ഒളിത്താവളം

പറ എടുക്കാൻ ആന വരുമ്പോൾ ഓടി മുറിയുടെ ഒരു കോണിൽ ഒളിക്കുന്നത്‌ പോലെ, ആരെയോ നഷ്ട്ടപെടും എന്നോർത്ത് സങ്കടം   വരുമ്പോൾ രാത്രി പുതപ്പിന്റെ അടിയിൽ മൂടി ഒളിക്കുനതുപോലെ, മഴ  വരുമ്പോൾ വഴിവക്കിലെ ഒരു വാർത്ത‍ മേല്ക്കൂരയ്ക്ക് കീഴെ ഒളിക്കുന്നതുപോലെ, ഒറ്റയ്കാകുമ്പോ ഓടി ഒളിക്കാൻ ഉള്ള ഒളിത്താവളങ്ങൾ ആണ് നമുക്ക് ഇഷ്ട്ടമുള്ള ഓരോ ആളും, ഓരോ വിനോദവും. എല്ലാ ഇഷ്ട്ടങ്ങളിലും നാം കണ്ടെത്തുന്നത്   നമ്മളെ തന്നെ ഭദ്രമായി ഒളിപിക്കാൻ പറ്റിയ  ഒരു ഇടമാണ്. ആ ഇടത്തിൽ   ഒതുങ്ങി ഇരികുമ്പോൾ നമുക്ക് ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു   എന്ന് കുറച്ചു മുൻപ് വരെ തോന്നിയ ആ ഭാരം ഇല്ലാതായത് പോലെ ഒരു തൊന്നൽ ഉണ്ടാകും. ആ ഒളിത്താവളത്തിൽ ഇരുന്നുള്ള നമ്മുടെ നോട്ടങ്ങൾ നീളുന്നത് വിശാലമായ മറ്റൊരു ലോകവീക്ഷനതിലെക്കാന്. ആ വീക്ഷണത്തിൽ നമ്മുക്ക് ചിറകുകൾ   മുളയ്ക്കുന്നതായി അനുഭവപെടും,നമുക്ക് മുന്നിലെ സീമകൾ   മെല്ലെ ഇല്ലാതെയാകും. ആ ഒളിത്താവളത്തിന്റെ  ർത്ത ഒരു ചൂടിൽ നമ്മുക്ക് നമ്മളെ തന്നെ ഉയർത് എഴുന്നെള്പിക്കാനുള്ള ഒരു അപൂർവ ഊർജ്യം ഉണ്ടായി വരുന്നതായി തോന്നും.

പക്ഷെ ഒളിത്താവളങ്ങൾ എപ്പോഴും ഇടനേരങ്ങൾ മാത്രമാണ്. ഇടനേരത്തെ ഒളിച്ചുകളി കഴിഞ്ഞാൽ മടങ്ങി പോകേണ്ടത് പരിചിതമായ ആ ഇരുട്ടിലേക്ക് തന്നെയാണ്. ആ ഇരുട്ടാണ്‌ നമ്മുടെ എല്ലാവരുടെയും യഥാര്ത്യം. ഉള്ളിലെ ഏതോ താഴച്ചയിൽ തളം  കെട്ടി കിടക്കുന്ന ആ ഇരുട്ട് എന്താണ്?

            ജനിച്ചു വീണ നിമിഷങ്ങളിൽ അനുഭവിച്ച ആ ഭീതി, മരണം വരെ നമ്മെ പിന്തുടർന്ന്, എത്ര ശ്രമിച്ചാലും നമ്മുടെ ഉൾപ്രപഞ്ചത്തിൽ   നിന്ന് വേർതിരിച്ചു അടർത്തി മാറ്റാൻ കഴിയാത്ത ആ നിശബ്ദമായ, സ്വയം വിമർശനാത്മകമായ ഏകാന്തത  തന്നെയാണ് ആ ഇരുട്ട്.

ഒരു ഒളിത്താവളത്തിനും വെളിച്ചം വീശാൻ കഴിയാത്ത ഉള്ളിലെ ഏകാന്തമായ ആ ഇരുട്ടിൽ നിന്നും   വീണ്ടും വീണ്ടും ഓടി മരയേണ്ട കാര്യം ഇല്ല. ആ ഏകാന്തത  ഒരുതരത്തിൽ വളർച്ചയുടെ വിത്താണ്. നമ്മുടെ ഉള്ളിൽ ആഴത്തിൽ നട്ടു വെച്ചിരിക്കുന്ന ഒരു വിത്ത്. ചിന്തയാണ് ആ വിത്തിനു വളം, സ്വപ്‌നങ്ങൾ ആണ് ആ വിത്തിനു വെളിച്ചം, മൌനമാണ് ആ വിത്തിനു വായു.

ഉള്ളിലേ ഏകാന്തമായ ഇരുട്ട് തന്നെയാണ് ശാശ്വതമായ ഒളിത്താവളം. ആ ഇരുട്ട് ഒരു പുതപ്പു പോലെ ചേർത്ത് വെച്ച് നോക്കു, ആശ്വാസം കാലൊച്ചകൾ ഇല്ലാതെ മെല്ലെ വന്നടുക്കും. ഒരിക്കലും നിലയ്ക്കാത്ത, ശാശ്വതമായ ശാന്തിയുടെ   നേർത്ത ഉറവ പോലെ.

Identifying and Enacting an Epic Woman

“Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal capacities. By sheer force of vicious custom, even the most ignorant and worthless men have been enjoying a superiority over women which they don’t deserve and ought not to have.”

- Mahathma Gandhi

                                      

The interpretation of epic characters has at all times been the fond interest of artists associated with all forms of expressions. The relevance of such associations is needless to question because of the foresight and depth of the epics upon which their modern interpretations are based. Be it the case of the caste based humiliation faced by Karna or the politics of war between Rama and Ravana, or the lament of Duryodhana, every instance in the epic texts can be given a contemporary colour and linked to the lives of the people we see around us today, ages ahead of the timeline during which the epic characters are believed to have lived. As against the generality of this observation, the case seems to get more complicated and confusing when it comes to making contemporary interpretations of the female characters of the epics. The deep rooted societal archetypes with respect to the notions of femininity add multiple layers to the fabric of the characters of epic women. Hence, understanding them and placing them into the contemporary scene becomes difficult but at the same time very intriguing.

Among the prominent women of the Mahabharata, Draupadi, the daughter of the Drupada king is an almost ideal example of the contemporary Indian womanhood. She is believed to have been born as an adult from a holy pyre, and, according to the text, the purpose of her birth was to initiate the final war between the Pandavas and Kauravas.  Draupadi is a largely misunderstood and misinterpreted woman of the Mahabharatha. She is pictured as the voluptuous woman who gave in to all the 5 Pandava brothers and lived the life of a dignified, married, whore. The assumption that a woman who had to yield sexually to 5 different men with 5 distinct needs is a vamp who enjoyed such a fate is the starting point where my interest in understanding the character germinated. I was intrigued by the image of that of a royal whore which is attached to Draupadi, who was publically disrobed and humiliated in the open court of the Kauravas. It seemed paradoxical to me that a woman who had undergone such suffering is alleged to have enjoyed it all and, in fact, brought it upon herself by choice. It was from this feeling of curiosity and empathy that the investigation into the character, and, the social and moral circumstances of women in general began in my mind.

• ·Draupadi – My first thoughts

It was the English translation of the Oriya novel ‘Yajnaseni’ by Dr. Pratibha Rai that threw significant light into the episodes of the life of Draupadi for me. I was in high school back then when I first read it upon the suggestion made to me by my father. The book interprets the episodes of the Mahabharatha from Draupadi’s perspective and brings out effectively the plethora of issues she faces as a woman and as the wife of the Pandava brothers. Upon the first reading itself a feeling of self identification took over and my mind immediately raced to the possibilities of presenting Draupadi as a representative of Indian womanhood through my vocabulary of expression, i.e. theatre.

I was certain that Draupadi’s story definitely can be placed into the lives of almost all women around the globe but the thought was too general and vague. It had to be condensed and transformed into episodes that can be theatrically represented and woven together as a story that makes sense.

Over the next few years, I made deliberate efforts to read and re-read books about Draupadi as well as about women in general to mould my thoughts into concrete shape. ‘Ini Njan Urangatte’, ‘The Second Sex’, ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ and a number of various other books came across my horizon of reading and after every book I collected some significant observation about the lives of women. The insight gained from many cult classic movies that I happened to watch was also very vital to the fixation of my own convictions about women in general.

• The task of becoming her

During my investigations into Draupadi and as an effect of my general reading experiences, I realised that the first thing I needed to build was conviction. I had to identify and confirm my own personal stand about the plight of women before I could perform the same using Draupadi as a medium. This, to me, was the most difficult and confusing phase. I was barely 19 years old and I sometimes found myself totally lost in the middle of the information I got from the books I came across and the observations I made around myself. There were times when I felt I could never feel stable about my changing thoughts and even decided to stop thinking and give it all up. That was when I got help from my mentor in theatre Professor Chandradasan. With his help I would try to sort my mind and put things into better perspective.

Slowly I started preparing myself to feel Draupadi and relate her to my own life though my real life experiences are not as intense as her’s.

