the hole

i dig and dig
and fill the pit

the digging does not stop
the pit does not fill

i look at my hands
muddy bloody hands
i wince at the rawness
i gag at the stench
of decaying life in the mud
that was once alive and kicking
i find a torn piece of writing
a love letter perhaps
that may have been a smile on someone's lips
it is blotched words
on a fraying paper

but if you want
let's imagine it was a note
a grocery list
maybe something else

and now it lies in layers of mud
what is that smell of decay?
is it human?
an animal?
a bird maybe?
strange how the smell of decay
smells the same

i am digging as a constant
to fulfill my karma

but oh the futility of it all
the digging will not stop
the pit will not fill

A ritual more than anything else.

so another year another year has passed me by. i realize i have become older, calm on the outside, patient and mature as well some say.

but there is a storm brewing inside. a tsunami maybe, by storm standards. it is churning the past few years in a fast pace and is at that point of puking it all out. And do not be fooled by false demeanors. beneath the calm and patient mask, there lurks a highly cynical and sarcastic impatient being that is smirking at everything, including my own responses. if you could tear off the mask, you would see an 'eyebrow-raised-smirk' face that doesn't give a dime to anyone or anything.

i believe we live in cycles. not concentric, more like a venn..some circles overlap with your past cycles, some more than other and some very detached. i also feel that we live in the current cycle more than the others- like if you color coded them- the past would be a lovely lavender, but hazy. the present a bright indigo and the future a soft haze of some color unknown. strangely, either ways you look, towards the past or the future, it's through a purple haze. i digress. the current cycle. yes, it takes over everything else, the bright indigo, making you feel this is life, today is living. not that cycles are bound by years or times, they have their own lives.but year ends somehow are the times you sit down for a short breath before you start on the next leg. circles- when you look at your life in hindsight, it so many different sized circles of lavender, or so many different shades. sitting in your indigo circle that overpowers everything in present you wonder if all those circles are yours, if all those lives are yours.

i also wonder sometimes, if someday i come to a crossroad and suddenly meet myself from years before- would i recognize her? would she recognize me? i know one thing though. if i met her some day i would hold her and cry to my heart's fill. just hold her tight and cry, cry till the warning goes off of another flood.

there i digress again. the year gone by. what have i achieved? what have i learnt? feels a bit empty the last year.usually i stock them up pretty tight. this year, it looks like a house of zen- minimalist. but it does not give me peace. It makes me feel empty. i feel empty of feelings, of doing anything meaningful for myself. i have pretty much lived my life on my own terms. but this year i feel like a zombie that went through the chores without even being a part of anything. i did not write a lot, i did not read many books, i did not watch that many movies, i did not travel that much, i did not do anything that makes me feel good. strangely, even the music was random strains of past songs that i couldn't carry the tune of. quite an empty year. even as i try to carry out this annual ritual , hoping that my mojo in writing will get back, i feel the churning , where words make no sense and bang into each other, creating a cacaphony making me nauseous..

the year will end. the cycle will end too. I hope this feeling of emptiness moves to that of calm.

Tamaso Ma Sad Gamaya. lead me to light from darkness.

Beginners guide to girl child issues in India

‪#‎dayofthegirlchild‬ : 
India has one of the worst under 6 sex ratios in the world, a mere 914 girls to a 1000 boys. What it means is that if this continues (which it will if we don't change it) in a population of 100,00,00,000 there will be about 91, 20,00,000 girls.. a whopping 8.8 crores missing. Some questions that you may want to think about:

1. Why are there less girls? natural selection? Here's a fact. India would kill it's girls- so laws were made to stop female infanticide. Girls started being killed before they were born- India brought in it's Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 (PNDT). The doctors and parents got smarter and started eliminating the girls children even before fertilization. The country revised the Act in 2003 and with added clauses it came to be known as The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition Of Sex Selection) Act (PCPNDT Act). It's been 10 years and the sex ratio keeps declining alarmingly.

