Segue

At what point of a woman's life does the customary, inevitable transition befall her, from a carefree, self-obsessed girl giving herself facials and manicures, to the toiling mother in front of the stove, hoping, wishing that someone would take notice and think to pamper her as well? At what exact moment does this burden of happiness shift, from oneself onto another? 

The aforementioned hope stays evident and unmistakable, rarely to be assuaged, only serving as a nidus to grow more, never to be quenched, always strengthening the feeling of deprivation even as it, itself, dwindles.

This hope hangs unpleasantly over the heads of her and everyone around her, automatically nullifying her enormous, immeasurable so-called sacrifice, that no one had ever benefitted from in the first place. 

The traditional institution of a family is based on interdependence and specific roles for each person. Then why does one perceive the weight of the world and expect recognition, appreciation, sympathy and consolation for what she does, while the other manages to hold up his end of the rod while finding time to indulge in self gratification?

The idea that the role of a mother is irreplaceable, the ultimate sacrifice, something to which we are inclined to feel forever indebted to; from where has it arisen? We've been taught that you are born to receive, and the only way you give back is to someone else, to a whole new generation, a whole different person, because life is like a waterfall; the flow of water being strictly unidirectional, determined by the stringent laws of unyielding gravity. To the point that we've begun to believe that the water must keep flowing, else it will turn stagnant. That, even, it is a criminal act to wilfully take time to satiate herself. 

From soft palms and painted toenails, to sweaty skin and cracked heels; the new generation feels a trepidation to this segue. An unfortunate result of unlimited access to second-hand experiences, the entire concept is unwelcome and undesirable. It has become unfathomable, to turn into our mothers, legendarily silent throughout their lifetime, enduring pains of all sorts, pushing their physical and mental faculties to the last possible extent, tirelessly labouring on, never asking for a break, never asking for a replacement, until their abilities finally give out, or until another woman comes to take their place, for what can be more of a disgrace to her than a man having to wash his own dish?

Lockdown, Breakthrough; or just a break?

A windy night. The noisy rustling of the trees, and a mango hurled from it's branches. The creepers climbing up trunks, the grass running quietly underneath as though there's nothing more natural in the world, and one of the many beetles hidden to the eye, resurfacing from time to time. The mud, the mist, the roots that hold it all together; they're made for each other. The cool breeze seems to be in perfect harmony with all the rest. It makes me wonder why I've stuck myself in the midst of all this, an unnecessary interruption to the natural course of things. Is there any part of this that requires me for it's existence?

Who anointed me the master of all that I live by? 

Critical Juncture

I wonder if everyone finds themselves comparable to a rat running in circles, hoping to move forward, always falling back, committing the same mistakes and ending up at square one over and over again. The rat thinks that it's attempts are important, but the truth is, it's wasting it's time and energy on something pointless that doesn't make a difference to even itself, forget the rest of the world outside it's tiny cage. 

I know it's happening to me; indeed I've been through this before. I've repeatedly promised myself that it would be different at the subsequent juncture, and like always, I don't know why I thought that this time would be something special. I now have the familiar lurking, sinking feeling of failure and disappointment in myself; the feeling that I'm repeatedly told to ignore every time I voice it. Promises of the power of optimism really have gotten old by now. Sometimes, positivity is a redundant dead weight that just makes an unanticipated fall even harder. I'd rather carry a parachute around than regret when I land on the hard ground from a height of twenty stories and break open like a splotched tomato. 

In regard to the crossroads I've been standing at for over a year now, I suddenly have begin to wonder if I would choose pleasant lazy mornings followed by quiet tea in the afternoons, or a lifestyle of danger and adventure with no time to spare. I never would have pegged myself as someone who had to give it a second thought before choosing the latter, but that's who I've turned into. 

"Accepting your mediocrity is the simplest pathway to peace"-- now there's a quote you'll never find anywhere. So uninspiring, right? But isn't it true? And why must we always push ourselves for more? Why not be content with moderation and comfort?

Despite everything, I do believe that beyond this total lack of motivation, there still lies the real me, the girl who would never settle for lackluster ambitions or a humdrum lifestyle. I sincerely hope I can keep her alive over the next few days. 

Here goes nothing!

A month left to D-Day. As it approaches, I find myself increasingly reckless, patiently wasting time just so that it gets over. Recent events have given me an excuse to give up, albeit a pathetic one; but I would much rather have no relation to the case than a suspect with a seemingly fake alibi. What does an alibi give me, anyway? It would be my own loss, with me being the culprit, the many suspects, the victim and innocent member who gets thrown in prison every time, demeaning the entire damn system. 

