Being five

Dear Mom and Dad,
As you have probably forgotten, it is my birthday today. I am five years old now. Please donot think that I'm angry with you or anything. After the really horrible (Sharon uses that word, she says it means 'really bad') fight you both had last night, I didn't think you would remember.
Teacher Susie says five is a big age, so I'm a big girl now. So I figured that I should be able to understand what you always said, 'You're too small to understand this'.
I asked my new best friend Jenny (she's really sweet, she gave me her pink ballet shoes for a day!) why you both fight so much. She said you were under 'divorce'. I didn't understand what she meant by that word, so I Googled it up. Divorce means 'final termination of a marrage..'.
I didn't know what termination meant, and then I got bored, so I left that and went to Sharon's house to play dress up. But now, I wanna ask you both, are you under divorce?
Please tell me, so that I can tell Jenny what the truth is.

This time, I don't want any pink skirt or shoes. I want a puppy. I've even found out the breed I want, so that you don't have to waste time doing that. I know you both are very busy. I want a cute little Labrador. A golden one. Did you know that Sharon just got one for herself, and named him Shadow? He's so cute, I want one too!
I've completed my Math homework, and I'm finishing up this letter too.
I've not even made any spelling mistakes this year, unlike the last year, when I spelled understand as 'unerstand'.
I love you both, so please donot fight on my birthday.
Love, Kelly.

Maid Of Honour

My alarm sounded at its usual time that morning. I woke up hastily, and lulled my young one into slumber, satisfied that he had done his job of waking me up by howling his heart out.

