choice of being orphan.

Why are you so silent? Did your day go well in office? What’s wrong?

Nothing much, you know what am just calm now. Have never felt the wind so cold and heavy. Have never seen the moon so close. Have never been so silent. Have never had these questions. What is this all after all? She thinks I am a reason for all that’s happening. I have to hide myself in my own home. She understands me so well yet she rarely looks into me... I depend on her for food and every time I go there I am made to realize the explicit dependency on a parent. Is that what parents feed for? To say that yes I feed you. Don’t you think its implicit?... They have given me birth and that they have taken enough care of me else I wouldn’t have survived this long ... Ahh... What has it become... I wish I could just crawl back in time...

She was married at a very early age. When she became a mother she was probably 5 years younger than I am now. I can’t much recollect the kind of embrace that would have been for I was her first child. I wasn’t regarded as great in the community for I was a girl child. However am glad to hear her tell me how proud and glad she felt of me, my mother. Grandpa in the west turns out to be nanaji here. Mom’s father. Who was much closer to me than anyone else. Even more than my own father was. Dad's dad also shared similar attachment and his caring surpassed my own father, which often made me wonder if I was his own child. We were a family, portraying the strongly hyped concept of closely knit indian families where there’s, respect, caring, love, dignity and truth which is rarely evident in any other part of the world. Unlike the west which is essentially a relational world built around profession and instant emotional attachment we Indians believe in deeply rooted attachment which evolves since birth.

Anyways, so this was the girl who came into a huge family and had never been exposed to the ways of being a wife. The mother-in-law's mother at that time was fairly young. Probably in her 50's for she was also married young and she was a book of discipline and rules. A strong believer in culture rarely understanding what it all meant. She continued doing so because her mother’s mother had laid the straight path. Same was to be done with my mother. Early morning wakeups, preparing tea at the earthen chulah, serving it to everyone as soon as they woke up, taking a bath in the shivering cold water before everyone else, lighting the incense stick at the chaurah and making those pious rounds around the holy basil made the tasklist for the early hours of the day. Husband, my father was to be considered as God for that’s what the rules said.

Initial days would have been so tough, I cant even think of, for me imagining to be in that place scares me off. However this lady did take all of it with least resistance. Cattle of sheep even if left in a free space would still follow a defined path for their vision is blocked by the pre-defined path. Deciding if that’s right or wrong rarely comes into the mind. There was once this goat followed the other and got itself chopped below the train, perhaps it was not as quick as the earlier. Whatever... She started adapting to the ways as every other wife would. Her dreams! I wonder if she never had one. I believe she should have had some... What happened to it? Can’t say much, but i guess she was so blind in the predefined rules and so scared that dreams were never a priority. In our place the male species dominate somehow. Well reasoning the same would lead to absurd conclusions however I think it could be just because of a mere assumption that since the man is always over the woman it has to be the same in all cases.

He would rarely come to see if shes alive, if she had food, rarely talk about her thoughts. Yes sometimes he would come because people would otherwise question him as to why his interactions were so less with his own wife. Those few moments. Inspired by the age old myth of "wife has to be controlled" he would place relentless efforts to be a man :) ... For society success would be evident by the creation of kids, the way I am. I was born. Being a girl child I wasn’t considered as lucky for the family. May be a boy would have made us more lucky than me. I wonder. I was the first of 3 more trailing kids yet to come. Time passes on and you evolve over time building on the rules placed around you and what I have experienced over time is neither the thorns nor the lovely petals rarely matter. Thorns become a routine and you adapt to. Petals, I have yet to experience that :) ...

