If you wanna know more about India than what the mainstream media portays, then do read on.
I have chosen to start with sharing a work of fiction to introduce myself, do let me know what you think?
The Censored This and That
The love laws.
They decide whom to love, how and how much. Accepting that sex is the ultimate in love, why then is a dictum on whom we can have sex with? Who decides? Social science? To maintain equations and balances?
Year 2001… population explosion!! The balance explodes.
Touch enhances love. Love encourages touch. And then we have to stop. There are limits set for us. The formulas are written down, the deductions complete. If this and this exists between two persons, then that is the relation. A name is given. Father. Mother. Brother. Husband. Wife. Uncle. Sister. Friend. It’s calculated. It has a start, it has a stop. Yes, it also has a stop. You press the “stop” button in your heart and love stops. Beyond this it’s blasphemous.
But only two hearts that are involved knows the actual form of their relation—its color, layers and layers of texture, its shades of light and dark. Its depth. Like the smell of freshly white washed walls, the body odor—a mix of sweat and stale perfume or just the way he stands, conveys messages. No, all of it cannot mean everything to everybody. Just to me. And all of it I cannot explain to everybody. Only my being knows. And so, all of it cannot be understood by everybody. We can only TRY to understand. That’s one limitation we should learn to accept. A human bargain for a human soul. We understand 60% of the 100%. The rest 40% we TRY to understand. In that 40% we make. We break. And that 40% is all about human relation. And maybe that 40% is the ‘law’ made to compensate what we do not understand. The law of the society, the science of the world or the social science?
Have 2 children.
Small family, happy family.
Use condoms.
Use birth control pills.
Use sunscreen lotion.
Use fairness cream.
Society laws, rules and dictates. They say, we follow. We follow, so they say. But our soul doesn’t have science and so our heart makes our soul repent for not following the science. Social science.
The mopping-rag wrenching within our heart makes the blood and sinews crush against one another. The little girl with the pig tail slips out and looks back. Takes a deep breath and runs away. The little girl gone, the woman takes its place. People recognize her because she still carries her dimples. Deep, deep dimples on two chubby cheeks. The only baggage she carried from her childhood to her womanhood. The heart wrenching, wrenched other things away.
She made love with the gardener.
She bit her cousin’s lips.
She flirted with that stranger over the counter.
She slept with the man she loved, but would never marry.
The heart wrenches. (Love) laws defied.
She would marry the man she never loved, and yet sleep with.
Love laws.
Wrenching hearts.
Orphanages and garbage bins overflows with bastards because of these love laws—can’t marry the man you love. Couldn’t love the man you married.
The second fetus killed within the womb. Love laws. (Land laws). Eating fetus is good for the skin. Chinese have very good skin and wrenched hearts.
The social law dictates that we love our husbands, from the beginning. So we love him, from-the-beginning.
Don’t ask why? Nobody asks why?
We love them just because they are our husbands. The love laws understand this love. It fits into the formula. Whom to love. Whom to have sex with. A peck on the head or a smooch. Husbands are supposed to be loved from-the-beginning. From day one. The right to touch you in your innermost, from day one, because he is your husband.
The law dictates.
The love laws.
But I still love him. No, not my husband. HIM. With wrenched heart and crunched soul I kissed his lips.
I lived.
People cursed.
Rules made my soul repent for breaking the love laws, and the little girl with the pig tail is made to skip out. But the woman in me kissed. Cared to love. Dared to touch the man she loves. I am guilty to the love laws. But what can I say. I can’t explain enough. You can’t understand enough. Like I said, you can just try.
Manushri Mitra.
Anjali Mitra closed her daughter’s diary, and sat quietly still holding it tight. ‘Censored This and That’ she mumbled. ‘It does sound catchy’. These days she does this quiet often. Sneak into Manu’s room when she is not at home and quickly turns through the pages of her diary. She initially started this ‘reading of her diary’ thing as her way of keeping-an-eye on her teenage daughter. She believed that that’s what parenting is all about. Be a spy. But Manu’s diary sprinkled life to the hibernating worm in her. It wriggled a little in the beginning, stretched and finally started crawling. It whispered possibility. It crawled across the world of choices for her. A world where lives are lived and not merely counted off as days in the calendar as already lived against to-be lived.
She knew her daughter had a flair for writing. Manu does a lot of TV shows, talks on the radio, and publishes this and that here and there. Sometimes she gets paid for it. Sometimes she doesn’t. But she is just 19. What sort of ideas are these that are running through her mind. What is this girl up to? Is this the way that I have brought her up? She sat there at the edge of the bed wondering what to do. She was feeling restless and lonely. Is Manu doing such things outside when she must actually be studying? Is it supposed to be acceptable to her, as a mother, if she comes to know that her daughter is sleeping around with other men?
Is it ok these days?
She knows her mother would have killed her and hanged herself if she came to know any such thing about her. But that was like 30 years back? What about now? She thought she would Google about it. Does she need to discuss this with her hubby? No. Not yet. She will have to think over it for some more time. Though she does not know how Ronjon is going to react. These days they seldom cross path. They have somehow become two very different people trying to peacefully co-exist. She thought that probably that’s what all married couples do. Peacefully co-exist and support a family - Father, mother, sons, daughters, and the flower pots, the TV, a broken tap. A creaking door. The functioning of a marriage. Is this why she keeps thinking about Aurko so actively or her heart find solace when she is with…
“I will go crazy if I keep sitting here and don’t do anything. Manu is my daughter and I need to have trust in her or atleast trust the way I brought her up. If I have given her the freedom, it’s because she deserves it”.
She looked drained and the scandalizing contours on her face created vulgar lines on her tough but beautiful face. Will she confront Manu with this or is she supposed to ignore it. If she confronts her she will have to confess that she has been going through her diary regularly. She is not supposed to do that. Though she still can’t fathom why? In her days there was no such thing as privacy. That too from her own mother!? Out of question! Now this generation needs lots of privacy, something called “space” and what not. New terms that are getting introduced to her vocabulary. Manu religiously maintains a “Do Not Disturb” sign board outside her bedroom door. A collage she has made just before her 10th board examination and ‘it looks terrific’, Anjali mused. “She is good at all these,” Anjali thought. But her ideas are creating havoc on her. Is she sleeping around with men? The very thought of it made her panic and broke beads of perspiration on her forehead. She suddenly felt scalding hot and instinctively reached out and switched on the air conditioner. The mauve color blouse, now purple with perspiration clung to her back and trickles of sweat ran through her midrib. As the cool air from the AC chilled the room she slowly relaxed and lay quietly on the bed. She had to do something even though she did not know what. Manu’s thoughts are a riot in itself, she mused. Maybe she would find ways to bring up the topic without having to mention the diary. Anjali remembered that her mother once said that what was considered wrong yesterday should be considered wrong even today. There is no two way about it. There are a few things in the world that are as true as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. They are not debatable. They are the ultimate truth. ‘Yes, a good lesson of moral science’, she thought, as she slowly drifted off to sleep, wondering where Manu is now. “Is she really in her college attending classes or … no, I should not allow myself such thoughts. She is my daughter. I know her. She will never do such things”.
Do let me know your thoughts, so that I can add more to this. Cheers...!