like a bump on a log, which did not disturb you but yet unsettled you because of its quiet, unobtrusive but unrelenting presence. She wanted him to go away. However, she reasoned, she could do with a smoke.

‘What Happened?’
‘Can I borrow a smoke?’ she asked. ‘Sigh! I don’t do Marlboro Lights….’
‘I’ll take it!!!’ she reacted immediately as she saw him pocketing the four sole survivors in a packet that is meant to house 17.
For a while both were content just tracing the path of the smoke as it rose up, spread and mingled with the air till nothing remained of its existence.

‘What happened? I ask you again…..’
‘Lemme guess…’
‘He left you.’
‘Huh!!’
‘He is married.
‘What!’
‘Tragedy O Tragedy!! You are with child!’
‘Excuse Me!!’
‘Oh wait….. You are a lesbian! Vow! Cooool! So where did you meet her??’
‘Look mister I trained in karate. Do not. DO NOT f**k my brains.’
‘Good for you. I trained in picking up the nearest stone and aiming it in the eye of the Bastard, fisticuffs and verbal abuse. Has worked for me so far……”
She got up to leave. Left. Walked back and sat again.

‘And what’s with you? She doesn’t love you anymore? Awww. Caught her in bed with your colleague and came to this filth ridden beach to vent out your murderous misogynistic frustration?’
‘SHE is an angel actually. She is in bed right now, blissfully sleeping with my wedding ring on her finger.’
‘Tcchh! Damn. You robbed me of my perverse pleasure.’ She smiled.
‘Just look at it. It is so incredibly true that it is too incredible to be real. I am good looking, charming, dashing, intelligent, actually brilliant (she raised her eyes heavenward), currently employed with a salary quoting astronomical figures, have the luxury of giving it up for rediscovering myself, finding meaning in life, parents who dote on me, a sibling who idolizes me, the worlds most beautiful woman by my side and……
and…… Im dying.’

‘What?! I am so so sorry.’
‘No I am Sorry. I was just kidding.’
‘Oh! Thank God!’
‘I am dead serious. I AM dying. Just a few months and it will be au revoir world. Do you not understand sarcasm?!”

She didn’t know whether to bolt or to sit still or to slap the impossibly impossible man sitting beside her.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked
‘Anand’
‘What’s making you die?’
‘Cancer.’
‘Vow! Convenient.’
‘Are you scared of me?’
‘No’
‘Do you think I am a psycho?’
‘Yes’
‘Good. What is your name?’
‘Never Mind’
‘What happened? I ask you again.’
‘Oh my problems are not like yours- a Hindi tearjerker in Technicolor. They are the usual- parents splitting up, indifferent boyfriend, depleted pocket…. You get the picture right.’

‘Ah! Vanitatas Vanitatum. Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire or having it is satisfied? Come, children let us shut up the box and the puppets for our play is played out…..’

‘Its William Makepeace Thackeray, Mr original, Vanity Fair. But still, me is impressed.’
‘Twas worth the try, Violet.’
‘Why Violet?’
‘Why not?’

It happened that night. Maybe because it was night and the improbable is made welcome at night, whom the stark light of the day shuns away. Maybe the soothing zephyr had drugged them or maybe it was plain desperation on both parts but it happened. Two complete strangers, alien to each other’s lives, shed the façade and bared their souls. Tears mingled with laughter as they shared joys and sorrows. Tribulations, triumphs, apprehensions and premonitions mingled with smoke, entwining together, touching each other and then dissipating, celebrating their release. They cried for what they had lost, they swore on things they did not cherish, they celebrated the apocalyptic turning points of their lives, they shared memories good and bad and welcomed the future with pure and unadulterated ignorance and hope. (He maintained that future would encompass the journey after crossing the final frontier as well. She just humored him)

They shared their love for the city as well. Amidst the multitudes, the debris, the struggle, the extremes, the high rises and the chawls, the dance bars and the discos, the Louise Philippe’s and the Koli Lungis, Hindutva and Mafia, fire temples and synagogues, local trains and BMW’s, humidity induced sweat and rain influenced disease, lies an insignia of reticence, stubborn hope and an obstinate will to just move on come what may.

‘Do you believe in Him?’ she asked looking up.
‘God, You know Bhagwan…’ she elaborated looking at the deadpan expression on his face.
‘Do you?’
‘I do.’
‘Do you?’
He remained silent.
‘If we meet no Gods, it is because we harbor none.’
‘Shakespeare?’
‘Ha Ha nice try….. But no’

Both were silent. I suppose, then, at that time, they were content. Dawn was walking in.

