In Persuasion Of A Story.

A story. 

What exactly is a story?

Is it a lie we tell each other, in wake of a better tomorrow? Or is it, is it us? You know, you and me. Story, stories. All about just us. All of us, the particles of God. Trying very hard to look for him elsewhere, in the story. Somewhere above the ladder or below. Somewhere in the chain of chaos. Or was it that sex was all that we have of him. Here. A story, too short, then. 

Story, stories have a way about them. The way is to easily fit in our subconscious. Imagination takes us into the pensive from where we watch everything happen. And so the story finds place in the essence called life. Do we really let them then, dwindle above us subconsciously, or do we always carry the aroma of the stories we have loved along with us. Longing for some counterparts, for some more kinds of the story we love. And for those unfortunates who never love a single story, they become one. Unintentionally, Of course. They become a part. A play. A letter. An idea. They become a story to be told. 
Such story I came across once, and have been dying to write it ever since.

In the dingy and narrow lanes of sub-urban Delhi, lived Renu with her family. Renu, was a girl, of an age when mostly longing turned into deep slumbers. Of a time when touching her own skin innocently, would create an inextinguishable fire within. Looking at bare skin ,even of her own mother, would make her confused. It was an age, when everything she saw or felt, made her want to touch herself. Of course, she couldn't understand what this was all about. What was making her days and nights so miserable and full of thirst. It seemed as if her body was itching, night and day. 

She was at that age, when one becomes incompletely complete, trying to look for ways that would suffice everything once and for all. 

Renu would come home from school, and lock the door to change her clothes. She would then stare at her growing breasts in the mirror. She would touch them lightly and feel everything in that touch. She was desperate for a touch. She would use every kind of medium to touch her body, to create the touch of someone else on her. Her pillow became her toy, with which she would often caress herself. Tired of the insufficient pillow, she would sleep on it unaware of her nakedness. She would sometimes forget to open the door. Grandfather, worried, constantly banging on the door, she would wake up. Realizing she was naked. Ashamed, she would quickly get dressed and answer, reassuring that she was okay. She would go out, feeling impure, feeling as if she had committed the most desirous of sins, and that in turn would entice her. 

These were those days when everything Renu saw on the television became about sex. She would watch bare-bodied women wrestling, women walking on the ramp, with beautiful breasts. She would lust for their bodies. It was always somehow women, who made such feelings come inside her. She had no term for what she felt, for the women's bodies or her own. She just knew of its existence. She never really gave it much thought either. But, she knew it had to be a secret kept locked inside her.

In her bathroom, she would rummage, between the unwashed clothes and take her mother's bra, and try it on. To create that desirable touch, of course.  Her mother's bra was much bigger for her still growing breasts. But, wearing the bra and looking at herself in the mirror, would give her a vague satisfaction.  She would want more, every day, every night. She never touched her vagina at that age, she was all about breasts, She wanted someone to simply touch her, touch them. 

So, an afternoon came, while Renu fulfilled her fantasies inside her bedroom, she heard footsteps outside, in the backyard. She froze, thinking it was someone from the family, and had seen her in this plight. She slowly crept behind the curtains and saw from the window. It was the gardener. She watched him slyly, his dark contours, gripped her entire being. She wanted him. She wanted him to touch her. But ,she was far too week for something so bold. So, she fantasied about him. With the gardener in the backyard, it became extremely special for her to go along playing with herself, touching her body, while he was just outside. It excited her even more. 

Suddenly there was a knock on the door to the backyard, she froze. Dressed quickly and opened it.to find the gardener standing. He asked for a basket. She quickly went to the kitchen and brought it for him. He plucked the vegetables, and she, she watched him. Working in the bright sun, sweating, his body, firm and dark, was making her quiver. She now wanted to make him understand somehow that she wanted him to touch her. 

The gardener came over to her, with the basket full of leaves, she couldn't just take the basket. She needed him to touch her. So, as Renu took the basket, she made sure her hand touched his fully, and very tenderly, she caressed his hand, as if by accident. And as soon as she had touched him, she had loathed her self and cringed away from the idea that was driving this, unknowable thirst within her. 

She took the basket from him and ran to the kitchen. 

She thought she was going crazy. She imagined that she had left her home forever, and had become a prostitute to satisfy this that burnt within her. She still had no idea about sexual intercourse or how it happened. All she knew at that age, was she needed someone to touch her and she knew it would take more than one to satisfy her hunger for it. She would day and night think of herself as the prostitute with freedom and courage, to be. To be able to have as much of anyone, as she wanted, She would day dream of becoming a prostitute. Of becoming someone, who wanted to quench her thirst and enjoy it all the time. 

It became a passion of hers. Renu would often think of prostitutes as she grew out of that age which seemed unending. She would often envy their lust for life. With every age she forgot about a dream, that had possessed her mind and soul. Society made the better of her. She never became a prostitute. She never became a lesbian either. Society got the better of her. Often when she lies alone, she again feels those pangs of lustful desires. But, now she is at the age where she knows every detail and every idea related to the hunger. She touches herself in the right places now, to feel herself all over. 

