Days without you.

You left on a night, in pain, almost too strong that you couldn't see or hear anything lucidly. I lingered around in your room, roamed around, not knowing what to say or do to stop your suffering. I cried when nobody was watching, I didn't want anyone to feel weak, weak like me. At some point, I gave up and started sobbing and I hated not being able to speak to you. I looked at you and fondled your pale forehead and said in a fragile quivering voice that you were going to be alright. Nothing in the world was more painful than watching you suffer. I was frightened.

Then you were taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I watched you through the long windows. You were nearly passed out but rambling something in pain. When the vehicle moved slowly, I prayed to God that please don't let this be the last time I could see you. But as always, my prayers were in vain.

I went home and prayed and wailed and sobbed under the shower, begging for a miracle. Nothing worked and I lost you in a week. Just like that. You shined upon me like the bright sun and someone turned that off mercilessly.

Now, it's been 2 months.

I keep myself busy indulging in things I was never good at, but no matter what, not a day passes without thinking about you. I want to scream at nothing but mostly I don't know what to do. I miss you and I want and don't want it to stop. All the memories etched on my heart, your voice, your smile, and the love. The love.
If only I could go back to April 13th.
Without my voice trembling, my heart shattering into one million pieces,
I would hold you tightly.
I would lie down beside you.
And that's enough.
That's enough.

A piece of my heart has been cut off, but like a phantom limb, the love and longing are hurting me.

A life changing choice and few other things

Ever since the lockdown began, I was thinking about spending my time productively. As a result I've kick-started multiple things but ended up completing none. Partly because I lost someone who was so close to me recently.

Gladly, I brought my Ukulele with me when I came back from Mangalore. I love this instrument so much and buying it was one of the best decisions I had taken overnight. There is something so serene and pleasant about this Hawaian beauty called Makala. The sound from it clears the air and brings a joyful and liberated vibe. I still remember those days in the hostel when Sandy, Deepika, and I would all sit together in a room under the fairy lights, with windows opening to a glance of the starry sky with an uncertain moon and few buildings with their yellow lights creeping to the top. We would play music and end up lying on the carpet, staring at the ceiling and to the cosmos beyond, indulging in conversations about existential bummers.Now, It feels like all those happened a million years ago.

An old friend of paramount importance was my love for reading which I thought once upon a time as an unabating interest. I really wanted to restart it, so just like old times I downloaded Aldiko, a reading app and downloaded many books in Epub format. I wanted to complete reading "The small things are beautiful", which was abandoned a long time ago, in the midway of some irrelevant chaos.

I discovered some very talented musicians through youtube like Mxmtoon and Hozier (My friend Sandy has an exceptional taste in music and always introduces me to new ones). I listen to their music all the time now. What good is life without music! (Of course a rhetorical question). I left my art stuff back at the hostel and couldn't paint anything. I terribly miss it and feels strange because I have never spent so many free days without painting.

After watching La Casa De Papel, I fell in love with Spanish and started learning it through an app called memrise (Ahora puedo hablar un poco de espanol). I don't practice it consistently though. Nonetheless, the joy it brings is exceptional.

Speaking about Netflix, I have watched a plethora of movies and TV series during this lockdown. I watched a movie called Okja (2017 ) recently and it planted a radical change inside me. I have always felt a compassion and was very keen on all animals. I love watching documentaries on vivid habitats of our earth. I have always ended up fondly thinking about how phenomenal our planet is. It is breathtaking.

I have learned about the dreadful fate we bring upon those poor beings too like I have explained in a previous post reviewing the documentary called 'Racing Extinction'. It is something truly heart-sickening.

Picture downloaded from Newyork times review about Okja

Whatever I felt, It was actually hypocritical because I was a non-vegetarian. I devoured and savored animal flesh. I paid the slaughterers. As much as I loved animals, I was self-absorbed enough to continue being non-vegetarian thinking about the taste of cooked meat which lasts for a transient time and the quid pro quo for it was the precious life of an organism.
For the last couple of years I was thinking about accepting a vegan lifestyle or at least becoming a vegetarian. A few weeks ago, I was eating chicken and all of a sudden my mind started a figure-ground thought pattern of focusing on the taste of raw flesh in the cooked meat. I felt hesitant and got upset. It was the beginning of something.