‘So, I’ll see you tomorrow, Ms Never Mind?’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’
‘No.’
‘Oh Come on, a dying man’s last few wishes.”
‘Why do you address them in plural? A dying man is granted one sole wish.’
‘What, are you my psychiatrist that I need to tell you EVERYTHING? Just consider your luck, there are hordes of women vying for the attentions of Yours Truly….’
‘Oh yeah and do Blue Whales walk in this Peter Pan world of yours?’
‘Nope, But Pigs do fly!’

She laughed. Threw back her head and laughed. She laughed till she wanted to pee. Laughed because she had finally found catharsis. Catharsis, that had been playing hide and seek for far too long.

‘It’s a date,’ she said.
‘It’s a date then, 12:00 am, Versova Beach. Ill meet you at the place where the pissy shitty smell stops assailing your nostrils.’

It’s a long road. A long road to the end. One strewn with ugliness, you would want to assume. What is waiting for you at the end? Where is the end, you wonder? Is it really worth your tears, pain and disappointment, you’d want to question as you move forward. Childhood, adolescence, love, acceptance, success, intellect, old age, withdrawal where do all these lead to? On this long road with hedges and pitfalls, elevations and depressions, labyrinthine mazes, ruts and puddles do you ever stop? Do you ever hand in the towel? No. No because this IS life. This IS how you live it. It sure isn’t a straight walk through a valley. It cannot be, there has to be some demarcation between Earth and Heaven, Heaven and Earth. Standing at the end, you’d realize that the road was ephmeral, life wasn’t.

They are getting up to go. I’ll have you hear their last words.
‘So what happens next Ms Know It All?’
‘I don’t know. What happens next?’
‘A sunrise’
‘Yeah, how earth shatteringly illuminating. What happens next?’
‘A sunset’
‘And then…..’
‘A sunrise….’
‘And then…..’
‘A sunset’
‘And then….’
‘It will all start to make sense….. between them.’
‘Aaaah Sublime! Where did you pass out from….?’
‘Yours truly is a college drop out….’
‘Is that why you are dying…..? Don’t worry its still not too late to get your B School pedigree…”
‘Tut, tut my child. Worked upon humor never turns out to be funny. I AM dying beautiful.
‘So you ARE dying…… I mean DYING…..’
‘Hmmmm’
‘I am sorry.’
‘Why? I am not dying. I was joking. You have had too much of Ektaa Kapouer..’
‘Oh! Thank God! Psychoes like you deserve to tread on the earth as well!’
‘I am dead serious. I AM dying. Just a few months and it will be au revoir world. Do you not understand sarcasm?!’

‘Oh for God’s sake are you dying or not???’
‘What do you think???’

Prayer for my Daughter

What does the photograph on the mantelpiece mean to you? A broken remnant of a faded dream? A hazy memory from an intangible past? Who is the woman whose smile is captured perennially in reel, whose eyes look at you but never see you? The first breath of air that you took when you came into this world was my last. Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. So, come child, come close to me. Close your eyes, open your heart and hear me. Come, listen to your Mother.

When will you utter your first word? What would it be? Ma? How would you take your first baby steps? I wont be by your side as time and life shape you. It wont be my lullaby that would gently rock you to sleep. I always knew you would be a girl. I always knew you would be Anupama.

Yes, you will pine for a mother but would you want me? How can you? How can a woman whose is nothing but a part of a miasma provoke any emotion in you? How would you carve me in your mind…. would you smell my perfumes to know how I smelt, touch my clothes with your skin to feel how I felt like, my heels on your little feet to picture how I walked? Incidents shared by alien people related by blood ties….. would they be your memories of me? A voice on the recorder, would that be my voice?

A kaleideoscope of images is embedded in the mind leaving no space for coherence or clarity :- your sweet voice- music, harmony, bliss, your delightful gurgles, pink fingers, pink toes, sublime smile, dainty lace frocks, eyes that revealed wonder, joy, angst, frolic, eyes that substitute for speech, the first word, the first tear, the first sneeze, the first fight, the first ride, the first school bag, the first bruise, the first fear, the first nursery rhyme, the turbulence of adolescence, heartbreak, love, love, heartbreak, graduation, marriage…….my presence-poignant in its absence.