2. It's relation to family education and incomes: You would think that with education and more buying power the families would be empoered. I have heard this. People say only people who don't have education kill girls. Let's get our facts. Refer to the map. Surprise, surprise- hey we have lesser girls in the developed states!! How is that possible, eh? But that's how it is.

image coutesy- Actionaid india

3. Today only 65% of girls go to school compared to 82% of boys. Even after the right to free and compulsory education of every child. And more and more girl children drop out as they grow. They drop out because of reasons that range from taking care of siblings, to no toilet in schools, to household chores to child marriage. ( 47% of girls in India and one third of the world’s girls are married before the age of 18 and 1 in 9 are married before the age of 15. There's a lot of this statistic available , please take a moment to read them )

4. Health Rights and Decision Making: Women rarely have a say in their own well being. Let alone anything, they have no right on when to have children, what kind of family planning (Please look up contraception statistics. ) Even their body does not belong to them. Who takes a call on aborting the child ? Dont go far off, think who takes the call in your family, in your grandparent's , parent's and your generation.
(Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s. Pregnancy is consistently among the leading causes of death for girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. This % is much higher in girls and families with lack of education.)

Let's fast forward to the future- what do you think will happen to the generations then? Let's specifically talk about those 8.8 crores men who will not have a female partner. Let's also take off a % assuming some may like men- a valid choice and great . Let's bring it down to 8 crores who need a woman as a companion and sexual gratification? Will they all turn monks and abstain. We certainly hope so- or else ,

• there will be polygamy- by force, (It's not that distant a future- instances like this are becoming far more common in UP and Haryana than you would care to think)
• they will start borrowing from future generations. Welcome back child marriage.
• More flesh trade, bride price, treating women as mere commodities, gender based violence, rapes?
• Welcome purdah? As we enter this , the vicious circle will keep getting more viscous . More girl children being killed, aborted for fear of violence, kidnapping, rapes.
• Sounds far fetched? Think about it.

#dayofthegirlchild

Goodbyes

i do not like goodbyes. But it doesn't matter, does it?

Sometimes i fly away to the skies while i am still half asleep, still dreaming and look at me. From that distance i can see my life. i have moved ever since i remember, from place to place , from house to house.i have nightmares of moving sometimes. of missing my bus, my train, my flight. of being on the wrong bus, of leaving someone special behind.  it's not something i have control over. i'm like a clueless little rootless plant , tossed around from place to place by the river of life. sometimes i like to think that i am the river. when i meet other plants on the way, we tag along for a while and i tell them i am the river. i don't know otherwise. when the river was young, so was i. i was fast and furious like the river itself. When i spoke of river i spoke of myself. At that point i was moving, looking, exploring , looking, touching, looking, moving, looking. looking for the direction, for a purpose, becoming stronger, becoming weak, fighting odds, making friends, losing friends, moving, looking. finding purpose.

the river had its phases, when it slowed down, when it became fast, when it reached the end of the road and suddenly found another way. sometimes it made its own way. i went along the river. i didn't have any choice. i moved with her, fastening my pace, slowing my pace. saying goodbyes, moving, moving. never stopping.

sometimes i made a corner my home. i held on to it with my feeble little arms that i thought were roots. sometimes i wanted to stop. Foolish me, i didn't know i was a rootless plant. i held on but movement had become me you see. i couldn't stay on. someone told me i could borrow its roots, i could stay. i still hated goodbyes, but i had fallen in love with the river. the river that moved. my love was stronger than my hatred. and so i moved. yet again, with the river of life.

It is strange when your nightmare and dream are the same. i have lost count of the places, of the faces, of friends, of lives lived , of pains, of dreams, of laughter , of tears. i sometimes wonder if it is me, my life i am looking at from the sky. then the alarm goes off and i have to wake up and get ready . ready for movement, ready to say the goodbyes yet again. no point , no time to wait and wonder. but move with -move in the river of life.