My efforts and thoughts were taken to a higher level when I was chosen to portray ‘Janaki’, in the Malayalam play ‘Abhayarthikal’, written by the learned G.Shankara Pillai. The play is believed to be the Indian version of the famous Scandinavian play ‘The Dolls House’, written by Henrik Yohan Ibsen. The Ibsenic influence caught me and I read other plays written by him. I was introduced to a style of playwriting which made me feel a sense of solidarity for the portrayal of human emotions with a stoical expressiveness that penetrated deep into the conscience of the reader.

The performance of the play instilled in me the confidence that my thought process was on the right track and that my Draupadi would certainly communicate to the present day women.

Slowly and steadily, the woman in me began to shed all ornamental notions administered to me by my surrounding society and think independently and address issues of women from a humane perspective. It was during this phase that I realised how hard-hitting the similarities between Draupadi and every other woman of this era is.

Each time I went out or travelled and experienced the male gaze molest me, I would think about Draupadi  on the day of her wedding when she was suffocated by eyes of men who had gathered to win her over in the swayamvara. Each time I saw how political games affected women and children the most, my mind would travel to the episode where Draupadi laments the incidence of the Kurukshethra war and its pointlessness.

Each time I would act a certain way to survive my day, my thoughts would go back to the identity crisis Draupadi faced. She was the shadow of every man she was with and never had the opportunity to be herself.

Above all, each time I experienced a sense of loneliness and emotional turmoil I would sit back and think of how needy a woman Draupadi was and how deprived of companionship she might have been, even in the abundance of marital partners and societal status as a queen.

My doubts had all gradually ceased to emerge and I was ideologically and emotionally sure of what I wanted to portray through Draupadi.

My mind had reached a consensus finally.

•  The process of converting ideas into performance

After I made myself emotionally sure of how I wanted my Draupadi to think and feel, the next and the major challenge was to build a definite storyline and convert the thoughts into gestures and actions that can be performed theatrically. After repeated discussions with Professor Chandradasan, we devised a body language and structure of performance for Draupadi.

We decided to use a semi stylised pattern of acting. The emotional scenes were decided to be performed using a realistic style of acting whereas for the other areas we choose to rely on forms like Kalari Payattu, Kathakali, Chau and Kathak. This hybrid, we felt, was the most suitable to depict our theme. To aid in the process of storytelling, Professor Chandradasan also brought in paintings and decided to use them to give more insight into the fabric of the play.

In the middle of building the play, I happened to have an opportunity to play ‘Mandodhari’ in C.N.Srikandhan Nair’s ‘Lankalakshmi’. The experience further empowered me emotionally and equipped me physically as it exposed me to the culture of traditional, physical theatre. The self sufficiency of Mandodhari and her sense of resilience helped me mould my Draupadi better.

Finally, on August 20, 2012 the play was staged at the Changampuzha Park, Edapally. The journey of being and analysing Draupadi continues in my conscience even after the performance. My Draupadi is a woman of deep understanding and intelligence. The fact that distinguishes her from the other women of the Mahabharatha is that she was very well aware of her circumstances. She was never an all-suffering woman who did not rebel against the decisions about her life which were made by other people on her behalf. Neither did she owe everything to fate like any other conventional Indian woman. She choose to keep silent and go through whatever came her way with the full knowledge that it was unjust and that she deserved better than what she got. Even when she rebelled against the odds in her own individual ways, she was also not all that empowered to break out of the constraints and abandon the people who she believed were her family. She found solace in her evergreen lover Krishna whom she considered as the epitome of an ideal lover. She confided in him and dreamt of him and those were the only moments of consolation Draupadi ever experienced during the entire span of her life.

This is where she becomes the representative of the contemporary Indian woman who is not only educated and aware but also tied into the archetypes of family and morality fed into her head by the collective conscience of her roots.

She thus is an apt tool which can be used to draw relevant analogies with the lives of the modern day Indian women. The underlying feeling of agony and the longing to break free and also the inability to shake off the shackles of social conditionings that Draupadi went through is the very same feeling of being burdened that almost every normal Indian woman faces today.

In that sense, Draupadi is even today, a character that gives scope for interpretations of various kinds and dimensions.

* ( As published in the Kulashekara Festival Souvenir 2013) 

Thanksgiving

I am about to spill more ink over a topic, the possibilities of which are so exhausted by constant discussion that there remains almost no angle of it that is to be explored - Rape.

Everyone talks about laws and the victims and their experiences and keeps playing the blame game and the cover up game when it comes to crimes. When the issue in question is a rape, the voices particularly strengthen up and have a tone of specific solidarity, rage and revolt.And, what is the demand? Kill the perpetrator they say. That seems to be their silver bullet to put an end to the happening of the act.

After all the candle lights burn out and the temporary political hullabaloo settles down and the silent protestors disperse, there comes to surface a silence. A silence so cold that it has the same inertness of the winter snow. And then, well who bothers!

Everything and everyone moves on but what about the fear that seeps into the minds of a sensitive few? There seems to be no remedy, no help, and sometimes no escape. The possibility of a sexual assault at any moment becomes as inevitable as the possibility of death. If the probability of death seems to be at par with the probability of a rape, then I shudder to think what the relevance is of a government and an organised citizenry. 

Our lives sure have no guarantee but our safety ought to have some assurance and the reason is simple - we are human beings who live in the most technologically advanced, culturally evolved, politically mature era. The state cannot be callous. It has to let go of its shackles of colonial slavery and stop chasing the ghosts of superficial development and vote bank politics. People have issues, grave ones that ruin their sleep and mental frame.It is hard to live under anxiety. It is hard to read about the most crude forms of sexual perversions in the newspapers and forget them and get back to routine life. It is hard to stop thinking of the agony of the affected and focus on individual goals. It is hard to live with a sense of helplessness and guilt about not being able to do anything to change things.It is hard to sleep and hard to kill the fear. It is hard to empower the self because the rat race for success leaves no time to spare. 

These hardships seem especially hard when no one acknowledges,no one listens and no one consoles. These thoughts they say are trivial and not worthy to disturb a sound night's sleep for.

Thanks be to whoever and whatever, because, because of you we can no longer trust, believe or give in. We can no longer put faith in those happily ever after fairy tales. We no longer have childhood.

Suspicion rules our lives and so does apperehension.

Thank you government, thank you schools and colleges, thank you religions.

And,never the least, thank you gentlemen.

My Disheartened Dream

Dive,
Until you see your depths,
Until you conquer your fear,
Until you can stay underneath no more.
My disheartened dream,
Dive.

Float,
Until you loose your faith,
Until you outnumber your trials,
Until you can take no more.
My disheartened dream,
Float.

Drown,
When you know there is no purpose,
When you see your shore blur,
When your tears mingle the blue,
My disheartened dream,
Drown.

God

‘GOD’ -

The word in itself has an aura of ambiguity as well as certainty. Its inherent meaning seems constant and dynamic at the same time. God seems to have many names like Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, Brahma or Zeus for the religious believers and God is expressions like The Universe, The Great Void, The Force or in the most poetic manifestation(from the Gnostic Gospels) 'The Shadow of the Turning' for the much more liberated, yet agnostic believers in spirituality.

I have absolutely nothing against these terms. They are all equally adequate as well as inadequate definitions of the definition-less. Culturally, though not theologically, I am a Hindu but having been brought up in a secular environment where there was enough space to embrace my own sense of spirituality and at the same time learn to not discard other people's beliefs, I have my own Personal God. Agnostic (Agnostic Theist) by belief, if somebody asks me about my God, I would say I believe in a God who is not judgmental and dosent expect money or other rites in return for His patience and Presence. He would also never get angry if you were not able to attend mass one Sunday or committed a folly which is quite human and would never ask you to roll on the ground as penance for the very same. ‘I believe in a Magnificent God’.

‘God’ to me is a warm term. A Presence so Personal that even the absence of its physicality does not bring in any element of Non-Personality. My God is ‘The King of the Dark Chamber’ as Tagore says where the dark chamber is my own conscience and my God can be seen only when I close myself in my Dark Chamber. He is a Ponder. An Experience of Stability for a few split seconds amidst the testing moments of a destructively chaotic life.

I am not coming to the most popularly arrived at conclusion that God is an Abstract or that His definitions are the same in every Religion though they manifest differently. In fact I am not trying to draw inferences or derivations at all.

Rather, on a very personal note, I would like to make an honest account of how I have reached out and connected to My God. I have seen God. Felt Him and conversed with Him.

Every night when I lay alone in my bed, the remoteness of my room tells me My God is breathing in me which is why I survive the lonely night.(The loneliness here has nothing to do with my relationship status, the reference is to the inescapable human loneliness which surfaces itself as the night approaches) Every time I heave a sigh of relief after I wake up from a bad dream, I thank God. Each time I find I have someone to push me forth and boost my ego when I find myself totally lost, I know thats because My God sees everything that is happening to me.

 The vast and intriguing nature as well as the small and simple decencies of human life all are filled with a spiritual aura of serenity, which, to me is that of My God. My God is the Pace of Time – Steady, always present but very Quiet.

This is not a romanticized description made exclusively for this post but as I said, this honestly to me is My God. That entity which is everywhere, that entity which can be both the molecule and the mass, that which is both Life and Death is God for me.

Many ask- If God exists, how would you explain the suffering of the poor? Well, I have no answer but I believe its all part of a larger design which has its own balance and economics. Or to put it more specifically, I don’t know why that happens.

