I am so tired… wrong! I’m still up typing this post sipping a fat blue cup of tea in my bedroom.
I’m enjoying the famous Delhi chills in January of this New Year. Cyber space is my world, one another dimension where I dwell. It hears me, lives me in preserving my life details those which I share. It doesn’t hurl any curiosity or run its judgement. Void resonates the key tapping as though in acknowledgement. Is this fit to be labelled as relationship?
It was one hectic day at work. What with a certain retail store running one 60 months interest free promotion for the New Year weekend! After a daylong contemplation, I went out to Connaught Place. Season ending sale is up here (in India) and I’m sure the sales persons there would be echoing similar sentiments. Travelling to several destinations in a squeezed up timeline completing the planned is one of my skills; I’m beginning to appreciate. Hands of the watch then run at my pace moving only after I tick a certain item off my compiled list.
The day was like any other. I traveled after work to check what’s on the stands, buying some, treating myself on way back and yet pinching enough time to relax. Music played in my ears, thoughts in mind. They do the strangest things possible to us. There I was, standing amidst the crowd lost several years back in time. A few months before dad packed up his life off us, I had pushed him to buy a sweater for me from Mohini Knitwears. That knitwear brand was a rage back then. The sale used to be in a Hotel Janpath in Connaught Place in January (again!) The racks of apparels stacked in around me had all melted just for that moment creating kaleidoscope of colours matching the display as was on that sale all those years back. I held that trousers like I was holding a dead child shocked more than grief struck. I found myself to be standing alone… very alone. Mom loved going out during sale period how I do too. The sweater I had bought then was somewhat oversized for a child of 11. My argument then was that an oversized garment would remain wearable even after I grow big. I still have that sweater alright, a pretty baby pink cardigan with plastic sequins embroidered. I have worn it almost never…
Dad left, mom passed away a few years later. Here I am, recalling and reliving the pain which is now an inseparable part of my existence; one of the reasons why I don’t want to bear a child. I don’t want my child to carry the particles of the precipitate I would pass on during the growing up years. I fall short of words to reply in when I am questioned why I don’t want to become a mother… I don’t want to become my mother. I don’t want my child to become me how I have almost become my mother! I’m only five years away from when she died screaming in despair begging to be saved. She wanted to live for me. She deserved to live for herself. There she was crippled- medically, physically and emotionally by marriage and family. I’m the ugly precipitate that couldn’t be dumped in any bin. She didn’t fit in anywhere.
There isn’t anyone who witnessed what happened all those years back or what transpired thereafter. I feel inappropriate to share my future life with any man for he wasn’t a part of my life gone by. He wouldn’t be able to complete me. A tender part of me is bruised due to family and my marriage too. An inclusion from the outer world will not bear a match with the existing particles. An implant will always be that; rest of the organs are the body parts. An artist knows the meaning of the word impossible while mixing colors to create the exact shade as in his mind. One needs to know the poison to suggest the antidote. That said, it’s a good idea to leave the patch barren for some time till the soil neutralizes.
This was the same place where I shopped my dresses from when young. Snowhite is the place we- mom and me haunted to pick up sets of skirt dresses. The last time she had wanted to get me something was a tussar suit, embroidered and styled Indian, priced obscenely high. She had noticed that on one of her trips to the place, and then one afternoon I was taken to the shop so she could buy me the same. I did not like it as much. The very moment I had voiced my view, the mannequin was removed from the show window. It was sold off right then- to another customer. Things changed as did life and the visits to the store interrupted. Several years and another lifetime later, I was drawn to the store. Was that to do with this store then what I experienced today? Within a matter of few seconds, time, instances and series of memories had closed in on me. Time wasn’t a graph axis anymore but another variable with several instances plotted at different intervals, all resonating with life at the same time! Memories and the event occurrence seemed life-like with me watching over as they were occurring at their designated time interval and yet all at once.
This was one part of my mind. The other part was celebrating me. It’s proving contrary to my thought of all’s been lost. Though in a decimated proportion, I am beginning to observe an upward plotting in certain areas of my present life as compared to then. It’s largely scattered to be mentioned in this post.
I should run along now. Movie watching time was taken by this post. Dinner shouldn’t wait any longer. I noticed the moon while entering the building gate in the evening. It was a big scoop of white butter, yet to draw another arc to reach its roundness; yet, looked fascinating… from where I am, it was after a very- very long time that I stopped to look back to smile at it instead of acting to notice.
It yearned for my glance…
Olivia's life instances... 