But, as then, so now, she carries the secret in her heart. She still dreams of becoming a prostitute in some other life maybe. For now, the society got the better of her. 

In Retrospect.

A little every day is beyond my understanding. I cannot understand parts and bits of things, of love, of family, of myself. Within me so much is churning, like an empty gyre. . people think they love me, or they know me. I cannot get it within myself the idea of being with any of them. Everything is a blur. Love its intricacies its ghosts, its silence is the most painful, its indifference is a pain I cannot live with. Today, when h. said the word forgiveness.  I remembered it, I remembered that feeling of having forgiven, but I cannot remember how it was done. I cannot remember forgiving. I do not know how to forgive. All those People who pushed themselves against me had themselves filled with me and then gave me nothing. They only had me. And yet they never gave anything except those scarred memories of having had them in my life. I could not have understood if I had not known them from before. But karma is not taking me to them. They are not my piece of cake to be celebrated they are just those sticky glues in those pages of panic. In those times of desire I thought I knew myself I knew what I had and wanted.  I knew better than my intelligence. Better than my better judgement that they needed me. But did I ever not need to be loved to be called theirs to be called so that I could know that I was loved.  I never knew what I had done to cause those exasperated breaths those tired eyes. Those disrespectful tones those unlovable glances I did not know what had I ever done to cause those eyes which glistened for me to roll away those thoughts and feel nothing for that matter, never been loved, never been lost more than those birds which never returned. There was never a time when I had him. I had forgiven him before and he had left me for her. And he still wants to leave me. But he knows he cannot. Or maybe he can. Maybe he knows these painful eyes of mine better than I know them. When he creates those lovable nothings for me. When he no longer wants to know how I am. When he no longer wanted to love me. When he no longer had me. When he no longer wanted to touch me. He left. Without acknowledging that there could be a person within who could crumble when he left. When he left I was no longer the same. I simply was.

I never knew he never loved me. Maybe he did. Maybe he does. Maybe he still wants to. Maybe he still does not want to. I would never know because he would never tell. He could never see me ever if he knew I was never his to know. He said thank you to himself. They are both the same. They both want nothing and everything all at once. I cannot believe that I did not know that I fell in love with the same person, different bits of the same person. Different appearances of that same man who breathes within me. With whom I wanted to be since I laid my eyes on those clouds on those fiery lustful eyes. And then I was never myself ever. I was sometimes her or sometimes him. I was sometimes cooing away my time. I was sometimes living another person’s dream. Another person’s pain. He no longer pains me enough to break me within. He breaks himself every time he traps himself within he tries to push me through those steep walls of his mind. Push me so that he has to know that he loves me. He never has to endure what I go through what I go through every time he pushes me out of his life. Then he said he would try his best never to hurt me. So he asked me to stay and got up from that shack and left. And I look at the windows at those walls at those memories where he loved me. Where he made love to me. And I saw him returning. But he never was the same. Every time he returned a part of his heart was with someone else. He had returned home to fill the blood in those heartbeats which were meant for others to listen to. To fill those tears and ears with stories so that he could tell them and write them on others hands. And he left. Again. He returned to make me feel that I was never lost. At the same place I stood near the bend of those very long steep roads waiting for him, he returned with fire in heart and he returned with another girl in his arm. And I still continued to wait for the man to return as me.

I longed for myself to return to me. But I never did. I sat there listening to my new stories. Listening to myself talk about everyone but him. He who had left. Who had never returned. I wait for him to return with empty arms. I wait for her to return with all those blankets of warm glories, and warm tales which she gave away, which she gave way. And he never got them back. I could be a both. A bi. A nothing. Everything is nothing after all. We live within emptiness when we try to live with all. We need that one self. I thought. I guess I was wrong. We needed them all

Who took me away. They took him away. They took me away. They took her away.

I want them all back.

But while he sleeps soundly. I lay awake. Waiting.

So that those voice in my head never lie about his love for me. This heart knows that he loves. And it waits for him to love himself.

The Exodus Of the Kashmiri Pandits

Our Moon has Blood Clots

'... and an an earlier time when the flowers were not stained

with blood, the moon with blood clots!' 

Our Moon Has Blood Clots by Rahul Pandita is the truth of the life that Kashmiri Pandits have lived, their exile, their ancestral history, discrimination that has been part of their life, since the 14th century.

Rahul Pandta has written an insightful, and easy to read history of Kashmir Pandits, and how with many Muslim rulers since 14^th century, many Pandits had to convert to Islam. How since then, Kashmiri Pandits were ridiculed, humiliated and till date are subject to the same treatment in Kashmir. 

Just before this book I read, Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer, and though that book has a different approach towards the story of Kashmir. Both these books, talk about Kashmir on common grounds, and both these books, help one understand, how not only Kashmiri Pandits have had a tragic life, but the Kashmir that once was, no longer is.  The brotherhood, the culture that was, no longer is.

