The Chiral Life

I sit, at the start of the finish
weighing options- counter or clockwise,
have heard they meet in a circle, joy
and sorrow. One, All.

Measuring steps, slow, deliberate,
tweaking the cunning non-orientable
boundary component of life,
feverishly seeking the start again.

I stand, at the end of the beginning
uneven, startled at the dyads of
uncertainty. Promised chrysopoeia
fading with inane indecision.

Bold strides; defying risky contours
embedded in agony of the forbidden,
an ant frantic in the threads of the
endless seam; inevitable ignorance.

I stand, at the start of the finish, smile at
hindsight, stare at life: the Mobius Strip.

Girl to Woman, a Journey.

It started with a pain. There was nothing I could do. A stinging sensation at the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t care less. The movie was gripping. But so was the pain. Finally, it occurred to me that I should go see what was  so wet between my legs. I get up unsteadily after telling my father to fill me in the story when I get back and rush to the bathroom. I have read about it, heard about it, been talked to about ‘it’. But there is nothing like the smell and sight of crimson blood in your panties that alarms the little child in you. Since I still have to cope up with the shock of it, I yell for my father. He rushes in, takes a look at my panties and disappears. He comes back with clean panties with a sanitary napkin in it and asks me to put it on. That was my first period. Dramatic and sweet.

It was hard, coming to terms with the fact that your life can ooze out of you, if you don’t create one inside. I found it disgusting, surreal and somehow, demeaning. The most popular discussion amongst us girls whenever the term period came up was, ‘why don’t boys have it? Why are we punished? I wish I was a boy.’ Or variations of the same. It was a burden. To be cranky, to adjust to the monotony of the whole affair and the self-righteous indignation at being discriminated against, by nature. Or was it the fact that somehow, I had grown up? One tiny spring inside me bursts open the dam and suddenly I had to be responsible for my actions. I had to make sure that boys looked up and didn’t wander ten inches south of my face. I had to adjust to the deep awareness that now, I could be a mother. Too much to ask from a kid. At first though, it was seemingly benign. It was just a process that was useless apparently. Why is my blood being drained out of me for no reason?

The implication of this flow of feminine abomination was revealed to me when I was about twelve. My parents, tired of me not connecting the dots, sat me down and explained the process of human coitus and pregnancy. It was an ‘aha!’ moment. So that was what the fuss was about. Looking back, I must have been the dumbest kid around to have had all the information about every process, but not to have sequenced them coherently. So, my undulating pink folds were not supposed to be ravaged, but caressed. It was my sanctum and I had to make sure nothing bad happened to it.

The most boring part about menstruation is reproductive hygiene. My mother, being into adolescent education, made sure I read a lot about it and practised it. Wash it properly, three times a day, with soap. Make sure I don’t use the sanitary pad too long. Wait, what about the cloths into which the damn liquid spilled accidentally? Do I throw them away? No. I wash them. Soak them in warm water for a while and wash them. Trust me when I say that quite a few of my inner articles of clothing have ended up mysteriously disappearing in the initial stages into the waste bin because I was too disgusted with the slime.

There were perks though. I could easily tell my teacher I was ‘sick’ and hence I couldn’t attend the classes the previous day. A stomach ache, according to a close friend, was ample reason to not attend functions. One grievance which constantly arose was that god (theist then) didn’t allow any conversation with him then. But of course, there is the demon that lurks behind the tree when you think the worst is over. PMS. The acronym that sends shivers down the spines of women and the men in their proximity. I couldn’t figure out at first, the mood swings, the fights, the anger, tears. It was hard indeed, especially since I had a brother who made it a point to irritate me or make me cry whenever possible.