God for me,is not an economist or a political activist. He is A Quest and an Answer. A search for the self within the self. He is personal and has nothing to do with social welfare or economic equality. He can be looked for and found by anyone who seeks irrespective of the seeker’s social condition.

My God is Smile, Tears, Love and Peace. He is the resurrected Faith I carry after it gets demolished each time by the merciless thing called life. He is the Willingness in me to Trust, to Forget and to Forgive(whenever I can). He is the Stillness of my chaos and the pandemonium of my Silence.

I am Agnostic, but I have a God. And He is entirely Mine.

മൂടല്‍

കണ്ണാടിയില്‍ തങ്ങി നിന്ന ഈര്‍പ്പം തുടച്ചു വൃത്തി ആക്കിയിട്ട് ഒരു മിനിറ്റ് പോലും ആയില്ല, വീണ്ടും കണ്ണടകളില്‍ പാട പോലെ അത് വന്നു മൂടി.
കണ്ണട തുടച്ചു മുഖത്തേക്ക് വച്ച ആ രണ്ടു നിമിഷം മാത്രം കാഴ്ച വ്യക്തം ആയിരുന്നു. ഒരു മിന്നായം പോലെ കണ്ണിന്നു മുന്നിലെ കാഴ്ചയുടെ നേരു തൊട്ടറിഞ്ഞ പോലെ ഒരു തോന്നല്‍. ആ നിമിഷം കഴിഞ്ഞപ്പൊ വീണ്ടും കണ്ണടകള്‍ ഈര്‍പ്പം കൊണ്ട് മൂടി. കാഴ്ച മങ്ങി.

മഴക്കാലത്ത് പതിവായിരുന്നു ഈ അനുഭവം. രാവിലെ തനിയെ നടക്കാന്‍ ഇറങ്ങുന്ന മിക്ക ദിവസങ്ങളിലും കാഴ്ചയുടെ ഈ ആള്‍മാറാട്ടം കൌതുകത്തോടെ അനുഭവിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട് അവള്‍.പക്ഷെ ഇന്ന് മാത്രം കന്നടയില്‍ തങ്ങി നിന്ന ആ മൂടല്‍ മായ്ച്ചിട്ടും തുടച്ചിട്ടും മാറാത്ത പോലെ. വഴി തെറ്റിയ പോലെ. ചുറ്റും ഉള്ള മരങ്ങളും, അവയില്‍ വന്നിരിക്കാറുള്ള പക്ഷികളും വരെ വളരെ പരിചിതര്‍ ആയിട്ടിപോലും ഇന്ന് എന്തോ, വഴി ഒരു നിശ്ചയം കിട്ടാത്ത പോലെ.
കണ്ണട മുഖത്ത് നിന്നും മാറ്റിയിട്ടും ഒരു  മൂടല്‍.

തിരിച്ചും മറിച്ചും ഒക്കെ നോക്കി.പൊട്ടിയിട്ടില്ല. ഈര്‍പ്പം തുടച്ചു കളഞ്ഞു. എന്നിട്ടും കാഴ്ച ശേരിയാകുന്നില്ല.

മനസ്സില്‍ ഒരു മൂടല്‍മഞ്ഞും മഴക്കാരും ഉരുണ്ടുകൂടുന്നത് കൊണ്ടാണോ കണ്ണുകളില്‍ ഈ മങ്ങല്‍? കണ്ണുനീര്‍ വരുന്നുണ്ടോ? ഉണ്ടാവും. വരട്ടെ, അതൊരു നല്ല ലക്ഷണം അല്ലെ? നല്ലത് എന്തൊക്കെയോ ഇപ്പോഴും മനസ്സില്‍ ഉണ്ട് എന്നുള്ളതിന്റെ ലക്ഷണം!

പണ്ട് കണ്ട ഏതോ സിനിമയില്‍ ആരോ പറഞ്ഞ ഒരു ഡയലോഗ് സ്വയം പറഞ്ഞുകൊണ്ട് അവള്‍ വീണ്ടും നടന്നു-  we  are  women  and  our  choices  are  not  easy .

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രാത്രി വളരെ ആയി. മഴയുടെ മണം പോലും ഇല്ല. പകുതി തെളിഞ്ഞു നില്‍കുന്ന ചന്ദ്രന്‍. അവളുടെ മനസ്സ് പോലെ വ്യക്തമല്ലാത്ത ആകാശവും.
ഉറക്കം ഇല്ലാതെ തിരിഞ്ഞും മറിഞ്ഞും കിടന്ന അവളുടെ ആലോചനകളില്‍ മുഴുവനും അവള്‍ കണ്ടിട്ടില്ലാത്ത ഭൂമികകളും കേള്‍ക്കാന്‍ ആഗ്രഹിച്ചിരുന്ന ആശയങ്ങളും ആയിരുന്നു. ഈ വല്യ ഭൂമിയില്‍ അവള്‍ക്ക് അറിയാനും അവളെ അറിയ്യനും കാത്തിരിക്കുന്ന കുറെ തീരങ്ങള്‍. അവിടെ അവളുടെ വിശ്വാസങ്ങളെ വീണ്ടും കീഴ്മേല്‍ മറിക്കാന്‍ കെല്‍പ്പുള്ള നൂറു നൂറു പുതിയ പാഠങ്ങള്‍. ഇതുവരെ ശെരി എന്ന് വിചാരിച്ചിരുന്നതിനെ ഒക്കെ തകിടം മറിക്കാനും,അവള്‍ക്കു അവളെ തന്നെ തിരിച്ചറിയാനും ഉള്ള അനന്തമായ അവസരം. ഒരു പുനര്‍ജനി.

മനസ്സ് വളര്‍ന്നു കഴിഞ്ഞിരുന്നു.പ്രായത്തിന്റെ അതിരുകളില്‍ തട്ടി, പിന്നെ അവയെ നാണം കെടുത്തും വിധം പക്വത കാട്ടിയും  മനസ്സ് ജീവിതത്തെ അറിയാന്‍ തുടങ്ങിയിരുന്നു. ഇനി ഒരു തിരിച്ചു പോക്ക് സാധ്യം അല്ല. അടുത്ത തലത്തിലേക്ക്    വളരുക എന്നത് മാത്രമാണ് ഇനി മുന്നോട്ടുള്ള യാത്രയില്‍ സാധ്യം.അല്ലെങ്ങില്‍ ഇവിടെ തന്നെ കേട്ടികിടക്കുക.
അത് അവള്‍ക് വയ്യ. അവള്‍ ജീവിക്കാന്‍ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുനവല്‍ ആണ്.

ഇവിടം വരെ ചിന്തകള്‍ വ്യക്തമാണ്. പക്ഷെ ഇവിടെ നിന്ന് അതാ വീണ്ടും രാവിലെ തോന്നിയ അതെ മങ്ങല്‍. കണ്ണട വച്ചിട്ടില്ല.കണ്ണുകള്‍ അടച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു. മനസ്സില്‍ പാടകെട്ടിയ പോലെ.

ആ പാടയ്ക്കു അപ്പുറം ഒരു രൂപം ഉണ്ട്. പരിചിതമായ ഒരു നിഴല്‍.

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രാവിലെ ഉണര്‍ന്നപ്പോ കുറെ ആലോചിച്ചു. അപ്പൊ കാഴ്ചയുടെ മങ്ങല്‍ ഒരു നിഴലിന്റെ സാനിദ്ധ്യം ആണ്. പരിചിതമായ ഒരു നിഴല്‍ മനസ്സില്‍ ഒരു മൂടല്‍ ഉണ്ടാക്കുന്നുണ്ട്.
ആ നിഴലിനു ആരുടെ രൂപം ആണ്?

ഒരു പുരുഷനെ പോലെ തോന്നി കണ്ടിട്ട്. അച്ഛന്‍ ആണോ? അല്ല!

വീണ്ടും കണ്ണുകള്‍ അടച്ചു ആലോചിച്ചു. അടിവയറ്റില്‍ ഒരു താഴ്ച പോലെ. കാറില്‍ ഇരുന്നു കയറ്റം ഇറങ്ങുമ്പോള്‍ തോന്നുന്ന പോലെ ഒരു തോന്നല്‍.

കണ്ണില്‍ നിന്നും തുള്ളികള്‍ മെല്ലെ മെല്ലെ താഴേക്ക്‌ വീണു.

വീണ്ടും കിടക്കയില്‍ കിടന്നു മുഖം മെത്തയില്‍ അമര്‍ത്തി കണ്ണടച്ചു.

മനസ്സ് പതുക്കെ ആശ്വസിപ്പിക്കുന്നുണ്ടായിരുന്നു  -

നീയാണോ ഇങ്ങനെ confused ആയി കരയുന്നത്! നിന്നോട് ഞാന്‍ പണ്ടും   പറഞ്ഞിരുന്നു, ഒന്നുങ്കില്‍ honest ആയി പ്രണയിക്കുക .അല്ലെങ്കില്‍  നിനക്ക് വേണ്ടി ജീവിക്കുക.
solution  എളുപ്പം ആണ്, എല്ലാവരേം പോലെ ചിന്തിക്കുക.Practical ആയി.

The Tree Within

It grows,

It grows inside me,

Not willing to stop,

Not willing to heed,

Not willing to die.

It twitches and turns

Runs its roots all inside me,

It sometimes uproots

Only to root itself again, stronger than before.

