Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Is it my fault?

It was the child-birth ceremony today at their house. Their first grand-child! The baby was beautiful and was looking very pretty in that white frock she was wearing. I wanted to take her in my arms and the desire still remains unfulfilled in my heart.

My mother and father were playing with their lovely grand-daughter. The whole situation and their reactions when I was born flash-backed in my mind which I have imagined so many times over the years that it doesn’t leave any scope of it being even a little fictitious.

Again, I had tears in my eyes and I was asking the same questions…Was it my fault that I was born a eunuch? Couldn’t they understand the answer to this simple question? And still, they could leave me just like that? Wasn’t it their responsibility to provide a safe place to protect their child from this cruel world where we are ridiculed, mocked, harassed and abused each and every moment? Was it right for them to leave me in the hands of so called “outcasts” who survive though begging, entertaining in marriages, blessing newly born child and prostitution? Why didn’t they just kill me than to face a life where “life” has no meaning?

I got to know about my birth-parents through one of our impulsive old mate who got extremely angry when my parents didn’t give her enough money during my brother’s wedding and she blurted it out on me saying, “saale, kutte, kamine.. khud ki beti aisi hotey huay bhi, tere maa-baap ko hum jaiso par daya nahi aati.. harami saale.. suar ke bachche!!” She immediately realized the mistake (Crime is a more apt word to describe this) she had committed, but the damage had been done.

My friends had asked me not to visit them which I had, somehow, managed for the last two years. But today, I just couldn’t stop myself. There I was, laughing over a muscular man who almost ran away seeing us. There I was, almost shedding a tear on hearing some teens giggling and discussing the “composition” of a Hijra. There I was, with my family but as a strange outsider who has come to entertain them and get some of their hard-earned money (on which, by the way, I should have a share). There I was, blessing my niece and wondering whether she would ever know that she had an aunt. There I was, looking constantly at my parents hoping to see the slightest reaction of losing their daughter. There I was, feeling a lot of things and wanting to feel a lot of others...

Monday, April 6, 2009

Do you play safe???

Most of the time, life does not talk to you. It just sort of pushes you around. Each push is life saying, `Wake up. There's something I want you to learn.'

If you're the kind of person who has no guts, you just give up every time life pushes you. If you're that kind of person, you'll live all your life playing it safe, doing the right things, saving yourself for some event that never happens. Then, you die a boring old man. You'll have lots of friends who really like you because you were such a nice hard-working guy. You spent a life playing it safe, doing the right things. But the truth is, you let life push you into submission. Deep down you were terrified of taking risks.

You really wanted to win, but the fear of losing was greater than the excitement of winning. Deep inside, you and only you will know you didn't go for it. You chose to play it safe.

-from the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad"

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Bottled Up

The Djinn wanted to run away.. Run away somewhere far, far from his thoughts, far from his feelings, far to freedom! Freedom from the bottle he had corked himself.

It was an involuntary decision to stay in and he had liked the time there. He had learnt a lot about the world watching through the not so transparent glass. But, the niche he had built himself had started to irk him enough that he no longer enjoyed any of it. He wanted to break-free but he just couldn’t.. A few times, the cork did open but he didn’t have the courage to jump out..

And he stayed there, feeling BOTTLED UP!