 After watching Okja, I finally decided to be a vegetarian. Okja does not advocate veganism, but it stirred some strong emotions inside me. Okja is a beautiful, heart-rending movie. It portrays the brutal, unethical, and synthetic face of capitalism in associated with animal cruelty.
I listened to various talks by environmentalists like Ed winters. It changed my life because for once in my life, I was so certain that this is the greatest thing anyone can ever do for our planet. I will be a vegan when I am financially independent because I cannot force a lifestyle on my family. In contemporary India, Vegan products are not easily accessible as well.

This world is for all the species and nothing ever can morally justify buying animal products or eating them. The current pandemic was also a result of animal slaughter and large scale animal cruelty. Let the animals live freely, let's not breed them to murder.
There is a song from racing extinction called "Manta Ray" by J. Ralph & Anohni. It is so poignant as it's from the perspective of all other organisms in the world. You can all listen to it https://youtu.be/f1JiJhWkM9M. It got oscar-nominated for the best original song.
There are few lines that go like,

"Without my home
With no reflection
I cease to exist

And my children
Are dying now
Inside me
My children
Are dying now
Inside me
My children

All I love
All I know
All I've known

I am dying now
Inside me
My children
My children"

Listening to the line "My children" through the singer's voice, we can all feel a resonating ache that traveled to us from the greatest oceans, tropical forests, desserts, frozen lands, and from every other habitat.

Kindness, that is all it takes.

Downloaded from wallpaperaccess.com

Things I am good at.

I always think,
about the things, I am good at.
Really good.

Today I found that out,
Unintentionally and effortlessly.

I'm really good at feeling things.
Actually, I am the best.

My dearest Achamma,

You were and are everything to me. All of my earliest and happiest memories are with you. I never saw anything other than love and kindness in your eyes. Your love was the light of my life and I have wondered how can someone love anyone this profoundly. 

Your love and compassion were like a fathomless ocean and its waves touched many blessed beings. 

I have vivid memories of our old home. At nights, we would all sleep on the long cots laid on the red floor. You keep me close to your heart and still, when I close my eyes, I can remember the scent of your skin and your motherly hands around me. There was a broad window pane where I used to sit as a child looking at our school ground. During the beginning of summers, the migrant wanderers would occupy the ground and you would listen to my silly chatter about them patiently. We spent a lot of days together. You looked after me, fed me, sent me to school...You even wrote my homework. I can't even remember how many candies I have had with all the little amounts of pocket money you had given.

You would send Shobhavellyamma to pick me up from Anganwadi at noons and when I come back you would be making lunch by mashing the rice with curd. Achamma, I don't know how many times you fed me with your hands, the love you serve along with it made all of them the greatest meal I've ever had.

You were always my safe haven. I have heard stories of me running to you complaining about amma and aunts so that you would scold them without reasoning. Your unconditional love was beyond all kinds of reasoning. Anyday, you would know my sufferings by just a glance. My dearest, you read my heart before the words. You were my precious angel. 

How many stories have you told me! On our walks to the temple in the evenings through the village road, you held my hands and told stories all the way. You always spoke to God for me during all of my tough days. Never did I go to attend an exam without your blessings. It was everything I needed.

The way you gave me pocket money secretly though the whole world knew only you could spoil me. I remember how pissed you were when I cut my hair short. All the years I lived, we were together for our favorite time of the year which is Vishu and I can't believe you left on that day this year and didn't come back.

You were a very witty person. Your curiosity to learn new things always amazed me.

Never have I ever heard you talk ill about a person. Everyone in the world loved you. You were the best mother and grandmother. If love had a face, it was yours my achamma.

Now, you look after me from heaven.

And I would miss you so much because I've never loved anyone as much as I loved you. You are everywhere around and everyone kind to me reminds me of you.

I will miss seeing your name on my call log.

I will miss all the kisses and hugs.

I will miss you saying how thin I've become though I was always fat.

I will miss you feeding me everything edible.

I will miss you telling me to dry my hair and not get sick.

I will miss your laughter when I show funny photos and videos on the phone.

I will miss you waiting for me at home, your love was home to me.

I will miss your songs.

I will miss calling you achamma with my heart full.