Sorry. I feel so incapacitated, how does one shape eternity into a wish, into a prayer…….
But you must close your eyes, I implore, open your soul and feel me. You’ll feel me everywhere. I am enmeshed in the air that you breathe, scattered on the earth that you tread on. I’ll flow down your cheeks as tears when you are despairing. I’ll ring in your ears as laughter when you are jubilant. In your celebrations, in your exasperations, in your trials, in your conquests, my love would be manifold. In gaiety, in despair, in quietude, in solitude, everywhere and anywhere you’d find me.

I would not want to negotiate with pain, adversity, betrayal and injustice on your behalf. Have them in your life for whatever measure is deemed fit by them. Prosperity would be even dearer, hope even stronger and love even more precious. Life is a heady concoction of a myriad emotions and feelings. Do not hesitate to consume it till the last drop. Live.

I was not someone great. My presence could not make or mar governments; I could not change parliaments or laws; my words did not influence millions, I did not write verses, my opinions and notions were not so important in magnitude that newspapers or journals would quote them, I was not a messiah for the oppressed nor did I make millions. But I feel, I know, I have created history because I made You and gave You to this world.

There will come a point in your life when you would know that there is nothing stronger, potent and more powerful than love. This life giving seed is what makes an individual. This is the prop to pass the test. Let love be the epicenter of your being. Never let it erode away. Never stop trusting and believing in Him. There is no salvation for the ignorant and God abandoned.

I want you to have beauty. Not too much of it. Not the beauty that captivates, allures and disillusions. Beautiful women consider beauty as a sufficient end. This beauty gives them the power- the power to manipulate- the power to deceive. Have the beauty, which mirrors the innocence of your soul. Beauty- the less talked about, the better felt.
But it still makes me ache, thinking whether you would have my eyes… would your brow burrow like His when you concentrate….God forbid, if you have my nose I’d writhe in anguish! What a colossal waste it would be if you didn’t get His Roman nose!

May you be granted serenity. The serenity, which makes you, accept all joys with grace. The serenity, which makes you sail through ordeal and sorrow with patience and forbearance. They say a woman is born three hundred years old. She is born with wisdom. Use this wisdom to your discretion. Never let indifference and complacency touch you in any way. Let there be zeal and enthusiasm for the smallest of things you do.

Acquaint yourself with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, an indomitable spirit for enquiry, invincible courage for the unknown and confidence and conviction to see every challenge through. Form opinions and voice thoughts that are your own, not of others.
Whatever you do, do it with passion and interest. Feel anger if you want. Feel pain, feel frustration, feel bitterness, feel hatred but never never feel apathy towards anyone or anything.
Apathy lets us feel that it is the cocoon. Its not. Its vacuum- where nothing can breed.

Learn, imbibe, study and then judge for yourself. Don’t let books or people give you your notions of right and wrong, of virtue and vice. Live and learn it yourself.

My Darling Daughter, let your life be like the beacon that guides a lost ship to the harbor. Let your deeds be like little lamps in the darkness that is slowly but surely engulfing the world. Let your existence be like the lighthouse that steadies those gone astray. Let a man find fulfillment in you. Let a child find its haven in your embrace. Let your heart felt smile light up the lives of many.

This, my dearest daughter is my sincere prayer for you.

To the abyss and back….

The world was asleep and she was watching the flames that had consumed her mother's lifeless form reduce to mere ashes. Aayee...her aayee…gone. She sat there and watched, void and alien to every emotion, dead to the bone. The tears refused to flow, the eyes refused to see, the mind refused to think. Her mother, whom she had thought to be eternal and timeless like the North Star had been ravaged by the inevitability of extinction.

Born, Ms. Sujata Valnolkar, daughter of Kartik Vanolkar, a man who had single handedly led the freedom struggle in rural Maharastra. Sujata Vanolkar who, as Sujata Raut, had very complacently and steadfastly committed herself to twenty-seven years of agony and utter gloom in the cocoon of a concept we call- marriage. Now, all that remained was a gray mass of nothing that bore testimony to her insignificance in the unfathomable depths of life. Ten thousand rupees spent. Ten thousand rupees for cremating her dead body, for treating her with respect, albeit after her death and for preventing her bloody carcass from littering the municipality roads. He had taken away her Aayee. He - mankind's creator, mankind's destroyer, all rolled into one. A sadist and a cynic - yes He was. She picked up a stone and threw it high - very high, mocking Him, cursing Him, hating Him. She spat heavenward and turned back.