I live,

Bearing  its heavy branches,

Carrying its thorny stem,

Waiting for it to flower within me

And make my breath fragrant again,

Hoping for it to fruit

And make my blood regain its red,

Expecting birds to sit on its curves

And sing to me the song of the soul.

I live trying to love

Its coarse body and tiny leaves,

Time goes on and nothing changes,

It still keeps growing unwilling to halt.

I have now begun to submerge,

Heavy with the weight of this tree that is planted within,

The tree that has neither flowered nor borne fruit,

The tree that has never seen birds fly to it and sing,

The tree that has never known spring.

I try to weed it out,

I scar its branches,

I crumble its fallen leaves,

I try all I can but it dosent move.

The weight of its bark is making me sink,

Its existence in me is a sensation so peculiar

Like that of a mermaid fidgeting to grow legs.

This tree has been growing ever since I saw

The reflections of you in the mirage of my soul,

Your illusionary love has been its manure,

The oasis of my tears has been its drink,

It grows heavier and heavier

Making me stoop,

It sulks my eyes and shrinks my skin,

Maybe someday it will outgrow me,

Maybe my tree has its own destiny,

Maybe it will see its spring soon,

Or maybe time has other plans for it,

Maybe its meant to kill me one day

And then grow tall from the bed of my grave.

Escape

The heart wishes to run,
To get lost into oblivion,
To become faceless,
To become weightless
And drift away to another shore,
Hoping to find the resonations
Of its own beats in another's breath!

മരം പെയ്യുന്നത് പോലെ

മഴ പെയ്ത് കഴിഞ്ഞു മരം പെയ്യുന്നത്പോലെ ഒരു തോന്നല്‍..........
മഴ തീര്‍നിട്ടും മഴയെ ഓര്‍ത്തു മരങ്ങള്‍ പെയ്യുന്നത് പോലെ കഴിഞ്ഞു പോയ എന്തോ ഒന്നിനെ വീണ്ടും തിരിച്ചുകൊണ്ടുവരാന്‍ ഒരു ആഗ്രഹം.

അതില്‍ പക്ഷെ അസ്വാഭാവികമായി ഒന്നും ഉണ്ട് എന്ന് അയാള്‍ക് തോന്നിയില്ല. അവള്‍ കഴിഞ്ഞു പോയ ഒന്നാണ്.അവളെ തിരിച്ചു കൊണ്ടുവരാന്‍ ഉള്ള തോന്നല്‍ സ്വാഭാവികമല്ലെ? കഴിഞ്ഞു പോയ പലതും നമ്മള്‍ വീണ്ടും ആഗ്രഹിക്കാറുണ്ട്. ഇന്നലെകള്‍ ഇന്നിനെകാളും ശോഭ ഉള്ളതായിരുന്നു  എന്ന് തോന്നിപിക്കുനത് ഓര്‍മയുടെ ഒരു കുസൃതി മാത്രമാണ്. അതില്‍ വല്യ അര്‍ഥം ഇല്ല എന്നും അയാള്‍ക് അറിയാമായിരുന്നു. പക്ഷെ സത്യം അറിയാത്തത്കൊണ്ട് അല്ലല്ലൊ  മനസ്സ് വീണ്ടും വീണ്ടും ഒന്നിനെ ആഗ്രഹികുന്നത്.

മൂ ഉലകങ്ങളും ജയിച്ച രാജാവിന്റെയും വര്‍ഷങ്ങളായി  ഉറങ്ങി കിടന്ന കന്യകയെ ഉമ്മവച് ഉണര്‍ത്തിയ രാജകുമാരന്റെയും കഥകള്‍ കേട്ട്  വളര്‍ന്ന  മനസ്സിന് നന്നായി അറിയാം കഥകളിലെ പോലെ ഒരു രാജാവോ, കന്യകയോ, രാജകുമാരനോ ഭൂമിയില്‍ ഇല്ല എന്ന്. ഉള്ളത് മനസ്സില്‍ നിറയുന്ന ഈ ചെറുകഥകളുടെ  നിശബ്ധമായ ഒരു ലോകവും അതിന്റെ    ഇടയിലേക്ക് പാഞ്ഞു വരുന്ന ജീവിതം എന്ന് പേരുള്ള എന്തോ ഒന്നും   ആണ്.    
ആഗ്രഹങ്ങളുടെ  ശെരി തെറ്റുകളെ പറ്റി  ഉള്ള ചിന്ത എങ്ങും എത്താന്‍ വഴി ഇല്ല എന്നുറപ്പായപ്പോള്‍ അയാള്‍ക്ക്‌ വീണ്ടും ഒരു തോന്നല്‍- ---
ഈ കുറി ആ തോന്നല്‍ മരം പെയ്യുന്നത് പോലെ പെയ്യാന്‍ അല്ല.അവളെ ഒന്ന് കൂടി കാണാന്‍.!!.
അതെ! പണ്ടത്തെ പോലെ രാത്രിയുടെ ഇരുട്ടില്‍ കത്തിച്ചു വച്ച മണ്ണെണ്ണ വിളക്കിന്റെ വെളിച്ചത്തില്‍ വെറുതെ ഒന്ന് കാണാന്‍ ഒരു മോഹം.വെളിച്ചം മുഖത്ത് വീഴുമ്പോള്‍ കണ്ണിറുക്കി കാണിക്കുക അവള്‍ടെ ഒരു കിറുക്ക് ആയിരുന്നു.അത് കാണുമ്പോഴൊക്കെ അയാള്‍ക്ക്‌ അവളോട്‌  പെട്ടന്ന് പുറപെടുന്ന മഴ പോലെ ഒരു സ്നേഹം തോന്നാറുണ്ടായിരുന്നു.
അത് പക്ഷെ പണ്ടത്തെ കഥ അല്ലെ. ഇപ്പൊ അവള്‍ അതിനൊന്നും നിന്ന് തരില്ല. അവള്‍ക്ക് ഇപ്പൊ അയാളുടെ ആവശ്യം ഇല്ലല്ലോ!
 തൊട്ടു മുന്നില്‍ കാണുന്ന മുറിയുടെ അടഞ്ഞ വാതില്‍ തുറന്നാല്‍ കാണുന്ന ഇടനാഴിയിലൂടെ നടന്നു  പുറത്തേക്കുള്ള വാതില്‍ തുറന്നു ഒരു പത്തു നിമിഷം നടന്നാല്‍ അപ്പുറത്തെ തൊടിയില്‍ എത്താം. അവിടെ നിന്ന് ഒന്ന് ശ്രദ്ധിച്ചാല്‍ അവളെ ഒന്ന് കാണാന്‍ കിട്ടുമായിരിക്കും.ഇരുട്ട് അധികം ഇല്ലെങ്കില്‍, അപ്പോഴേക്കും വിളക്കിന്റെ തിരി കേട്ടിലെങ്കില്‍   ഉറപ്പായിട്ടും   ഒന്നും കാണാന്‍ പറ്റുമായിരിക്കും.

ഇത്രയും  ഒക്കെ മനസ്സില്‍ കൂടി കടന്നു പോയിട്ടും അയാള്‍ക് പോകാന്‍ ഒരു മടി.ഇനി ഷര്‍ട്ട്‌ ഇടണം,മുടി ഒതുക്കണം, അല്പം പൌഡര്‍ ഇടണം. അവള്‍ എങ്ങാനം ഉറങ്ങാതെ ഇരിപ്പാനെങ്കില്‍   അയാളെ കണ്ടാലോ? അവളെ ഓര്‍ത്തു അയാള്‍ ഒരു പേക്കോലം ആയി മാറി എന്ന് മനസ്സിലായാല്‍ അവള്‍ക് എന്തെന്നില്ലാത്ത ഒരു അഹങ്കാരം ഉണ്ടാവും.അവള്‍ അങ്ങനെ ജയിച്ചു എന്ന് ഓര്‍ത്തു സന്തോഷിക്കാന്‍ തല്ക്കാലം ഒരു അവസരം അയാള്‍ കൊടുകില്ല!

അയാള്‍ പതുക്കെ എഴുനേറ്റു ഷര്‍ട്ട്‌ ഇട്ടു. പിന്നെ കണ്ണാടിയില്‍ നോക്കി കുറച്ച മിനുക്ക്‌ പണികള്‍ ഒക്കെ നടത്തി വിളക്കും കത്തിച്ചു പിടിച്ചുകൊണ്ട്  മെല്ലെ നടന്നു തുടങ്ങി. വാതിലുകള്‍ തുറന്നു മുറ്റത്തെത്തി.
വീണ്ടും നടന്നു. പക്ഷെ ഇപ്പൊ മുന്‍പ് ഇല്ലാത്ത ഒരു ആകാംഷ.അവള്‍ ഉറങ്ങി കാണുമോ? അതോ ഇനി അവളും അയാളെ ഓര്‍ത്തു വെറുതെ ഉണര്‍ന്നു ഇരിപ്പാണോ ?
ഇരുട്ട് വല്ലാതെ കറുത്തിരിക്കുന്നു. അയാള്‍ വിളക്ക് കെടാതെ കൈപത്തി കൊണ്ട് മറച്ചു പിടിച്ചു  നടന്നു.
തൊടി എത്തി. വിളക്ക്   കെട്ടിട്ടില്ല.  ഭാഗ്യം!

