Making Meaning: October 2006

If you'd like to read about Vidya you could read it here (part 1) and here (part2)

She gazed out of the window as houses, trees and people ran countercurrent. Beads of water trickled from one curve to another on the corroded window grill. Hanging with resolve for a while before they would ultimately give in and fall below to the next level and then the next… until there was no trace left of them. Where would they all ultimately go, she asked her self? Some droplets flew right at her along with the cool breeze that gently slapped her face. It had stopped raining only minutes back. Unusual for the time of the year that otherwise had incessant rain washing away the fringes of life that existed alongside railway tracks. Vidya, though was oblivious of the starting and stopping of the rain. Her eyes focused on the rain droplets that fell into a rhythm, pulling her thoughts inwards. I watched her closely sitting at the diagonally opposite end.

There was an unusual silence in the compartment. No sound of women clamoring for seats…no bunch of giddy college girls breaking into a raucous laugher at a drop of a hat. This silence created a song of its own. The cadence of the metal handles atop swaying from side to side and the near empty compartment lilting to that tempo. Her still…calm face veiled the battle of thoughts in her mind. Her small voice throwing at her - a dozen questions a minute...it did not wait to even get an answer to one question before there were a barrage of others…Vidya knew that any answer she would give to herself would only open a chain of new thoughts…new questions. Years of conditioning and advice from elders about ‘learning to accept’ her situation had quietened her senses.

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Vidya was amongst the brightest of her 8 siblings, a trait that won her disproportionate affection and encouragement from dada. Amma of course was quick to express her displeasure. ‘Don’t encourage her so much that her expectations take her soaring into the sky. One cannot fly high on pure hope alone. It is not in our means to let our girls study forever. After her matriculation, we must find a suitable house for Vidya. That’s it. Then our duty is over. Then she has to comply with what her in laws wish for her. You don’t fuel her desire to study further. She cannot think of herself and her life only when she has 5 younger sisters in the waiting’

Rukmini Devi (amma as we know her) was a woman of few words. Most of her time and energy were consumed by the domestic duties. In a marriage defined by traditional roles she did not find it her prerogative to voice her opinion. But Vidya was coming of age and amma knew that if her dreams were allowed to rise unfettered…the fall from those heights would be equally excruciating.

They were coming to see her. Her pleas were met with silence. This is the first time she had seen her father’s stone grey eyes filled with helplessness instead of hope for her.

His silence infuriated her even more. She paced up and down vigorously. Amma circled around her, holding the bright pink saree in her hand trying to calm vidya’s nerves. All the while that she was made to sit in front of her prospective in-laws she did not utter a word…nor did her eyes move away from her toes. Her face brushed with a crimson hue stuffed with anger that she could not express. If the fate of her life was to be decided without any consultation, she saw no sense in offering her approval or the lack of it. She married Shaym not knowing what he even looked like. That was her first and perhaps biggest lesson in ‘acceptance’.

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Over the course of her life….she learnt to accept….an early marriage, a sudden loss of support and encouragement from her father, an almost overnight change in status from a girl-without-a-care to a woman responsible for a family of five…an acerbic mother-in-law…loss of dreams…loss of freedom…loss of personal time and space…being treated like a guest in the house she grew up in…that every night she would have to sleep with a man for whom she was always less beautiful than the cover girls on cine magazines…less attractive than the characters from the prurient literature that he indulged in….that nobody would ask her even once how she felt or what she wanted…constant fatigue…that holidays only meant more work at home…that children who she devoted herself to would grow up and get a life where she was not going to fit in…that when she fell ill people in her house got irritated until she dragged herself out of bed and started cooking again…that her life was all about give…give…give…that no matter how hard she tried she would never be good enough for them!

The day started as usual today…nothing out of the ordinary…except it was one of those mornings when repressed emotions and rebellious thoughts refused to listen and stay contained with the bounds of the self where they would not been seen or heard by anyone else. One of those mornings when on waking up you get the feeling that someone or something has died and you silently mourn the death of a part of you! One such days Vidya would lose herself in introspection…trying to draw strength from her thoughts. As she wound up her morning chores her eyes were tearful - a result of the acrid smell of onions which she chopped deftly. She thought – that she chopped onions everyday – they why today did she feel a pain in her heart while her eyes shed water?

The storm caused by such an upsurge in emotions did not take more than a couple of hours to settle down. The cacophony of noises of women laughing and joking in the train drowned out the feeble voice of her conscience throwing questions at her. Except today when Vidya was alone…well almost…there were only two others besides her…me and a woman standing at the door holding up the fluttering end of her saree in an attempt to dry it. Vidya had involuntarily fixed her gaze at the speeding train that she could see sitting by the window. She thought about the length of time ahead of her…all the days…months ahead that she would have to live. She wondered whether it was it possible for her to remain stoic, unemotional…undisturbed by her life? Was it possible for her to hold back her reactions, remain unaffected by their constant barbs? She had learnt to accept no doubt, but had continued to be affected by it all. Then in a flash, a thought nudged her out of her trance like gaze.

If the soul is the seat of all that one senses and the body only a vehicle to facilitate this experience, she questioned - whether it was possible for her to allow her soul to die a premature death and leave her body to lead its mortal existence on this earth?

Her thoughts escaped her being. She looked expectant. As though she had posed her question to the universe and was waiting an answer. As the train approached the shadowy domes of the tungsten lit VT station, the universe answered…‘The train arrived on platform 1 is slow local for Thane…’

Vidya slid her bag on her shoulders and walked away into the distance. My eyes followed her as I saw people from the opposite side, almost walking into her and moving away just in time…giving her strange looks. She seemed oblivious of her surroundings…as though her soul had just escaped her.

Making Meaning

Friday, October 6, 2006

When Boredom Strikes..

Thursday, October 5, 2006

Vidya's story - Part 3 - Her questions to the universe...

Sunday, October 1, 2006

The sun and his twin