With time we changed our geographical location moved from the top of india into the central costal part. Now the huge interconnected family split up and we were only dadaji (babu), mom, dad, me and 3 trailing siblings :) ... Dad joined as a teacher in a school. Taught them morality, themes of indian history a lot infact. Back home he used to scare us all with is inconsistent behavior. We were all kids so the prime target who could bear all the pain yet ask for more was my only mother. Wonderful she was. On occasions her ability to shuttle between responsibilities and emotionally challenging situations surprised me. Being beat heavily, being sympathized for a while because the cycle of love had to begin, being played... being alone for tears had to soothe. She would get up, wipe off, play with us, talk to us and pray for the next day. Questions of why this was happening would torment her sometime when we would be alone, but by and by I saw these questions faint. For him she was just another object he could come and play with, anytime he wanted. And he reasoned that not all can be loved and that he had found love in someone else. My step mom who again was married to someone else. Amazing how people use the term love to get around with. It was till the time we had babu, we were safe. Babu controlled his son, my father from doing what was not ethical for all of us. He left us all a few years ago and post him it messed up nothing else. His assurance of we being safe and living a safe life just vanished in a moment.

I could see all this so did she. She kept on saying that she lived for us and there was no other reason. A single reason, for her life and all the pains she was taking was us. I guess thats what she meant. I loved her and wondered given a life can I ever be her. That was till the time I was beat. I saw her live a life out of adaption not of choice and then i promised myself to live a life governed by my choice. Fought back, pushed him out of the family, took her and the kids away to live. Alone I was too. Choose my life partner, got married by my choice. She did resist as everyone did. But I knew I needed someone to hang on to. I found him. I loved them too. A girl of 20 would fancy about garments, makeup, lip sticks, food, movies and life. For me it was my siblings and her. 2 years have passed since we have been out, he never bothered to call, nor did her brothers. Sympathy, what should be done and what not, whats justified for the family and what not is something I get to listen from everybody over the phone but at night when i return back from office and sit down to eat, the empty plate looks at me as they ask what will we cook? The phones not ringing. Its my wallet which feeds us all.

That’s all fine. I consider that as my duty and have no regrets about it. But don’t you think i have a right to be understood? She asks me to hide at home giving me a reason that her and family's respect will be in stake if someone knows about my inter-caste marriage. I wonder if the society would care and if at all it would then probably only to an extent to which their selfish motives are achieved. When I am hungry how many do come in to fill in my empty plate? I ask. She goes after those who least bother about her and rarely looks at those who really care about her. Why am I wasting your time telling you all this ... deep inside the distance keeps on increasing. And there’s nothing left to ponder upon apart from a few questions which have no answers. A question of what life is, what existence is, what relationships are. Slaves were good for they were at least aware of being slaves, for me even thats not explicit. Beautiful the moon is which expects nothing so is this calm cold wind which soothes me without ever questioning. Actions I take go right and wrong both at the same time. I guess i have to learn to become just and treat every individual as a human being considering me as one. RIght-WrOng or JUst-UNjust corners of a rectangle with uneven edges entangle me. He doesnt care. She complains. They think am wrong. She understands but is too feeble. He's going farther. My soul's going loner.

You wanted to know what I have been thinking na, nothing, its just that I see life revealing itself every moment and every moment it does, questions come into mind and the distance between truth and falsity continue to decline. The world of my own which once encompassed every other being starts becoming smaller as I find myself being made alone by circumstances coupled by human behavior. The smile on face is much of a makeover and I feel like an actor every time you see me happy for I am not inside. Is that what life is and is it worth pursuing for an infinite time waiting for an uncertain end ... Enslaved by birth to the unreasoned rules made by the so called intelligent social beings for attainment of their own selfish intentions. At the same time I wonder just because of these reasons can I just transform into a selfish being killing my own individuality that makes me? Or is it that this is the price one has to pay for being right? .. Ahh right or wrong again or its being just or unjust?? i will live, so will you, so will every other creation. Next morning i will wake up pack up my bag, push myself into the heavily crowded mumbai local, trying to make some space for myself.. somehow the life would move on jaded by the quest for survival, yet the urge to live would start fading overtime. What a world, what a creation, what a game ... this life, a maze built around intense feelings where actions govern outcomes which tame the heart and govern the mind ... juggling behind a false sense of attainment which nullifies at the end. Lying on the death bed can the dead body ask of what it had achieved, what it had done, the respect it carries ... lone it came lone it would go. Myth it was and myth it would become. Being enslaved for the reason of being born to you ... i sometimes wish i had the choice of being an orphan...