അയാള്‍ മെല്ലെ ആ വിളക്ക് താഴ്തി മണ്ണിലേക്ക് നോക്കി.
അവള്‍ ഉറക്കമാണ്. മണ്ണിന്റെ അടിയില്‍,അയാള്‍ വൈകുന്നേരം കത്തിചു വച്ച തിരിയുടെ അടിയില്‍ സുഖമായി ഉറങ്ങുന്നു.അയാള്‍ വീണ്ടും വിളക്ക് അടുപിച്ചു നോക്കി.മണ്ണില്‍ ഒരു അനക്കവും ഇല്ല. തരികള്‍ എല്ലാം ഉറഞ്ഞ പോലെ ഒരു ചലനവും ഇല്ലാതെ ശാന്തമായി കിടക്കുന്നു.
അവള്‍ക് അന്നും ഇന്നും ഉറക്കം എന്ന് പറഞ്ഞാല്‍ പ്രാന്താണ് ! മടിച്ചി!


വിളക്ക് ആ മണ്‍കുംബാരത്തിന്റെ തലയ്ക്കല്‍ വച്ച് അയാള്‍ അവിടെ ഇരുന്നു.

"എങ്കിലും ദേവി, ഞാന്‍ വന്നിട്ടും നീ ഉണര്‍ന്നില്ലല്ലോ. നിന്നെ ഉണര്‍ത്താന്‍ വയ്യ. നീ ഉറങ്ങുന്നത് നോക്കി ഇരിക്കാന്‍ അന്നും ഇന്നും എനിക്ക് ഇഷ്ട്ടമാണ്", അയാള്‍ പതുക്കെ  പറഞ്ഞു.

ഉച്ച

അന്ന് മഴ പെയ്തില്ല. ആയിടെയ്ക്ക് ദിവസവും ഉച്ച കഴിഞ്ഞു മഴ പെയ്യുക പതിവായിരുന്നു. അന്ന് മാത്രം പെയ്തില്ല.

അമ്മു പതിവ് പോലെ ഗ്രാമൊഫോന്‍ പതിയെ പാടുന്നതും കേട്ട് ജനാലയ്ക്ക് അടുത്ത് ചാരുകസേരയില്‍ കണ്ണടച് ഇരുന്നു. കുഞ്ഞ് ഉറങ്ങികിടക്കുന്നു. വേലക്കാരിയും മെല്ലെ മയങ്ങി തുടങ്ങി. ആ വലിയ വീടിന്റെ ഉള്ളില്‍ കണ്ണുമടച് അവള്‍ മാത്രം ഉണര്‍നിരുന്നു. ഉച്ചയുടെ നിശ്ചലമായ നിശബ്ദടയില്‍ ഗ്രാമൊഫോനിന്റെ ശബ്ദം മാത്രം.

അത് പാടി , " കവിളത്തെ കണ്ണീര്‍ കണ്ടു മണിമുത്ത് ആണെന്ന് കരുതി വിലപേശാന്‍ ഓടിയെത്തിയ വഴിയാത്രക്കാരാ  ...."

ആ പാട്ടിനു അവളുടെ ഉള്ളിലെ ഒരിക്കലും പാടാത്ത പാട്ടിന്റെ ഈണം ആണെന്ന് അമ്മുവിന് അപ്പോള്‍ തോന്നി.ആദ്യമായി അന്ന് രാത്രി വിളക്കിന്റെ വെളിച്ചത്തില്‍ ഇരുന്നു എഴുതിയ കവിത രവിയെ വായിച്ചു കേള്പിച്ചപ്പോള്‍ അവള്‍ കരഞ്ഞിരുന്നു. പിന്നീടു അച്ഛന്‍ അവളെ വീടിനുള്ളില്‍ പൂട്ടിയിട്ടപോഴും അവള്‍ കരഞ്ഞിരുന്നു.
ഈ വലിയ വീട്ടില്‍ ആദ്യമായി വന്നു കയറിയ ദിവസവും അമ്മു കരഞ്ഞിരുന്നു. കുഞ്ഞിനെ ആദ്യമായി കയ്യില്‍ എടുത്തപോ അമ്മു കരഞ്ഞിരുന്നു. ഒറ്റയ്കാകുന്ന   ഉച്ച നേരങ്ങളില്‍ മഴ നോക്കി ഇരികുമ്പോഴും അമ്മു കരയാരുണ്ടായിരുന്നു.
രവിയെ ഓര്‍ത്ത് ചിലപ്പൊ അവള്‍ക് ദേഷ്യം വരാറുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. രണ്ടു ദിവസം മുന്പ് രാത്രി ഉണര്‍ന്നു കിടക്കുമ്പോഴാണ്   അമ്മുവിന് രവിയോട് ആദ്യമായി അടക്കാന്‍ ആവാത്ത ദേഷ്യം തോന്നിയത്. അന്ന് വൈകുന്നേരം മഴയത്ത രവിയെ വായിച്ചു കേള്‍പിച്ച കവിത അവള്‍ക്  ഇപ്പോള്‍ ഓര്‍മ  ഇല്ലായിരുന്നു. പിന്നീട് അമ്മു കവിത എഴുതിയില്ല. ഒരിക്കലും.
ഇപ്പോള്‍,ചാരുകസേരയില്‍ കണ്ണടച് ഇരിക്കുമ്പോഴും അമ്മുവിന് ദേഷ്യം വന്നു. എഴുതാന്‍ പറ്റാതെ പോയ കവിതകളെ ഓര്‍ത്തു അവളെ കരയാന്‍ വിട്ട രവിയെ അവള്‍ക് ഇപ്പോള്‍ ദേഷ്യമായിരുന്നു.കേള്‍ക്കാന്‍ രവി ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നെങ്കില്‍ അമ്മു വീണ്ടും  കവിത  എഴുതുമായിരുന്നു.വലിയ ഒരു വീട്ടില്‍ ഒറ്റയ്ക്ക് അവള്‍ മാത്രം. അവളുടെതല്ലാതായി മാറിയ  ഒരു ഭര്‍ത്താവും, അവള്‍ക് പോലും ആഗ്രഹം ഇല്ലാതെ ജനിച്ച അവളുടെ കുഞ്ഞും  പിന്നെ അവളുടെ കൈ കൊണ്ട് എഴുതപെടനായി കാറ്റില്‍ തങ്ങി നില്‍ക്കുന്ന കുറെ കവിതകളും.സ്വപ്നം പലപ്പോഴും അകലെ കാണുന്ന ഒരു പച്ചപ്പാണ്. പക്ഷെ അവളുടെ സ്വപ്നങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് കറുപ്പായിരുന്നു.
അമ്മു ആ കറുപ്പ് ഒരു പുതപ്പ് പോലെ ദേഹത്ത് മൂടി ഇടാന്‍ ഇപ്പൊ ശീലിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു.

രവി ഒരിക്കല്‍ പോലും അവളെ വിളിച്ചില്ല. പണ്ടും  രവി അങ്ങനെ ആയിരുന്നു. അവള്‍ക്ക് അന്ന് ആ മൌനം ഇഷ്ടമായിരുന്നു. അതിനു ശബ്ദതിനെക്കാള്‍ കരുതുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. ആ മൌനത്തിന്റെ ഉറപ്പില്‍ അവള്‍ക് വിശ്വാസം ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു.

പക്ഷെ രവിയെ ഓര്‍ത്തു മാത്രം അമ്മു ഒരിക്കലും  കരഞ്ഞില്ല.

സന്ധ്യയായി. പാട്ടിന്റെ ശബ്ദം നിന്നു.
അന്ന് ഉച്ചയ്ക്ക് എന്തുകൊണ്ടോ  മഴ പെയ്തില്ല.

From the Dreamer's Angle

Life maifests itself in so many different ways. Sometimes when I look at it, I feel there is a certain basic premise about life which is universal, but sometimes the very same life looks devoid of any premise. Sometimes it feels like life is a quest which starts off from confusion and pointlessness and gradually matures into a journey for perfection. Some people tell me life is a walk towards death and that the people we meet are all our co- walkers to death who sometimes walk along us, sometimes ahead of us and sometimes away from us.

But most of the times, it occurs to me that life is perspective.Each time I see someone misunderstand life to be a search for pleasure or quick money or fame, I stop to think and wonder what the exact purpose of human life is. To some its about making the most of opportunities,to some others it is a silent and unnoticed walk into self knowledge while to a few others its just about following the majority.

I kept wondering and pondering all these years about who among us understands what life is, in the real sense of the term and in the right way that it is meant to be understood and lived.Now, I guess I have a seemingly convincing answer - Life is understood in its real sense by those who drift away to dreams.

Those people who the others think are probably insane are the ones who actually know life. The ones who know the secret of the rains, those who stop to smell the wet mud, those who shed a silent tear at the sight of a dead stray dog,the people who while returning from work look at their fellow passengers in the bus and think about the purpose of all the struggles they endure,those who stare out of their windows and hope to see a bird fly across the sky, those who wait for love, those who like oblivion, those who experience an indescribebale happiness after having read a beautiful book, those who sit mesmerised by the tunes of a lovely song...... Those people who keep thinking about the arrangement of their lives and its relationship with the greater design of the universe know that life is the small things that  make men laugh like kids. They know the world is unfair but they also know there is no solution. They know they need money to survive but they also understand that there are a lot of things that money can't buy.Each time they read about riots in newspapers,their hearts sink into an unbearable pain of helplessness. They wish they could alter the mercilessness of life but they try to find happiness in their own parallel world within themselves.They may look idealistic and unsuccessful to the rest of the world but it is they who feel closer to nature and closer to their creator and hence, the secret of life is passed onto them in its true sense.It is in fact the light of the goodness  in these countable few that guides and preserves the world itself.