Those were the beginnings. It has been fifteen years since my first shock. As with me, my period has also settled into a comfortable rhythm. Breaking at times during stress, but otherwise keeping pace with the moon. It has been a pleasure, being a woman. The whole emotional melodrama has attenuated to one or two sobbing sessions during my PMS. I am in love with the whole process, though I am not a cultural feminist. But, I feel empowered that this blood that people regard waste symbolizes my ability to nurture life. It makes me warm when I think that every drop I bleed is somehow for the future. As if I am accumulating it for my kids, to nurture them better. Most importantly, the absence of the sense of belonging has long vanished. There is no more a question of who I am and what I should do with the knowledge that I am capable of forming gametes. 

There is this belief that PMS is the worst part of a period. It is not. It is constantly being degraded as a piece of meat because of the red stream. I am cared for, protected and kept safe. I am also violated, considered inferior and treated unfairly. I am not a lady, nor am I a slut. I dislike it intensely when someone is chivalrous to me. I am capable of opening the door myself.

The one reading this might wonder why I decided to write on this. It originated from an article that I had read and posted as my status in Facebook. A beautiful article about a woman’s first period. A few of my friends who began reading it thought that I had written it and that made them transfixed to the entire thread.  It was then that I realized this was something that is considered too private. I had to see if I was capable of letting the stigma that ran through even me about something so magnificent, if I can talk about it in the public domain without feeling naked. I am glad I could.

When I was around seven, I opened my closet in the morning, as usual, for my uniform. What I saw was something weird and magnificent. On top of my entire section of uniforms, lying very comfortably in its reddest glory was a cat, covered with blood and placenta. Three kittens were near her, crawling about in the mild sunlight reflecting off the mirrors on the door. The slight meows filled the air, as they tightened their grip on life more and more, with each passing second. Tell me, how is that disgusting? If it is not, then my blood which is just another version of the same should be as magnificent a phenomenon as that.

Writing me

It started out as a line -my written word,
unsteady, unsure,
the first pencil duel with the frictions
of uneven surface. Naturally levo-dexterous,
till ruthlessly forced to switch right to align
the forces of compliance; negate freedom.

Cursive was a curse, framed in rules of
modern calligraphy , unjustly summoned
for a parley offered to the captured;
obey or perish.

Lost in the wilderness of letters, dismayed
and envying  friends writing as if with a
quill, yet rejected tandem temptations
strewn across slender conformity.

A swash of T and strike of F found me
soon, loops and lumps aplenty;
words seemed not mere calligraphic, but
picturesque, ideas reflected off edges of
million gems, afloat in the myriad stems
and petite petals I gave each letter;
as  a teacher woefully complained
‘Beautiful, beautiful, but I cannot read’.

Thus it has remained, a bit more legible
perhaps,
still beautiful, beautiful, but not to be read;
Should make one wonder, if these words
really were about words at all!

To Nisha....

When Nisha got married, she didn’t ask for anything materialistic. She wanted me to write something for her. And like the completely absentminded person that I am, I forgot. It is a trait of mine to carelessly sideline the most important ones in my life. It is not a habit borne out of intention, but rather habituation. So, when Nisha announced that she will be leaving for the USA for an year or two, all I could feel was a sudden lump in my throat, which I don’t think I masked very well. All I could think was that she was important to me. Though we live far from each other and don’t see each other often, there is this bond that remains strong. A bond that has stood its test of time and space. But there was this assurance that if need be, I could always visit her in Bangalore. Last time she came home, she begged me to meet up with her. Being completely self absorbed during the time, I found it easier to say that we will meet next time. This was a point she raised after dropping the bomb. All I could mutter were these exact words, ‘I can do it, but not you. You are supposed…’. My voice trailed off after that. The missing part was, ‘to be there, forever.’.

