Hitting it out!

I took those antideps for two days and then...and then the "dubki" at Haridwar ensured that I didn't them anymore! First, I didn't want to go. The idea just didn't appeal to me. I was sad, depressed and didn't want to be disturbed from my chemical sleep. I just wanted the whole thing to get over. The trip. The conversations. Everything. The antideps made me feel a little better. Its frightening the way those chemicals work! But, they couldn't make me smile. My parents were in town. I was supposed to feel happy and look forward to the whole thing. I tried. I failed. I ran to the only thing I knew would help me. Could help me. Makes me feel like a loser sometimes. The whole deal about being "clinically depressed", about the fact that sunlight determines my life. And yes, it hurts when 'people around me' think of me as a freak, when they tell me 'just take your "mental" medicines and leave us alone' (yeah, that has been the actual remark, unfortunately), when they expect me to be like a "normal" kid. Normal as in what? Yes, I am relatively "un-social". But isn't everything "realtive"? Aren't you ''relatively'' less-nice, un-critical, "realtively" just another brick in the wall? Why make a freak out of me then? 

These days I am all alone. Mom calls to ask if I had my lunch. I call my sister to ask what she had for dinner. I go to the library. I go for my evening jog. I do my yoga. Eat my salad. Study again. And my day ends. The only person I miss is perhaps Sambit. But that too if I go on a tangent other than Science Studies. Been four months now. My therapist tells me to stay away from him. I see her point. The whole thing had been going on for just too long. Now I stare at my name, not knowing who I am. It is as if he erased my signature. I mean, how do I access myself anymore? Yeah, I just know that I study. I am studying. Other than that? Nothing. Sometimes I feel angry. At the betrayal. At the descecrations. And on nights like yesterday, when the cubs demand to be let out, the flood gates of my eyes give way. The cubs. That is perhaps something that hurts the most. That children already named never will be born. 

Confessions

I was supposed to be reading Donna Haraway now. Dancing in the celebratory chaos, the uncertainity that she weaves. Asking questions. Searching. Googling. Missing my lunch. And feeling an orgasmic pleasure, a delight in her creation. But what did I do instead? Read up on the underground film movement? Not because I didn't want to read, or I was being lazy or I wanted the easy way out to spend the day. I have been struggling since two days. Trying to read. Wanting desperately to. I know exactly where it all is going. The pills. Anti-depressants. Yeah, I am "clinically depressed". Offically so. Fuck.

"You are not trying enough", she told me. Fuck. How much more do I try? Ten years of being fucking depressed. Trying to live. Never being able to. Ten fucking years. Thats a fucking decade! All by myself. Alone. I was fucking 15 then. 15 for fuck sake! Seeing people just go past me. Beacuse they had better receptors in their fucking brains. Yeah, everyone has some problem or the other. But this is a fucking disability. One which does not appear as one anywhere. I don't get any extra time anywhere. All I get is "you are not trying enough". Fuck. "Don't take those anti-depressants". Fuck. How else am I going to survive you if I don't take those fucking pills? How else am I going to read Haraway and dance in the breached boundaries?

Alter Ego

Confused. Everytime I have to choose my "outfit for the day". Everytime I have to speak. Everytime I have form an opinion about something. Everytime I have to "decide". It wasn't like this always. Reds were never 'me", and I could never pick up those black little things that now line my voluminous built-into-the-wall closet. I never had to choose between being "intelligently chic" one day and "bohemian beautiful" the next. Ah! I hate this! Hate not knowing who I am and why I choose to pick up one tub of moisturiser one day and another one the next. Wish I could have "Fair and Lovely" loyalities like my mother. Or avant-garde-does-it-for-me like my ex-boyfriend. Questions too many. Answers, approximately none. Sometimes I wonder if I am looking for those still elusive answers when I go out everyday. In the hope that truth will reveal itself, perhaps announce itself on my metro ride. As if I had the spirit of a gambler inside me, hidden somewhere along with the still innocent school girl, preserved with the slowly waxing/waning mothballs. "One last time", it tells me everyday. One last time it always is.

Tramp. That is how people who know me address me. Tramp. Sometimes it has a pejorative ring to it, that word. As if someone wrinkled her nose and said that with a deliberate snub. Not that it matters. I quite like the sound of it. Its impolite, somewhat rude ring. Somewhat like the sudden screech of brakes. No, not any,ordinary brakes. Not the polite, almost apologetic ones of a Maruti 800. Those "govt.owned" buses. With rude “conducters” and cushion less “seats”. The ones that dont just ply on the roads.They rule it.Mom says that word,tramp, with an obvious disapproval. I like it. The dispproval. The snub. I like being a deviant. Perhaps because it’s in a way reassuring to know that I’m not like them. Like my aunts. Like my domesticated cousins. Like my mother. I can go un-chaperoned. I can roam un-chauffered. I can utter the F-word. I’m a tramp. A female one at that. I carry it with an attitude people carry those small square labels on their backsides. Paying as much as they do only for that small piece of leather that says ”LEE”,or “Levis”. Carrying it like a totem. On their back-side.

My wanderings are aimless. Call me a flaneur if you want. But then, there is my double X to acknowledge. The double X. Yeah, I sometimes try to shrug it off. Not react when men turn back to have another “look”. When I know that their gaze wanders and fixes itself. On me. On my body. Wish I could wear a tee that says “Yeah,they are real”.

I’m a voyeur too. I gaze too. Turn to have another look. Try to catch a bit of a personal conversation. And then, just walk by. What do I get? Maybe a personal pleasure. Yeah, pleasure and not joy. Thats something boringly unselfish. That thing called joy. Without temptation. Without the sharp, almost searing kick of a golgappa. The tart of the tamarind that is nothing like the domesticated, modest tomato. And then there is the green chilli. They mingle. They marry. And they seek attention. Almost immediate. Very rude. Almost scalding your tongue. Now,that’s pleasure.

The double X. Sometimes it succeeds where my parents fail. It tames me. Restricts my movements. I do not know where the best girls are. How they look. Wish I knew. The double X.Why am I going on about it? Do I have problems with my identity? Identity.Yes, the double X is my first identity. I see the world through a gendered prism. Even my fears are double X-ed. My fingers curl up into a fist when the double X senses the presence of a Y too close for comfort. Ready to punch.No, I dont hate men. I just dont trust the intentions of the Y. Paranoid? Yes. But, its a "selfish and selective" paranoia,if there is anything like that. No, I just cant shrug it off. My double X-ed identity. Heads turn when I whistel on the streets.When I stop at the roadside chai(tea) stall and ask for a cup of tea. I sense some unasked questions.And some discomfort. I'm taken for the "other",the "stranger" in the city. Unknown to the unwritten codes. Unaware of the genederd spaces. Ignorant of the vernacular idioms.

Stranger.It is my assumed role. I prepare myself for it everday. I dress up for it. I play my part every-day.