Am I A Rebel?

Happy New Year!!! :-)

It has been so long since I wrote something here. The last year has seen me go from the happiest person on earth to a sad and pathetic little soul that’s trapped in a job that seems keen on sucking the life energy out of me. The only writing I have done in the past year are long emails to my friend about me and my surroundings. I wish I could publish them some day.

Anyway, all that aside, I was thinking yesterday about how there is a rebel inside each one of us. Some accept it; but most live in denial.

For example, I love cooking. I enjoy cooking. I find it therapeutic; I think it is a great stress-buster to listen to and sing along with music while cooking. I like making food that looks colourful with fresh ingredients that are great to look at and taste even better. I like the way the aroma of tempered spices spread and fill the house. I forget all my problems and tensions in the sound of music and the pressure cooker’s whistles and the motor sound of the mixie. It satisfies all my senses. You get it, right?

So everyone by now thinks my husband is a lucky man, right? Wrong. I don’t cook very often these days. I restrict my cooking to making dosa/idly and simple chutney or easy-to-make mixed vegetable rice. I don’t spend a long time in the kitchen; I don’t put on music. I don’t enjoy the process. I do it more out of duty than out of love.

And that is simply because I am EXPECTED to do it. I don’t know if it makes any sense to any of you, but I want to cook because I enjoy it, not because I MUST. It is expected out of me, as a wife, to cook for my husband. But then the rebel wakes up and says, “Hey, you must not do it because they expect you to. You are not anybody’s slave.” And out goes all the goodness that I had housed inside me all these years. The “nee enna solradhu, naan enna kekkaradhu” (Who are you to say and why the hell should I listen?) attitude is something I have not been able to shake off since I was 5 years old. And I don’t seem to regret it that much either.

Cooking is a simple example. There are other things that I have stopped doing (or stopped enjoying the activity) just because somebody wants me to. That my job certainly belongs to that category is no secret. And I am not the only one feeling that way about one’s job. But we still do it because we have put on the dog costume and so we bark.

I want to be able to give in to others’ expectations and not feel rebellious at every opportunity. I want to live a normal life without having the urge to put up a fight at every slight possibility. Because frankly, I am tired of it. I am tired of having to fight back against every single thing expected out of me even though I’d have done it by myself anyway.

What do you think? Is it just me or is it normal to be rebellious? Or is it just that the degree of rebelliousness varies with each person? What are you like?

Mr.Stinking

Not all of us are the same. And thank God for that! Thank God, not all of us are creepy idiots who have the IQ of a cabbage.

I will abort the child if I come to know it is a girl.

Imagine that from a well-educated (a professional degree holder from a decent college), IT professional who I happened to work with. The nerve he had to tell me that, without the slightest inkling of sensitivity or respect for the life of a child! All I wanted to do at that moment was to just punch him in the face and break a tooth or two in that mouth of his that uttered those stinking words.

But fortunately for him, it was within the office premises and I was in no mood to get fired for physically assaulting a colleague. Believe me, I am physically and mentally capable of killing that mosquito (oh, have I given out too much about the identity of the person already?)

I mustered up all my patience and asked him, “What if your father had thought the same way? You wouldn’t have had a sister who you love so much today.”

You’d think that would have reached the non-existent brain of his or at least strike an emotional chord with him. He coolly turned to me and told, “Sandhya, I am talking about getting my wife to get it aborted; not you.”

I don’t use expletives (at least not in public forums), but that fucking asshole actually said those words to me!

He continued, “Where I come from it happens all the time. Hospitals there help the would-be parents determine the sex of the unborn baby and they get the “problem fixed” too.”

What the hell is wrong with this country? If it happens as often as he says it does, what are the police doing there? Is our law just something to laugh about after breaking it? Well, I know most people break the law, but I thought we had grown out of hatred towards the female child, at least in our so-called educated urban youth.

That the guy is not even married yet is another problem. But God help the poor girl that agrees to marry him. Oh wait, maybe where he comes from, the girl’s opinion is not sought while “fixing” her marriage with Mr.Creepy Creeperson with a mind narrower than a strand of his hair.

I personally know so many couples yearning for a baby in their lives; and then there are people like this one that makes me wonder why God created these infinitely stupid beings.

Should I just go and report this to the police? Will there be any action? You know, like checking if there are hospitals that do this?

The story of a...

My name is Ton. That’s right. Even I have always thought, “What did I do to deserve a dumb-ass name like that?” But I could do nothing about it, really. That was my name and I had to live my life with it. I was born into a big family with a lot of siblings. Our house was always full of people. Happy people. Whoever saw us, their faces lit up, much like our own.

I don’t remember the day I was born; but I distinctly remember the day my brothers and I were shoved by unknown men into a dark room that was surrounded by strange noises. It was suffocating in there. All of us were young and adventurous, and fear was not something we were familiar with. But we couldn’t wait to get outside and play.

In the dark, we couldn’t see each other’s faces. But we could all feel each other’s strength. That kept us alive and sane. We held each other when we felt low. No matter what happened, we all had each other for company, after all.

Then one day, as if by magic, a small ray of light entered the room and a few of my brothers were freed from the darkness. We were hoping that they would return to free us and describe to us what the outside world looked like, if it was really as brilliant as we had heard in stories that our parents used to tell us. But they never returned. Although most of us were worried sick about what the world would have done to them, I was plain furious.

How could our brothers leave us in distress and enjoy outside? Bloody traitors. They ought to have come back to free the rest of us.

My mood was as dark as the room itself.

Suddenly, there was some noise from outside the room. We heard men talking.

“I spoke to her all night, machi”, one was saying.

“You only spoke all night, no? Let me guess; you called her, right? If she had called the call would have been over in a matter of minutes”, said the other.