The truth is that she has always been there. She has always been the wind beneath my wings, in ways that she doesn’t even realize. She has always been the quiet one. I have always been ruthless.  Till an age,I have never once halted and thought about the disastrous consequences my tiny actions bring on others. That sense evolved only later in my developmental process. On the other hand, she was the queen of calmness, a trait she has thankfully begun to lose. There was a balance. There is a balance. What we do and think have evolved from a thread of interdependence in which at least one has a solution for every problem we face, together or apart. The most wonderful quality about her is that, she has achieved something most of my friends and family haven’t. She actually lets me be. True, there have been moments when I have scared her to death with my antics, when she has cried and gotten angry at me for not trusting her with my problems, etc. She has also forbidden me to do things along the course of our friendship, but even with all that, she accepts I am different, that I don’t fit into the general population and expects nothing less from me. But the part that she doesn’t know yet and it is highly hard for me to say this without any feeling, is that I don’t need to talk to her about my problems. When I do get sad or lonely and I need her, I just need to listen to her voice. She might be chattering like a monkey (Oh, she does and I love it.) on the other side of the phone and I maybe crying on this side. But, by the end of the phone call, I will be smiling or laughing. Wait a second before you think she is insensitive. The last question of hers has always been, ‘Why were you sad?’, whenever I have been. She has always known when I am sad, without me telling her. I always end up telling her that it was nothing. That is true. Because by then, it had become nothing.

When I was studying for my post graduation, I had this wonderful roommate who had become extremely close with me. We were extremely good friends. I have found very few people with whom I have felt the kind of intellectual and emotional connection as strong as I have felt with her. There have been moments when she would take precedence in my list of friends. But (she might read this, but she knows how I feel about her and that every word I am writing is true), there have been times when she would put a dagger straight through my heart. It was during one of those moments that I realized how important Nisha was. I remember smiling and crying alternately, thinking that I am lucky to have someone who has always been my safety net and who I am absolutely certain of continuing so, through the years.

The question in my mind right now is whether to bore you with the so many hilarious episodes we have shared. No. I am going to just flip through the most poignant ones in my mind. But I do have a super star among them that I want to remind her of. We were seventeen and in school. Our teacher had caught us talking. I was the one doing the talking and she was listening and ironically, she was punished. She was made to stand outside the class. I went up to the teacher and told her that I should be punished and not her. Well, she punished me too. So, we were standing there and she was trying hard not to burst out laughing. In between those gulps of air was a pause in her eyes I will never forget. It whispered to me very quietly, ‘Yes, we are friends.’ It is one of the most poetic moments I remember in my life.

 There are no streets in the city that we have not wandered lost yet content. Though I should say that the sun has not been my friend whenever I have had to wait for her. She possesses this unique ability of being late, even if I am late to reach the spot. But, I have had my share of such abilities too. The most marked one being the ability to forget her birthday every single year. I remember the birthday some years back. I had called her up on the day, talked for some time without wishing her and hung up. Around a fortnight later, another close friend called me up and asked me if I have forgotten to do anything that month. I made a checklist in my mind and well, let us just say that the air filled with a distressed shriek. I immediately called her up and I believe my first sound was ‘eeeeeeeeeeeee….eeeeee……..’. Of course, she understood and soon was convulsed with laughter.

Now, when she reads this, she won’t say how much she loves me. (She seldom expresses her love for me. Actually it is something that doesn’t require words.) She won’t even tell me she loved what I have written about her. But she will giggle; in that quiet giggle like a babbling brook hitting the occasional pebbles. Then she will call me up and giggle some more. All I can say is that this is my very belated wedding gift. Please do remember this post the next time I forget your birthday, Nish. I love you.    

Few moments in between

I remember to breathe
lying in this moment of void,
no thoughts necessitated,
half awake slumber.

My mind, fertile awaits
blankly the next morn with

no breaks, halts or hesitation
none analysis precipitated.

Lying barren,
naïve in the spring of time,
aroused in the calm of night,
seizing the light of silence;
stop to wonder if
meaning needs a structure,
words need lamentation
of fruitless use, the thoughts
never consciously intended.

No sensation, perhaps a tinge
of discomfort at the warmth
as the faded light merges
with my eyelids; sure to be
forgotten with the sun.