There was nothing in life now. Nothing except long due bills, a blank future, insults from debtors and a life bereft of even the contemplation of comfort. Why was she continuing? For whom was she surviving? Naked realization, when it touched her was cold, ice cold. She couldn’t breathe. Within a fraction of a second or several eternities put together, she didn’t know, the indifference, which had earlier enveloped her, had now become her shroud. She would kill herself. She would end her life - she would. She thought of the bridge over the river with its dark blue torrents and started walking towards it.

The waterway looked eerily silent that night, as if welcoming her into its arms. Faint ripples caressed its surface. She looked down and felt a strange sense of imperturbable calm. This was the end. She was there.

She walked the entire length of the bridge. She approached the public toilet that was designed to be a welcome refuge for the urgent natural calls of men and women. She looked at the walls rotten and tattering with years of apathy and neglect. In the light of the moon she could faintly make out the marks of a tennis ball on the wall. She saw a hazy picture - of boys and girls playing cricket in the common. Of the tall and lissom girl, with wild and unruly hair, who had made the winning catch for her team that day. Munna, Champa, Karan, Usha, Khote, where were they? Alive? Happy? Sad? Disillusioned?

Beside the marks was an advertisement, 'Dr Naresh Barulla - gynecologist. Visiting hours: 9.00 AM - 8.30 PM'. A faint smile played upon her lips. She remembered the solitary week his clinic had lasted before he had eloped with the Superintendent's wife.

Diagonally opposite, pasted with intricate detail were two other notices. One declared a phenomenal visit by the great magician - A.N. Banerjee- she remembered that…. garish make up, a skinny assistant, two voluptuous women who were paid every night for showing their willingness to be cut in to two, three or four parts, kitsch accessories and music and yet, an enthralled audience. The other was a notice, inviting applications from women willing and aspiring to teach English in the school- “Holy Girls Mission Higher Secondary”, near the basti. Three hours in the evening and a salary of Rs. 1500 every month. Strange, why didn't she see this before?

Her gaze ran over the red stains of betel juice on the walls. Paan, Baba, Saritabai. Baba…her Baba - dark, dirty, bulky, ugly with his cursing and beatings and other accompaniments from hell. She wanted to meet him, once, just once, so she could ask him-what had he gained by throttling each and every one of her mother's wishes, desires, pleas and by satisfying the whims and fancies of his mistress? Why had she let her mother die a silent death every time he sauntered in with that voluptuous beauty? Why Baba? Why? Why? Why?

She thought of the man - crippled, deformed, deaf and alone sitting at the entrance charging a fee of 1 rupee for the use of the lavatory. The skies burst asunder, fire rain down; you would always find his perpetual presence there, on a folding chair brandishing his deadly weapon - the collection box.
Two dark and large eyes directed their vision to an inscription in black charcoal. 'Raju love Guddi'. The writer seized by a poetic afflatus had declared his undying love in a couplet.
“River May Dry
Earth May Fry
If I forget you
I will die”

She reached out and touched the insignia of their naiveté. Clandestine meetings, furtive whispered endearments, stolen kisses, dormant passion soon to be ignited - she saw it so clearly.
The vision came back to her. She saw it often. A tall and lissome woman with long curly hair, in a modest one-roomed flat. She was making tea and waiting for him. A man with magical hands; hands that caressed, hands that supported, hands that held her with tenderness, hands that held pleasure. She had a dream, a fantasy - that one day she could give and receive pleasure, that one day, she could give and receive love, that one day her embittered soul would finally find solace and salvation.

She looked down at the azure hue of the river and then up at the sun, waking up, ready to dazzle the world with its brilliance. She closed her eyes and rejoiced at the touch of the warm sunshine. She saw the trees- green, fresh, still hopeful, still welcoming. But, she was alone.
In a trance like state, she was suddenly jolted by the tenderness of the early morning breeze, the voice of a woman humming along with the radio….
Kuch paakar khona hai, Kuch khokar paana hai…
Jeevan ka matlab toh aana aur jaana hai….
Ek pal ke jeevan mein, ek umra churana hai….
Zindagi aur…. Kuch bhi nahi….
Teri meri kahani Hai…..
But, she was alone.

A pup came to her. He showed her his two minute gig- whine, wag tail, stretch on front paws, yawn, gaze over territory for stray cats, flies and other dogs, regard female standing beside with curiosity, mini bark, wag tail….. venture closer. It stood by her for some time and then went its own way. Oh! She was so alone. She was so hungry.
She turned and walked away. She was still alone but not yet lonely. She was still empowered by the overwhelming desire to survive.....