cant write,you can

I cant write when my heart and soul are fulfilled. All those gestures which I dreamt of and never thought possible are happening. Most of the time I feel like I'm seeing it happen to someone else.
Vinod is gone and now I am still discovering who is in his place. I could never think of anyone in V's place, anyway. V was the year-long obsession at 15 who disappeared after an entire school year, never met or spoken to. I thought of him as V, just as I wrote of you, my love, as V. But you're not V. Just a name I gave you so no one would recognise our sordid story. There are many beautiful stories which I have to write, but I must now go to my work.

Dont go back

She will not be able to take it if it goes back to the Silent Days. Perhaps it was better when she was treading on eggshells. Now if she lets her guard go, says a wrong word...what will follow? Those days when she watched body language before she moved - she cant believe they're gone. Now it's her turn to give back. Does she have to after all she didnt get? Will the anger come back and break her again... If this is read, will the reaction be predictable or will it be surprising and joyous? ... she's sorry if she's doubtful, and if she's expecting too much.This is the transition .. ..Humour and lightness will take its time.

Long night

When she thinks the worst is over, it comes up again. A brusque two-letter word is keeping her awake tonight. It threw her back to the time when V chased her from one bedroom to the other, hand upraised, and she fell back on the bed, remembering to say firmly,"You will not touch me." The spite in the eyes, the long moment when she thought that wouldn't work...morphing onto the moment years later when she cowered on the landing covering her head, saying tremblingly, "Don't touch me in front of the kids," while they watched from the top of the stairs. Chased down from stair to stair she said she was leaving, walked, opened the gate and stood there while V loudly said "Where do you think you are going?" "Away," she said but never did. Some days later, her son said,"I will tell papa to hit you." And she remembered where all this was coming from. The sons watching the father break down the door, saying he would kill the mother, the story she heard long long after she had committed herself. After that, it remained the excuse, and the justification.
She will protect her children from this legacy as best as she can, she determined, and stayed on, saccharine-sweet, supported by John Irving, Stephen Covey and friends when the latter were permitted. Would anyone ever imagine that she, "you look so young," "so positive" was part of this? And getting the moniker "Fucking bitch" after one John Irving-induced discussion. Those are the 3 defining moments of this part of her life. The upraised hand, the stairs and the name no one had ever called her to her face. Tonight other defining moments are a blur. She hopes she remembers the happier ones tomorrow so she can sleep.

Apologize no more

I used the dreaded words "I give up" yesterday. In broad daylight today, I scrambled to delete them and realized being tech-challenged has its uses... they hadnt been published. Hallelujah to me.
Protecting my own self, away from the myriad roles I play, needs determination. Like the rock the Greek had to keep rolling back to the top of the hill, I start, stop...then go on grittedly again. The turning point is to stop feeling guilty for unintentional seduction. Yesterday I would have written publicly "Let's weave a web of words and reel in the rest," but today that has intonations I cannot handle yet. Can one unexpected reaction do me in? If only I had something other than words to work with..

Wrong day

Today is not a day when I want to write for myself. Today I wrote for old friends: mails, group blogs and sites.

Dusting off the old

Started blogging a year ago, just as I was leaving tsunami-country after a holiday. I was wary then of the trail I'd left behind in creating a blog. Now more net-savvy, I THINK I've obliterated the trail and created an anon dashboard. Cut n pasted the first 2 entries from the old blog.
Do I have to be this wary? Yes! Oh yes. Try being born in my country as first-generation oldest child of urban family...and buffering first-gen migrant kids from newly migrant husband...being part of an endogamous community....breakin out of that endogamy...
There r still endog comms in this univ, you bloggers of the seamless world. How much you don't know, I think, when I read your blogs. And how much I don't know of the hungry worlds in my universe...

Getting used..

Getting used to u, blogspot, bloodspot(none today)...Perhaps it's the anonymity that appeals so. And the exhibitionistic streak in me.
She wakes up at the 5.30 alarm, not wanting to. Her husband's(we will call him Vinod) mobile alarm allows her to snooze 10 minutes, reset, snooze...Four times, now that she counted. Then ten minutes of decadence, straddling a sleeping Vinod with her naked legs. She tries to remember: did he really wake her in the middle of the night? He did. After he suggested that three times this week was adequate, when she touched him lingeringly, longingly. She must talk about how she responds however sleepy she is. Or she can deal with this sensibly: refuse his denials and use him too...she must read more Vatsyayana. Old dead sanyasi. Post-tsunami, she picked him up guiltily from the airport. In two weeks, he made her more aware of herself.
Panic strikes. 6.20. Rotis to be baked, breakfasts fed, lunches packed before 8. Then her heart stops racing. There's last night's fish curry for the roti. So she can save time on cooking a gravy. She can't feed the fish to V, though. His mother and he prefer it dried. The mother even gags at fresh. Though she personally thinks dried stinks more. She got used to dried, not they to fresh. Not a bad mother in law(MIL being too Woman's Era) though. Not a bad husband either. It's pretty relative. She's seen some awful ones.
Well, time to say bye, blog. Two chickens to be marinated (god, get rid of bird flu). Morning mess to be cleared. Several square feet of white tiles on the three porches to be scrubbed, house swept. Might not get time until Monday(today's Friday). And there's the carton of expired milk I can make into a bodypack. Mix in some turmeric, sandal and voila! Ready for weekend display.

Once in a while...

...I put my thoughts down. Leaving articles unwritten, beds unmade behind. This is the beginning, words out in the open. With niggles of conscience for those who cannot lay claim to a pen, a parent, a wired home... Do I dare deserve this indulgence in a country where there's no time to think?We shall see if I can do this once in a while... when I can tear myself away from the pure luxury of my life as tai-tai(Chinese for woman who doesn't need to earn a living..if only the Chinese knew)