I will miss all our great times together.

I will miss everything about you.

You were my everything.

You were a mother, grandmother, and best friend to me.

But I know you are with me always.

You are inside my heart.

My lovely and beautiful achamma,

I love you. I love you. I love you

I love you more than anything.

I write to get rid of the ache in heart, but I don't want the pain of your loss to reduce one bit. It reminds me of the intensity of your profound love. You taught us to love unconditionally. Your compassion moved many people.

I know you are watching me from the beyond. I hope you are happy and at peace over there. Be with me.

With love and more love,

Remembering you always and forever,

Yours,

Anu.

people.

people.
my lovely people.
Why are you in pain?
why do you leave?

This is so fucking hard.

...

At those nights,

after when the midnight fall asleep,

Let's talk about Gibran and Neruda.

I'll ask you to close your eyes

And I'll recite Rumi's,

We'll call it a night,

When you recite back,

With your kisses.

Relevance of feminism in the contemporary society; A perspective.

Well, we have come a long way from the times when feminism burned like an ethereal fire to the cyber massacre as we witness today. My ideals went on growing linearly as my meta-thinking devoured the characters of early 19^th and 20th-century novels which began from Ms. Elizabeth Bennet of “Pride and Prejudice” to Mrs. Weasley of “To the Lighthouse”. Authors like Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir, and Toni Morrison had paved my way to feminist literature. But this write up is not about the aspects discussed during the Victorian era,

It is the tale that every observant millennial young adult would want to tell and my journey to become a feminist.

Painting by Australian artist Jessica Watts

Being an equalist, I would root to humanity and it is the ideal concept that upholds both ethos and pathos, it could also contribute to the purist way of thinking and living.  Gender equality and feminism are similar concepts as feminism is defined to be the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state. Cheris Kramarae, a famous scholar in the area of women's studies and communication and the co-author of A Feminist Dictionary said that “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”

Gender equality doesn’t give importance to any particular one. As I believe human gender and sexuality are a spectrum, I would like you to know that this discussion is not just adhered to male or female alone.

Now, doesn’t it evoke thoughts about why feminism arises although a similar altruistic concept of gender equality exists? Yes, we all know the way women were treated from the beginning of human history. Our education system made sure it was not excluded from the syllabus and the understanding of the concepts were of course measure by memory tests. Living in 2020, let us all open our eyes and analyze the current atmosphere for women at all kinds of institutions beginning with the home.

Most of us millennials grew up in homes without facing the extreme horrible male chauvinism or patriarchy. The thing is, it is not about the severity scales but the ubiquity.

The justification comes under various strata like protection and social obligation. Talking about protection, the violation of an individual’s freedom of choice clothing or expression is often questioned as it might cause a threat or rise safety issues, but it is time to fight the “hazard”. There are equal rights to express oneself irrespective of gender. We could always see a woman who talks politics or wears short clothes are often targeted and shamed in various ways. Objectification of women is glorified by our film industries and misunderstood as a trait of masculinity. As long as the need for protection exists, we can conclude that society is not yet ready to fight what’s threatening safety.

When the reason is not protection, it could be the toxic resistance to change or the reluctance to let go of the patriarchal systems. Our society is still at the stage where men are the most trusted drivers just because they are ‘men’. Women are obligated under various psychological pressure to withstand the sexism.

Every woman of our age faces casual sexism on a daily basis. We confront it from our homes, educational institutions, workplace and almost from everywhere. The horizontal hostility makes women stand in favor of patriarchy too, which is very disappointing. Maybe one would think about the big deal in ignoring a minor sexist comment, but that’s the thing about casual sexism; one by one it accumulates from everywhere and the culmination is horrible. It stands as a hindrance at every ingress.

 Today, we see feminism being misapprehended as something born from vanity. People who stand for the true values of it are being defamed and given ‘names’. The repercussions of these are a deceived lot of young people who unintentionally becomes a part of misogyny.

It is high time to improvise our mindset into a broader space where men, women, and all other genders are treated as equals. The ethos and pathos should be effectively conveyed to our children through good parenting. We must raise our voice and act appropriately when humans of any gender are subjected to sexism. We all deserve this world equally, not more or less.

“Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics.”

― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own