All that the world wants to hear is about success stories and nobody really bothers about why they were even born. In fact the world dosent give anyone the time to think because all we do is run for life. And the strangest part is that we run for life without knowing what life is! If only people took a minute off to sit back and think about  what life is and how beautiful  it is from the angle of the dreamers,the so- called unsuccessful,impractical losers!

Foetal Mass of a Grey Romance

The Womb of my Heart has been Gestating a seed-

The seed of a seemingly Grey Romance,

It floats in the matrix of my heart's belly,

Not knowing whether to attach to or flow out of me,

The seed seems to be yours,

The belly is but mine,

Strange it is that it got into me,

Wihtout us making love even in the dark!

At times it rattles the calm out of me,

Other times it awakens the tenderness in me,

Tickling me with its gentle rush

It sometimes brings a smile on my face.

But come the night and it chooses to rest,

It stays still as if in a motionless swoon,

While I lay disturbed, unable to sleep,

It sleeps away as if on calculated purpose

To mercilessly punish me for my follies,

That deathly silence of your living seed

Begins a chaos deep within me,

A cahos that then becomes a huge battle,

A battle between me and the you with me!

The seed has now begun to stick to the heart's belly,

Trying to root itself into the walls,

All I can do is sit back and watch,

Watch it grow and breathe within me,

Feel it kick and turn inside me,

I have but kept my inner walls open

For you to spray your favourite pesticides

And reduce your seed into a clotted mass,

When you begin to feel you dont want its birth

Through the belly of a woman like me.

I would not object the uprooting process,

If given the choice I wud but beg,

Beg you to not  rattle the heart,

For its was not my fault at all

That the sun did not shine upon my heart!

Take Me Home

Take me away,

Away from Conscience,

Away from Judgments,

Away from Conflicts,

Away from Sight,

Away from Perceptions,

Away from Touch,

Away from Me

Away to a Home.

Take me to a Park,

To sit on one of the benches

Force me to ponder ,

Force me to talk,

Force me to confess,

Listen when I talk,

Abuse when I lie,

Hold me when I Cry.

Take me to the Hills,

Let me run,

Push me off the cliffs

Hold me before I fall,

Show me the highest peak

Challenge my own height,

Point out to the foothills

Scare me with their depths.

Take me to the Waterfalls,

Take a handful of the clear water,

Question my own purity,

Look me in the eyes

And tell me they are shallow,

Toss me down the falls

And save me before I drown.

Take me to a Cemetry,

Make me count the tombs,

Confuse me with death,

Make me yearn for life,

Ask me to suicide

And stop me before I attempt.

Help me sort myself,

And confuse me when I find peace,

Weaken my convictions

And give me new ones to believe.

Laugh at my ignorance,

Smile at my innocence,

Take me to Tranquility,

Lead me to truth,

Deafen my ears, 

Strengthen my voice,

Tell me I am Right,

Tell me I am Free,

Take me to You,

And tell me I am Home!

Paradise Lost

Beyond success, beyond convincing the people around, beyond accumulating a fat sum in the bank account, beyond adventure, beyond lust, beyond rage,beyond pressure, beyond betrayal,beyond ego; there lies a placid,unsettlingly calm Serenity. It is the state of wanting nothing but an understanding of the momentary nature of existence- the state called living life in its Real sense! 

All of us are often under the mistaken impression that life is always about earning something or making something out of it. Life of course is an opportunity thrown at each one to make the most of it, but what amounts to making the most is where we have the confused notions.From the perspective of God who is believed to be placed well above us and who can see us all the time, human beings might be looking like such Zombies! We claim to know almost everything about life. We, who dont even stop for a minute to feel the rains falling on the palms, we, who dont feel the seas have secrets deeper that their depths, we, who do not understand that love is not always about being happy, claim to have conqured all aspects of life. We instill the same sense of pride in our young ones and make them ignorant too. The result is that the world has come to the peak of its ruthlesness. We have people who aspire to become millionares, people who are willing to give up their morals and more to get where they want to, people who have no problem with killing someone who stands against them,people who will happily sell off even the soil under their feet to make it big! 

You might be wondering what the connection between all these things is. Well,this post is a result of all the raised voices I hear around me complaining about the lost goodness of the world and my answer and logic is that the small and insignificant things like rain and seas and peace I mentioned above are actually the big things in life. The more we fail to become soft within, the more we refuse to respect the simple decencies of human life, the deeper the trouble and the greater the recklesness. Sitting and looking at the trees around or romanticising nature is not the exclusive job of the writers and other creative people. All of us should learn to wonder at the mysteries of nature and understand the fact that life is too small to waste time being malicious.Maybe the dissapearence of spirituality and the lack of spiritual education at schools is adding fuel to the degeneration of the already destroyed state of our minds. It is understood that for a middle class man who struggles to make his ends meet,it is impractical to sit and think of the philosophy of living life. But again we can all place our hearts at the right place and choose not to be unnecessarily deceptive.All of us complain about the world and its lost sensitivity but none of us realise that it is we who have changed. No government or leader can fix it. No ideology can bring back the lost goodness. The change has to happen within each soul. Its a transformation that needs to take place and noone else can do it for us. We say that the world was a paradise before and that now things are going out of hand. Well, it is we who live in this world and we who have to regain the lost paradise.Living with the heart in the right place is a single and effective panacea to almost all the issues we face, but sadly, nobody wants to do that because whats the fun in being good hearted afterall? All you can get is a lot of enemies, tons of loneliness and a tag titled "boring" stuck onto the forehead!

Being straightforward does lead one to the serenity I mentioned above. It shows one that beyond everything, there is a silence and it is in that silence that life lies! It is a lonely shore as most souls dont reach there, but even in the lonliness of being straightforward, there is a sense of pride. A sense of accomplishment and purity- the experience of having found the divinity within the soul. This might sound absurd to the majority because to reach this shore one has to be beyond mediocrity and beyond the noises of the material world.

*This is not to suggest that ambition and zest are all a fallacy. This is to humbly remind that even ambition should be driven, driven by genuine passion and clarity of the conscience. 