I was born three years after my family migrated from their homeland, Sopore, Kashmir.  In a way, I had lost everything, much before I was born. I had no cultural heritage, no ancestral history that I could be shown, no place or antiques of my family. I always saw one photograph of our home in Sopore that was a three storey bungalow. And then I saw another photograph of that same, grand home reduced to a single storey, burned down.  Then, as a child, I could not understand the graveness of the matter. Though I had been told how we had been made to leave Kashmir by Muslims, but never the reasons, never the humiliation of it all. The human tragedy was very less talked about. Apparently we have moved on. But, whenever Kashmir flashes in front of their eyes on tv, their eyes and heart are glued to it. When they talk about that Kashmir, the pain that you hear in their voice, of having lost their homeland it will make you helpless, as helpless as they were then.

I always asked my father one question, who was the one fighting for us? I failed to understand, that in a country filled with freedom fighters, how come no one raised the issue of the oppression and discrimination Kashmiri Pandits had been subjected to. Outside our community, was there anyone who raised their voice for us? Nobody. And there still is no one. I love Rahul Pandita’s book more so, not only for the first hand accounts and brilliant narration, but for the fact that he has mentioned this fact that nobody fought for us ever. ‘There are no grants for research on the Kashmir issue.’  I agree with his point of comparing our sufferings with those of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz camp, the campaign against us by Muslims in Kashmir and Pakistan was much like, Hitler’s campaign in Germany, against Jews.

But, we only lost our homeland, never our humanity. And that is the sole reason of our existence. We may still be a minority, but we continue to live a prosperous life because we did not treat anybody else the way we were treated. We did not kill Muslims, the way they killed us. Because in spite of everything, we remembered those Muslim friends who in spite of the insurgence wave, did not waver and supported us, maybe, discreetly, but did. I was never told to stay away from Muslims, ever. One of my first best friends was a Muslim Kashmiri girl, and my parents loved her as much as they would a Kashmiri Pandit.

Brutal killings of Kashmiri Pandits, the struggle of setting up a home in a place much, much different in culture, language, temperature, and temperament of people, with nothing and as refugees,  thousands of Kashmiri Pandits shifted to Jammu, living in one room. Six people living in one room. Thousands living in slums, who had nothing. These stories, rather these realities have been told with as much pain as we had suffered them.

The details of the raid by Kazakhs from Pakistan, in Kashmir, in 1947 has been told as a first-hand account. This raid was the reason why Kashmir joined hands with India and again, Rahul Pandita’s expression and writing style will move you.

Overall, this book will not only acquaint you with the Kashmiri Muslim, and Kashmiri Pandit brotherhood, but also the reasons of the struggle of the Pandits because of many other Kashmiri and Pakistani Muslims.  It will help you understand what happened in Kashmir and if you are a Kashmiri Pandit, it will help you understand your struggle and existence. 

This is an excellent book about the Kashmir issue, a true book, written very well, with first-hand account of the author himself; it makes the book much more credible and a very interesting read.

For those who want to understand what happened to Kashmir, not just the Kashmiri Pandits, Curfewed Night will help you understand how even the Indian military created problems for Kashmiri Muslims, who were innocent. But, Our Moon has Blood Clots will make you understand why Indian army had to stay in Kashmir.

Curfewed Night, is a good basic book with first-hand accounts of a Muslim Kashmiri, who faces a world, where because of the Kashmir situation he is tagged as a militant if he is a Muslim and who lives a threatened life in Kashmir because of both the militants and the Indian military.

Kashmir has been an issue of debate since 1947. Our Moon Has Blood Clots’ best part is that it talks about the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits not as a happening or a sad tale. It talks about it as brutally as it was, as that life shattering experience that changed the entire  life course of  Kashmiri Pandits and as worse an experience as was of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

To understand the author's viewpoint http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/01/nl-interviews-rahul-pandita/ Please watch this interview of Rahul Pandita. 

Mad Girl's Love Song

Sylvia Plath remains one of my favorite writers. She might be neurotic for having committed suicide as people declare. But she wrote with her heart on fire, and those flames burn anyone reading her. Her journals which I am halfway through are extremely enriching with words, desires, and dreams. Mad Girl's Love Song has been my favorite of her many beautiful poems, since the first time I set my eyes on the name Sylvia Plath. This poem was written by her when she was still a student at Smith college.  

Sylvia Plath 

This poem gives a very base meaning to that unrequited love, that never was, that man that never was, those daydreams that never became anything more. The world that one makes up inside their head. 

The last para is the most I love. It longs for love, it regrets and it knows that again, the heart was mistaken. .

 Mad Girl's Love Song


"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

An Eastern Ballad

Allen Ginsberg was a great American poet of 1950s, a leading poet of the beat generation. His poetry as I went through some, did not entice me. But, An Eastern Ballad by him, is what I would share. It is somehow both an attempt to make it look surreal, and has that inexpressible longing.

Allen Ginsberg

  An Eastern Ballad 
 I speak of Love that comes to mind; 
The moon is faithful, although blind; 
She moves in thought she cannot speak. 
Perfect care has made her bleak. 

 I never dreamed the sea so deep, 
The earth so dark; so long my sleep,
 I have become another child. 
 I wake to see the world go wild.