I just hope it doesn't end in the counterproductive scenario that's been giving me nightmares.

Well, this is different. 

I've never felt this way before, that is, this absolute lack of feelings. Angry, worried, anxious and scared still are ever-present in my world, but happy and sad have just disappeared with a "poof". 

What's it like?

For the first few days, it was a shock to me; I could now be things that I've wanted, without getting in the way of myself. Who am I, without sadness, though? Do I still have the same dreams? Do I still have the same talents? Do I still like the same people? Can I feel the satisfaction I used to, from helping other people? Is this entire journey just a waste, now that I can't enjoy the fruits anyway? What is the real me; this present one, or the one before? 

Am I still capable of writing my thoughts in an essay, without having enough feelings to mingle them up with? 

How can something so small induce such a great change in one's life? Life itself felt surreal. 

But slowly it began to settle in. And it began to make my world amazing. 

Stability is something I haven't seen from this close up in a really long time, and it's VERY welcome. I am finally capable of thinking with a straight mind, undeviated by my whirlpool of emotions. I feel like a little kid again, my thoughts filled with things of the yesteryears; countless possibilities that haven't manifested and fantasy worlds that never can. 

This sort of monotony scares me, though. From habit, I know that an unexpected rise upward is always followed by a deep downfall. What am I to expect from this magnificent, unmoving lull? Will it suddenly be pulled out from underneath me? I really don't want to part ways with it. 

Sincerely hoping that I don't have to! 

Academic disaster

Do I blame my parents
For enforcing academics on me?
No, they were victims
Of the same narrow path
That the whole of society
Has been forced through.
They recognised the evil
Yet knew they were too powerless
To save their loved one from it
And hence pushed her into the waterfall
To flow with it, as it is less painful
And difficult than going against.

Do I blame the hellhole coaching centres
That thrust education down our throats
Taking something appealing (even tantalising!)
And giving it the most bitter coating
As they did so?
No, they made it rote
But at least they increased the quality
Of each crop of students
Widened our horizons
And taught us MORE
Than one would learn twenty years ago
In the end, they create
More knowledgeable young adults.

Do I blame the friend
Who the meaning of competition
A bit too seriously, misleading me,
Turning into a liar as she achieves her goals
No, she's just a victim of
This society's gruesome fangs
Developing a set of her own,
She perpetrates the crime
Using ulterior motives, and cunning means
To eliminate competition.
On purpose, she crushes my spirit
But can she kill the zeal
Of the lakhs that remain in her way?

Do I blame the teacher
That draws an insensitive comparison
Between the dimwit I am
To the intelligence of the other?
No, all she tries to do is
Use shame as a motivational tool.
She is a well wisher;
She sees me as her own.
She does it because as her student
She would like for me to be better
Than I am today.

Do I blame the person
Who shows unrepentant arrogance
For scoring better than me?
No, he doesn't know
The humbling taste of failure.
He thinks he single-handedly conquered
The most important aspect of life;
He doesn't know that he doesn't control
Everything that orchestrates
His grand success.

Do I blame the people
Who disregarded my existence
When I failed that one time
No, they don't know the first thing
About neither my failure
Nor my success
These are minds that have been trained
To see life as an array
Of meaningless numbers
Or as black or white
No grey in between.

Do I blame the strangers
Whose behavior turns a full flip
When they know I'm a doctor?
No, I blame the generations
Of misunderstanding of achievement,
Ignoring the role of luck and good fortune
The access to opportunities
And the triggers to early realisation
Of what life is all about;
That maturity that genetically sets in
At an earlier time than others.

Don't they all know? That everyone tries
To be the best that they can?

I blame this generation,
For perpetrating the norms
Set down by ancestors
I blame the ones who know better
Yet don't educate their children
To the point of minimum sensibleness
And thereby ruin this nation
Along with the people who fail to meet
Their hypocritical expectations.

I blame the system
For no direction being pointed
To one with no background
Nepotism exists in every field
Lack of guidance is abundant
For no one takes you under their wing
Unless related by blood
And points you right from wrong.
No one shows you what shall happen
If you don't do what you should
And more heart wrenching is,
No one shows you what it is you should.
At the end there's a line of mentors
Waiting, eagerly, to see you fall
Trip on your own oversized degree
Whose time is up to achieve
But yet you hardly fill into.
They laugh and point, sneering oddly.
Ultimately they label some as a failure
For the failure that truly is their own.