Its Love All The Way

She woke up before the sun. Shabby, disoriented, lazy. She looked around to find a curled up husband sleeping next to her. The room was in an unorganizable confusion of strewn around clothes and papers. Amidst all the mess and through her sleepy eyes, she looked at him beside her. To her, he was the cutest thing on earth and she bend down to kiss him softly on his cheeks. An unconscious smile she expected to see but he just fidgeted and turned around to continue his comfortable sleep. She smiled, trying not to feel too bad and trying to justify his reaction with reasons of his fatigued state of mind and body, she got up to start her day. The clock ticked away and after an hour of cleaning and organising things, she got started with the cooking. After all the slogging she finally moved towards the bathroom to attend to her needs and give herself a pamper with water. By the time shes ready for office, He had dressed himself up and taken his breakfast which she laid on the table. They were getting late for office and he frowned at her speed. She apologised and walked out with him, with an empty stomach, ear rings in her hand (which she wears on the way) and her files in the other hand. At the bus stop he ran away to catch his bus, without telling her, without looking back. She smiled again, thinking how much of a silly romantic she was and waited for her bus to come. While she waited, she felt the glances of many male eyes sliding through the folded chiffon of her deep green saree. She pulled the cloth to herself rapidly and tried to not get conscious of it. The morning sun rays begin to get hotter and yet her bus hadn’t arrived. She waited there, thinking of where he might have reached. She felt apprehensive thinking of a sweaty him, dehydrated by the sun rays and humidity. Again, her mind sensed the looks on her body from the many men standing next to her. Her deep eyes reddened inside the outline of her black khol. She felt a sudden rise of revolt and a sense of insecurity at the same time. She longed to run to him and stay safe inside his hug. She wanted to talk to him but put aside the idea reserving it for the late evening when she can finally get back to their home and him. At the government hospital where she works as a Gynaecologist, she sat in her consultation room, her nose clogged with the smell of the phenyl with which the sweeper just washed the toilets. One by one, her patients came in. Pregnant ladies, young girls with menstrual irregularities, victims of rape, incest, women with heads bowed down by the weight of shame, wives who are worried over their inability to bear a child.....a long array of troubled women with various problems. She examined each one, talked to them, sometimes cried with them, shared their excitements, relieved their apprehensions. She felt like a midwife sometimes, sometimes like a saviour, sometimes a murderer. All through the day, she had a feeling of anxiety about him. Even while she was engrossed in her examinations she wondered how his day was going, she wondered whether he might even have thought of her once, she hoped he ate his lunch on time and didn’t get exhausted by the sun. She wanted the day to end so that she could get back to her zone of comfort. At the hospital she found herself feeling helpless about the miseries of womanhood. She was deeply pained. She felt vulnerable herself and wanted to run back to him, she wanted to cry. In the evening she got home late to find he wasn’t home yet. She felt too lazy to change and lay on the bed in her deep green saree. When he returned, she ran to hug him and he shrugged her off after a brief embrace. She wanted to tell him about how bad she felt while listening to some of the experiences her patients told her but decided against it as he seemed tired himself. In bed that night, she found herself unable to sleep and a deeply asleep him next to her. All she could do was get up and stand for a while staring outside the balcony. All day she waited to get back home, to cuddle up next to him, to feel secure. The world outside seemed to disown her. She felt like she didn’t have a place to belong to. While all this happened, he slept soundly. The moment he woke up that day morning, he looked at the neatly arranged room and the clean house. He felt slightly guilty for having made her do it all alone and went to look for her. Finding her taking her bath, he too went off to get himself dressed and ready. On the dining table he was delighted to find his favourites and wanted to thank her for it. Since she didn’t show up and he had an urgent meeting to attend, he had his breakfast and when she came, presuming her to have had her meal, he hurried her and they walked out. At the bus stop, seeing his bus come along he ran to catch it fearing he might get late for office if he let it go. All along the way he wondered why she did not call him back for a goodbye kiss and smiled at himself for being such a silly romantic. He faced a tiring day at office and while he lunched he wondered if she had taken her’s. He laughed to himself imagining her funny face while she ate green apples with him during their weekend walks near the marine drive. He wanted to hold her in a hug and pushed the thought reserving it for the evening. The hypocrisies of the corporate life bored him and he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to be his genuine self and hug onto her and listen to her babyish giggles. Too tired after a draining day’s work and the travel back home, he entered his place to find a sleeping her. He felt his love brimming for her and let her sleep peacefully. When she suddenly got up and hugged him, he felt himself the luckiest man on earth. Feeling guilty about not having talked to her and sensing that she was upset about something, he felt uncomfortable. He let go of her trying to avoid a direct conversation which might uncover his guilt. In bed that night he found her silent and lost in thoughts. He wanted to ask her what it was but did not ask fearing what he would say if she said she felt he no longer loved her or that she did not love him. He would be broke without her and hence he silently closed his eyes and fell off to sleep. Below the same roof, two people who loved each other deeply spent that night in solitude. One gazing pointlessly at the world outside the balcony, and the other, sleeping on his bed. It’s often a hard life in which making a living comes first and everything else becomes less prioritised for the people of their class. But when two people like them live together, and deeply love each other, the burden can be eased with expressions of love. The hard life they live can be antidoted with moments of shared solitude and soft conversations. We look for happiness in all places but often fail to enjoy it even if its at a tangible distance, just a conversation away. Life has its own course and in order to survive, we have to move with the practicalities of the world. Letting the race for survival push out love from our priority list is suicidal. Love has to be expressed, the heart needs to be reassured and the skin needs to be touched. To forget to fall in love each day with everything around is to not live at all. Life might bring with it all the testing moments. It might put each one to dead ends. But whatever be it, human life is based on companionship. It truly is Love all the way. In the end, all that matters is a home to belong to and love to sustain you!

No Man Like You

"He".

He was my rain cloud.The one cloud that added a tinge of grey to my crimson skies.The one touch of dark realities that gave me true vision through my dreamy eyes.He was the red of Revolution and the white of Peace. The flow of my Poetry and the hollow of my Solitude.He was my idea of Perfection. The culmination of multitudes,the default configuration I looked for in every other man!
I still sense his smell, the smell of old wine. His wooden drawer still holds his large dialed watch. The thick rimmed spectacles, the small pocket diaries. His files full of jottings. His favourite fountain pen.
Each night as I sit by my lonely bed to write down my heart's heaviness, I relive those many nights when he was by my side. Those night long conversations which gave me direction. His gentle looks on me that made me have faith in myself.He dwells in every inch of me. My flesh and thoughts are all his seeds.He was the first man I learned to trust, to love and to fall back on. He completed me always.I saw numerous men come and go in my life. I lived a failed matrimony which rotted down beneath stale epressions of love.I survived nights of love making devoid of any love. I discovered every facet of masculinity,travelled through each of its meandering valley,yet no one like Him I met.I saw admiring eyes which had respect for me,my words,my poetry, but none like his, which had the warmth of the first sun rays through the winter snow.I felt touches of burning passion all over me, but none like his soothing ruffles on my hair.I heard lips that praised my emerald eyes,but none like his that kissed the emptiness flowing out of them.
Now when I fall into the bottomless pits of lonliness, I miss him. I miss those gentle looks, those reassuring pats on my shoulders, his being there while I lay insecure in bed, his presence in my everyday affairs.
He was,is and will always be my only male Love. The one and only man I can think of and feel a sense of loss. Looking back at life, I do not miss anyone else as much as I miss him. Thinking of the other male occurences, I dont want any of them back in my life.I dont regret having let go of any of them, but Him. And at this point I feel that the only man who will always be a motivating and consoling presence for a woman all through is Him- Him,the Father.
The only man-woman relationship in which the man is not jealous of the woman's creativity,the only relationship in which he is not intimidated by her intelligence or independance, the only relationship in which he does not become a typical male and chain her in his own egos. It is the only equation wherein the man wishes the woman rises above him, he lets her go and be herself, he finds a justification in her every vice.All this he does and stands far away, watching her go on,not expecting anything in return.
At the dusk on my life, when I have traversed through all phases of intriguing uncertainities,I have come to realise this- No one like you Daddy! No man like you ever!

Him and Her

He is the Winter Breeze and She is a Window Flower,
She blooms by her Window,
He passes by Gently,
She Cranes her neck to see him through the tinted window pane,
And He breathes heavily to Crack the glass and Kiss her scented cheeks,
Those brief meetings separated by the tinted window pane,
Are all they have and All they need,
For He, is the Winter Breeze and She, a Window Flower!


He is the Black Night’s Moon and She is a White Water Lilly,
He reflects his Love into her containing waters,
She takes them in, Drop by Drop,
He longs to fall down from the skies and dissolve into her,
And She tries to grow higher up and touch his scars,
Those short night hours separated by the distance of the skies and the earth
Are all they have and All they need,
For He, is the Black Night’s Moon and She, a White Water Lilly!

He is the Blue Sea Wave and She is a Mass of Coral,
He lashes his Love onto her coarse exteriors,
She drenches herself in his salty white foam,
He sails hard to pull her from her fixture, To free her inner self,
And She wriggles to detach her from the sandy bed, To Float in him,
Those everyday struggles of freeing and finding each other
Are all they have and All they need,
For He, is the Blue Sea Wave and She, a Mass of Coral!

He is a Midnight’s Dream and She is a Sleeping Damsel,
He sings to her in her dreamy hours,
She listens on as if it was Real,
He tries desperately to not let her wake up and break their dreamy spell,
And She keeps her eyes tightly shut to retain him within her dreamy eyelids,
Those moments of illusion thrown to them while she sleeps,
Are All they have and All they need,
For He, is a Midnight’s Dream and She, a Sleeping Damsel!

He is the Falling Rain and She is an Indoor Plant,
He showers down outside her door, Upon her roof,
She bends over to slither through the door, To feel a drop,
He tries vigorously to spray through her door, To sprinkle his Love on her,
And She wishes the roof cracks to let him in, To let them Kiss,
Those minutes of rain separated by her roofs and doors
Are All they have and All they need,
For He, is the Falling Rain and She, an Indoor Plant!


Him and Her,
So many Forms,
So many ways,
Each one so different,
Yet So Similar!
The soul within every Him
And the self within every Her,
Hope to meet each other without being held
By curious fears and gripping doubts,
To fall in Love without deliberations,
And to die on each other as if it was war!

"Women Empowerment - Indian Perspectives"

“All agree in recognizing the fact that females exist in the human species. Today, as always, they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger. If today femininity no longer exists, then it never existed. But does the word Woman, then, have no specific content? ”
- Simone de Beauvoir

Women Empowerment has been the epicentre of social development in our country for almost a decade now. Ever since we woke into the dawn of independence, bringing women at par with men has been a serious concern for the civil society. Today, with globalisation and technological explosions in the scene, it is believed that the situation is ripe for women to extract maximum advantage out of their opportunities. The recognition of Women’s rights by the Constitution, birth control campaigns, criminalisation of sex selective abortions, improvements in the sphere of education with respect to girl children etc have been pointed out to be conducive to the Women Empowerment movement.
While all this remains, the question is, why women don’t feel internally empowered and secure enough to go out and chase their dreams. It can be seen that women constantly live under a fear of being attacked. While in men the fear is of being robbed or fatally injured, in women the concern is of being sexually assaulted. Unless she feels sure that she can walk on the streets without the fear of being violated, she cannot be empowered. All external instrumentalities of empowerment will fail miserably if the internal empowerment does not happen. The external opportunities designed to bring the fair sex to the forefront of developmental activities are fruitless if they do not germinate a sense of internal liberation within the woman.
This presentation attempts to chronicle the socio political and moral connotations that exist in the collective conscience of the society which bring into existence the sense of insecurity in women and lower the definition of the term ‘Woman’ to that of a mere vagina or a womb.

