FEAR

i've developed a fear for motherhood. all my life i wanted to become a mother. but i also remember how i got cramps every time i saw women give birth on tv or women talk about childbirth and pregnancy. i've never quite understood what makes me that way. but it looks as though i have a deep psychological fear for gestation and child birth.

i am terrified of the growth, the changes and the bulge right now. on others, it looks fascinating. but i get swiftly nervous thinking of trying to play God, creating, when i have no capacity to even be good about a process so special.

i'm terrified. terrified. i cannot pretend to be great about this. i do not have the greatness of womanhood. i'd rather adopt than try to create within me. i am a coward in this, as i have been in everything else in life.

you

you set me adrift
you're the shore

May Day

April should have been the month to thaw- to draw back the curtains, let the sunshine in, pull off stoles from around our shoulders and march into the yard. This should have been the time for us to look into the eyes and affirm that something called compassion does hold people together.

But other things always get in the way. There are things like want, greed, jealousy and lust that destroys everything compassion is capable of instilling. And always, when sex interferes with relationships, you end up losing what you wouldn't give up for anything in life. Not even yourself.
Yes, so everyone likes sex. We are much too often guided by our libidos. But why should an orgasm be allowed to decide what the other person feels for you is or isn't love. Why should a touch of want be termed love and perhaps a loving so permanent be termed passe just because there is no touch? At the end of the day, it's something deeper than sex that keeps a heart happy.

So anyway, it's almost May.

I would have rested indoors this month after the sunshine in April. I would have sat down by the grotto, weaving wreaths for Mother Mary's Tiara, singing by the shade of the grotto. But since April wasn't the time to thaw, May won't mean devotion, either. This is the month of rebellion, when the Maoists will bring out their parades on the streets and the rest of the nation will sit and wonder whether to retaliate, or believe that after a four-year gap, it was high time Nepal saw some serious stunts on the streets. We're so used to unstable governments, fractured politics and of forever complaining and not doing anything about what can be done.

Anklet

L gave me a new set of payal she bought for herself but no longer wants to wear. I haven't worn any payal for ages. But I wear these ones because it almost feels like a parting gift. Somehow, payals become connected to weddings. Smriti had given me a very pretty payal with green beads the year she was getting married- no, the year she was leaving for the United States. Anyhow, they do find an association with departure.

Payals have all kinds of patriarchal connotations according to feminism. They're supposed to have been invented by men in the Indian society to monitor their women's mobility. As long as the payal is making the tingling-jingle, you know the woman/girl is still in the house. Hmmmm...one could call payals "euphemism" in that sense. Make a girl feel pretty without telling her you are giving her shackles.

But I wore the payal to bed last night, even when I am not in the habit of wearing anything that touches my skin closely, to bed. I noticed how the thin silver string made my ankles took frail and pretty and I didn't care what feminism said about it. But are women pretty only when they are frail? (I find strong women beautiful.)

When I lay in bed, I could feel the silver clinging to my ankles. But I soon forgot about them and thought about impossible you, who refuses to leave, especially at night, even when you have nothing to do with touching my skin.

silent noons

my afternoons are quiet. the only things that are audible in them are Kanchu's antics and mamu's monologue. mamu likes talking about things all the time. about the neighbours. about how the girl next door makes too much noise in the kitchen. she likes to believe Kanchu is crazy about her and that the two have a secret lingua. mamu is a hard-working woman. she likes to peel french beans, prepare salads out of all kinds of sprouts, cook meals only by judging their nutritional value and preach the importance of goodness. she likes to talk to herself too. repeat things to herself as though in need of confirmation. and mamu loves bangles. they jingle on her wrists when she peels potatoes, slices meat for choyela or waters her orchids.
mamu's sounds.
i'll never be able to make any of them.

Nostalgia

everything makes me sad these days.
i can't find the mood to write emails, even though i seem to have begun a series of emails conversations with people. even emails make me sad. i see through the emails, clearly, how much people are made of- all their needs, angst, aches, wants, aspirations, greed, motives, lust- everything. and seeing through people makes me sad. it feels as though at the end of the day, we're all just sad people, who go to bed longing for things that are so beyond reach.
but i just found myself an occupation. am watching Kanchu sleep as I write this and if there's anything called bliss, it's what i feel when i watch her sleeping. it makes me want to capture that tranquility for her always. but i know that someday, Kanchu will also grow old like the other pets i've had and in a reversal of role, i'll be taking care of an old girl, and probably have to watch her die. when i think of all these things, i feel like giving her away, just so that i don't have to watch her suffer, ever.
am thinking maybe it's a good thing you died on me. it can only mean that i can't bother you with anything, anything at all, now that i'm as good as dead. i say death, because that's what people become when you stop thinking of them. even the dead are alive as long as you remember and speak to them.
so it's a good thing i'll never see you grow old, sick and die. it's a good thing you'll never see me grow old, sick and die. if ever there is memory, we will remain confined to memories. and memories are always beautiful, even when you think there are lies, bitterness and betrayal in it. memory is always tinged with the beauty of it not being here anymore.
memory- you'll always be beautiful to me.

BLANK

the spaces
are closing in fast
and i hear, the world is speeding toward destruction

i wonder if you will see my lips lisp your name
when i abandon this wreck.