I blame this system,
For no standardisation of result.
Does a single exam's score
Determine even a portion of my worth?
No one got to know me,
No one spoke and assessed my mentality.
There's no holistic understanding
Of the person that is selected.
That being the least of our problems--

There is no entity to keep in check
The aspirants that give payment for good result
And the authorities that use illegal means
In order to get corrupt payment.

There's no one to overlook
If everyone gets what they deserve.
There's no one concerned
About the role of chance factors
In something that changes the course
Of one's entire life.
Who is looking out to see
How a student performs every week,
Every day, every night, every hour?

Education ought to be
A state of mind, A way to live
An imbibed habit, that transforms a person.
An educated person ought not be
The same as one
Who throws his rubbish on the street!

It is not the preparation to crack
A single mindless exam
Or to satisfy "reputed" old officials
Who care more about the dress you wear
How neatly you comb your hair
The apparent traditions you follow
The tone with which you wish them
Whether you save their own ego
At a moment of their error
Rather than the knowledge you've built
Inside your head with years
Of hard work and grovel.
Need I be concerned
About the neatness of my margins?
Should I worry of the examiner's mood
While correcting my very paper,
What if he has a quarrel with his wife?
Is my future at stake?

I blame the system,
So twisted and intricate
Just waiting for competent candidates
To fall through the crude loopholes;
To filter them out based on chance events And randomly chosen qualities
That they never had to procure for the job.

Social media and a bit of the awareness necessary to consider myself a grown up, are what made me turn away for a year, from the Indian movies that I grew up watching. I was a regular at the local theatre ever since I came back to my own country. A new movie was something I looked forward to. I spent my school, intermediate and college years discussing Telugu actors and Bollywood remakes of Hollywood movies. I had an opinion on everything, and the one that I always held strongly was that finding my beloved Tollywood movies appealing did not make oneself uncool, irrational or shallow. People should have the maturity to distinguish movies from life; the lack of that, was in fact, uncool, irrational and shallow.
I was always a sucker for the type of movie that left you chuckling at the end with a slight touchy sentiment in your heart as you walked out the cinema hall.
But a year ago, I watched a few movies that conveyed very strong messages that were totally against my views. I realised the effect of these on the general population, those who never did differentiate reel from real, who blindly followed their role models, the actors, relating to them with their caste or fanboying based on their looks, and those who were too young to filter out counterproductive messages sealed in the pretty envelope of morals considered as good by others.
Yesterday I watched a Telugu movie after an entire year; that's a really saying something, for someone who used to be up to date with every new release. And it really took me back; to a time when the awareness of feminism, environment, body shaming wasn't so prevalent such that we could laugh wholeheartedly at a scene of gay romance, or a joke about a man who's dark enough that he's overlooked ahead of a blackboard. Yes, these are the jokes that hurt the sentiments of most, but they don't cease to be funny because indeed they are about phenomena that are a deviation from the norm. Besides, it would be helpful for these people to learn to laugh at themselves every once in a while; being sensitive to such issues only makes it more hurtful when an ignorant person hurls abuses.
Besides, it isn't as if there's been no gradual change. Haven't there been beautiful movies like Vedam, Khadgam, Khaleja that have thoughtful, deep messages concealed in humour for anyone who's willing to find them? That routine scene of a heroine behaving like a damsel in distress as goons eve-tease her, waiting for a strong, brave man to save her-- hasn't Run Raja Run shattered that image with a beautiful woman whobgives the idiots a beating herself? How can anyone miss the empowerment in Alia Bhatt's Highway, Badrinath ki Dulhania, and Dear Zindagi? At the same time, hasn't Rx100 gone far enough beyond feminism to show us the truth about today's privileged women? Hasn't Awe, if slightly faulty, broadened our perspectives to homosexuality and mental disease?
Haven't numerous biopics, like Bhaag Milka Bhaag, Neerja, Mahanati, Dangal, inspired us to be bigger than ourselves every day?
Movies aren't your teachers, mothers or spiritual gurus to expect a change of mind, a different dimension, or a broader outlook from. They're just a representation of a person/group of people's idea. Besides, they're often more sensible than most teachers, mothers or spiritual gurus, anyway. 
The sad, sad notion that anything in English or French is ought to be beautiful, while anything in Telugu, Malayalam or Hindi is bound to be "lame", is absolutely incredulous.
We may be frogs in a well, but our well isn't that bad. My choice is to go back to embracing my childhood traditions.