Analysis of the root cause of this fear in women will be done under the following two main heads:

• Women and the concept of “Virginity”

• The institution of marriage and its decisive nature in determining the social status of a woman


1. Women and Virginity – Societal norms and their effect on women

The primary concern of majority women seems to orbit around their virginity or what the society construes to be their bodily purity. The concept of virginity in the context of the Indian society is about having an intact hymen and not indulging in sexual intercourse before a woman is legally and rightfully married off. The celibate woman is expected to be a virgin. This image of woman has been maintained since times immemorial and is continued to remain so even today.
In such a scenario, it is forced upon every woman to see to it that she remains a virgin in the eyes of the immediate society around her, so that she can lead a socially acceptable life. The society polices her in every move and keeps a ceaseless vigil over her activities. It looks for instances which can be used against her to label her as a vamp.
In this sort of an environment, if at all the woman falls prey to any kind of sexual abuse or assault, the society will look down on her and she will become an untouchable, unacceptable being. She will lose her identity and dignity and will be shunned by the people around her even though the unfortunate incident which took place was not due to her fault.
This fear of being shunned by the society creates an insecure feeling in the mind of every woman. This makes her think twice before she decides to get out of her house. She deliberates on how she will be able to get back home and by what time she will be able to return. All such calculations are made with respect to a careful analysis of the possibility of being attacked by some random pervert on the streets. Such thoughts hold back women from going out and doing the things they love or even doing their hard earned jobs.
When this mental conflict is correlated to the realm of women empowerment, it can be rightfully concluded that unless women feel bold enough to walk out of their homes and be sure to be able to return without being harmed, they will hesitate to involve in productive activities even if they are educated or have been provided with various opportunities to develop their potentials. Apart from having contempt for victims of sexual assault, the issue of female reproductive and sexual autonomy lie at the core of passionately held ideological, religious and cultural notions of female gender identity. Even when there is no direct State involvement, governments have frequently been complicit in abuses against women that are carried out in the name of tradition, culture or religion by purposefully turning a blind eye towards them. Societies in all regions of the world create social arrangements to order interaction among members of the community; these arrangements almost always include distinct gender roles. The failure to ensure that women remain within the boundaries of their socially defined sexual roles is widely considered to tarnish not only the woman’s reputation but also her family’s or even her entire community’s honour. Thus, women, not men who engage in the so called “immodest” behaviour are attacked by the society. The international community has also been timid about condemning abuses cloaked in terms of cultural, traditional or religious imperatives, especially when they affect the sensitive domain of female sexuality. In doing so, governments have failed to uphold the principle of universality of Human Rights. The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights declared- “While the significance of national and regional particularities and various cultural and regardless backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of the States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems to promote and protect all Human Rights and fundamental freedoms.” Further, cultural defences for violation of women’s freedom and rights in the context of female sexuality also warrant careful scrutiny as they often don’t reflect a true concern for public or social order and are exploited by people with vested interests .

This is where we spot the major flaw of the women empowerment movements of the modern day.
These notions of virginity and their decisive role in determining the social status of a woman affect empowerment adversely.



2. Women and the institution of marriage

The institution of marriage is given paramount importance in the social life on India. Polygamy has been prohibited by law and couples are expected to stick on to the marriage and go together for a lifetime. The scene is changing now to a limited extent with the onset of liberal views on individual freedoms and cohabitation without a legal marriage is being accepted to a large extent. But looking at the larger picture, it is seen that the family is treated as the nucleus of civilization even today and thus, marriages become important.
As observed in The Second Sex , marriage is the destiny traditionally offered to women by the society. The celibate woman is defined and explained with respect to marriage - whether she was married, plans to get married, is married or rebellious about marriage.
Every human existence involves transcendence and immanence at the same time; to go forward, each existence must be maintained, for it to expand towards t the future, it must integrate the past and while intercommunicating with others, it should find self-confirmation. These two elements- maintenance and progression- are implied in any living activity and for the man, marriage permits precisely a happy synthesis of the two. In his occupation and his political life he encounters change and progress, he senses his extension through time and the universe; and when he is tired of such roaming he gets himself a home and settles down and has an anchorage in the world. But, the woman has no other job than to maintain and provide for everyday life in an orderly way. She perpetuates the species without change; she ensures the even rhythm of the days and continuity of the home, seeing to it that the doors are locked. But she is allowed no direct influence upon the future nor upon the world. She reaches out beyond herself towards the social group only through her husband as intermediary.
Even though times have changed, this is the basic situation of a woman in almost every marriage. Even if she is employed, she has to adjust her prospects in tandem with the likes of her husband and extended family. She has to give birth within a considerable time period after marriage to gain the love of her in-laws. At the same time, the man has no such restraints on his personal liberty even when he is equally part of the marriage.
Further, the woman is held so tight by the pathological grip of moral beliefs and conjugal obligations that she has to think many times before she decides to walk out of a marriage which of course is not the case with a man. She often loses her right to sexual and reproductive freedom and is made to stick onto the marriage despite all these facts by the society around.
This kind of predominance of the institution of marriage also creates a sense of insecurity in women whereby they hesitate to venture into challenging sectors of work and art. Marriage is considered as an inevitable event in the life of a woman and the people around make it almost impossible for her to live by herself.
This tendency of the woman to give up her identity to maintain her marriage eventually dispenses off her inner strength and her urge to grow beyond her limitations.
While such deep rooted concerns continue to breed inside the mind of women, their empowerment is not possible regardless of how much opportunity they are provided with.


Suggested remedies
Coming to the possible suggestive remedies that can be put forth to correct the internal insecurities faced by women, it is felt that a considerable quantum of difference can be brought about through:
• Strengthening the sphere of education with respect to women and instilling in them awareness about their rights and the willingness to fight against violations of the feminine self

• Ensuring that women become economically independent

• Initiating a change in attitude of the male society around

Empowerment essentially means to equip or supply with ability. Therefore, it does not concern itself with external factors alone; rather it is about the internal liberation of an individual. Empowerment should enable a person to form independent views on various aspects of life and also stand strong and express them without inhibitions. For the women empowerment movements to bear fruit, it has to be ensured that women are empowered from within. They have to realise that they have a self, an identity and worth. They too are human resources who have social responsibilities to fulfil and also take active part in turning the wheels of civilization and democracy. Only if this realisation becomes strong in women and a social environment conducive to the manifestations of such realisations is provided to them, can they be empowered in the real sense of the term.
To start with, education has the most important role to play in shaping up a woman of strong beliefs and awareness. Education should seek to generate a sense of individuality in a woman and help her to break free from the yolks of conventional conditionings. She should be let free to choose her field of work and she should be taught not to give up herself for the selfish and egoistic demands of someone else. While saying this, there intends to be not the slightest hint that women should be made to become self-centred and arrogant (as the modern day Feminists think they should be). But nonetheless, women should be made aware of their rights.
There exists a sense of shame in women which holds them back from admitting the occurrence of a sexual assault or any other incident of the same nature. This sense of shame has to be converted into a sense of rebellious stubbornness through education. There is absolutely no need to die in shame in such cases, rather, women should come up and fight against the perpetuators of their violation.
Moreover, education should mould a woman to understand that nobody has a right over her body no matter at what time or place she is and with whom she is. It is only such realisations that can help women overcome their mental blocks and insecurities. A woman’s life is a constant struggle to find herself as well as to fit into the societal norms of modesty, and in it, most of the times, she is made to drown herself and live according to the unwritten but compelling dictates of the immediate society around, including her family. Only when she is given the autonomy to be herself from within will the external instrumentalities of empowerment offered to her find meaning.
The aspect of economic independence also plays a decisive role in determining a woman’s existence and her options. If she is economically self-reliant, she can make her own decisions with regard to her travelling, lodging, work etc. She can opt to live in a much more liberal fashion and also have a say in deciding matters in the family. Moreover, she will not have to hold on to an unhappy marriage if she has the means to sustain herself and maintain her dependants even if she breaks off from the wedlock. The absence of an alternative source of income often becomes the reason behind women sticking onto marriages and succumbing to the dictates of the man. Thus, economic independence is a great relief and violation of women’s freedoms can be antidoted with it to a large extent.
The most important and difficult aspect which hinders the process of women empowerment is the attitude of the male community around. Women have always been viewed as a commodity for sexual use by man and even today, remnants of that archetype exists in the collective conscience of the male society. They are today the most dreaded beings as we see an indiscriminate increase in the number of sexual crimes against women in the most heinous forms. Even within the family, instances of sexual abuse and incest are on the rise. With such happenings all around, the woman is made to feel all the more insecure and she has begun to feel that nothing can actually give her concrete protection from sexual abuses. This fear hinders her intellectual digestion and creates blocks which form a hard cyst around her sense of freedom.

These issues all relate to the mental frame of women and are inextricably intertwined with their sense of empowerment. Unless a woman is made to feel that she is secure and can assert herself without the fear of being isolated, she cannot be empowered. Legal and political safeguards come only at the next level of empowerment. First of all, these issues should be looked into and then, there should be a synthesis of the external and internal forces to bring about an effective empowerment model.

The discussion here was with respect to the large majority of the Indian women and their mental frame in the context of the morality of the Indian society. The situation is different in the western world as their concept of virginity and marriages are far liberal and they give importance to individual choices above the creation of a community life. Even in India, the situation changes in the case of the elite upper class women who can afford luxuries and don’t often heed to the opinions of the society around them. But again, the large majority of womenfolk in the country are still ignorant of their rights and live by the society’s concept of how they should live.
To empower a woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man and not to deny them to her. It is to let her have her independent existence.
Woman must not be made to accept, she must be made to challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must revere that woman in her which struggles for expression.