It was dawn.
An urban alarm clock was something beyond my understanding. My two year old was assigned the duty of waking me up every morning. As I walked towards the slum bore well, I felt happy that my son was already a responsible lad, even when he couldn’t speak properly. I hurriedly washed myself and made my way back to my shack. My breadwinner lay there deeply engrossed in his dreams of fairyland, as I prepared myself for the drudgery that was about to begin. I changed my sari with the only other one I had, that was hanging on the wire in my shack, from one corner to another. I quickly shook my elder daughter out of her sleep, and pushed her out of the hut, so she could freshen up. In the meanwhile, I kneaded some dough and baked some rotis for my husband, who slept in undisturbed peace. I carelessly kept some milk in a tiny glass, for my two year old when he would be awake. With that done, I rushed outside and stole a pair of slippers from my neighbor’s house, and walked away. I knew there would be a long battle of words over the same when I would come back, but I had no other way to save myself from blisters in the scorching heat. On my way, I saw my ten year old daughter chatting up with a friend of hers, and I went up to her and deposited a tight slap on her face. I chided her for wasting time when we had none, and ordered her to immediately accompany me to work. When she tried to reason, I pulled her by the arm and walked away with no further explanations. The last thing I wanted my daughter to do was spend her day gossiping her heart out.
Work was just a ten minute walk away for me, but light years away from my life. It consisted of towering buildings and mansion like houses, something that I don't even dare to dream about. As I reached my workplace and rang the doorbell, my daughter begged to be left alone. My motherly pangs of affection were just about to let her walk away from this torture, when the door opened and my employer stared at me with angry eyes. I forgot all about being a mother, and stepped in with my daughter cowering behind me. The day of drudgery had begun.
‘You have decided to come late every day, and you think I’ll tolerate this kind of behavior?’ my employer barked, as she peered at my daughter’s tiny figure hiding behind my thin frame.
I mentally wondered how I had run late when my alarm had rung correctly, and I had done every activity after that with a quick pace. I confidently told my employer that I couldn’t be late.
‘Oh, so the clock in my house is lying? Don't give me such weird excuses, and get to work right now!’
I mumbled a curse under my breath, and turned to look at my daughter who seemed frightened. I whispered something into her miniature ear, and advanced towards the kitchen to do my job. Wash the utensils.
From the corner of my eye, I saw my daughter pick up the broom and make her way to the farthest room of the big house. The delicacy of her tiny hands contrasted very well with the rashness of the broom. As I picked up the first glass and applied soap on it, my daughter was stopped by my employer and told to keep down the broom.
I rushed to her defense and held her hand in full support as the lady spoke in a surly tone, her bespectacled glare making her look like a tyrannous monster.
‘How can you make her work? NO. She’s not going to do your share of work. If you can’t do your job, then leave it. But nobody else is going to do it for you!’
I stared at her face for some time in utter disappointment, and realized it wouldn’t be of any use arguing with her. The monster probably derived pleasure out of watching me slog in her house, and couldn’t tolerate the fact that I could use some help.
I patted my burden on her back and told her to wait outside the house till I finished the work. She stared at me with innocent eyes, and walked away.
I resumed washing the utensils as I recalled the day my daughter was born. My husband couldn’t be found and so my neighbors helped me give birth to her. They had to arrange for a dai at the last minute, because my husband vanished just two days before the delivery. My in-laws had expressed sheer disappointment upon giving birth to a girl, and had left me weak and unattended because of the same. Seema was born malnourished, and weighed quite less. As she grew up, I came to realize that she was a weak child, and couldn’t lift the burden of going to school and studying. Studying, after all, is a very tough task and she wouldn’t be able to do it at all. So it was decided that Seema would help me in my work, till she turned sixteen and then she would be married off to a nice household. Till then Seema was a burden I had to bear. But what my employer did was an act of pure insanity and meanness. She probably doesn’t realize that not allowing my daughter to work meant lesser money, which means I can’t save up for my son’s education.
Rich people can never understand.
I went on to sweep the floors of the lady’s house where she lived a lavish life with her two daughters. Apparently her husband worked elsewhere. As I swept one of the daughters’ rooms, I was rebuked by the lady for not doing my work properly. I argued with her for five minutes trying to tell her that I was doing my best, but then kept quiet lest she fired me. I couldn’t afford to lose this job.
Soon I was out of one monster’s house and was walking towards another monster’s house. Unfortunately, there was a hoard of guests at their house, which meant a million utensils for me to wash. As I washed glasses and spoons and cookers and crockery, I wondered if my son would be awake by now. He was a darling, but I never had the opportunity of spending quality time with him. He was probably sipping the milk I had kept for him, now. My thoughts were broken as a glass plate fell from hands and broke into pieces. Monster Two barged into the kitchen with fuming red eyes, and blazed at me for having committed the gravest crime of all times. As I tried to apologize for my mistake, she threatened to deduct money from my salary. I whined in front of her like a baby, and she excused my mistake after showering me with choicest abuses and walked away. I sadly continued working, and left the house with dejection being the prime emotion on my face.
It was lunchtime. I walked back to my house with quick steps, as my daughter tried to keep pace with me. She kept asking me irrelevant questions about this and that, which I answered mindlessly. My heart was actually longing for my beloved son, whom I cuddled to death when I saw him trotting on the road with that tiny shirt on him.
I fed him some boiled pulses, and kissed him a million times before I left for work again.
I told Seema to look after him, and even serve my husband if he came home for lunch. That drunkard.
Work was the same old song again. Monster number three reprimanded me for trying to break the handle of her cooker, as she thought that would make her give the cooker to me, which she said was my real aim. God!
Monster number four hinted that she thought I was being paid a tad too much and she should probably pay me a little less.
I smiled to everything and made my way to the last monster. Nothing mattered to me more than finishing my work and going back home.
But monster number five was probably disapproving of my intentions, and so she created the worst ruckus she could have.
As I swept her room with undeterred honesty and sincerity, she came up to me and demanded to frisk me. I suddenly froze, and demanded to know the reason for such disrespect.
‘Disrespect? What happened to your respect when you stole my clip and took away my hairbrush home with you yesterday? You think I don't know anything? You greedy and selfish people will never learn to be honest! Stupid thieves!’

A sense of self-esteem suddenly came over me. It was as if my soul was crying its heart out at being accused of thievery. I shouted at my employer with anger in my bloodshot eyes, and told her in plain words that I hadn’t done it.
‘That’s it! I won’t take in anymore! I haven’t stolen anything from your house, and how much ever you might want to blame it on me, I will NOT admit to this! And I won’t work in a place where people think I’m a thief! I’m leaving!’
With those words of pride and self respect, I left the house turning a deaf ear to all that Monster number five said to me after that. For a nanosecond, the realization of losing a house’s work pricked me, but it was soon overpowered by my need to be respected for who I was.
My steps quickened as I began to near my house. Tears started welling up in my eyes, as I turned across a bend and entered my house. My son clung onto me immediately, and I sobbed as I hugged him. I wept at what life was doing to me.
Thievery? Was that what people thought I did?
I wept even more when Seema asked me if I was okay. I nodded to make her feel fine, but deep down I wanted to cling onto someone and cry my heart out. I wiped my tears and pasted a plastic smile on my face, so that my children would smile. They smiled, and Seema told me very casually that the neighbors had shouted at her for having stolen their slippers, and that her father hadn’t been home since afternoon.
I swallowed that bit of news and stared into the falling night. I needed him, and he wasn’t there like always.
As I put my children to bed after feeding them on leftover pulses and rotis, I sighed at my life. When they went off to sleep, I went to my neighbors’ house and left their slippers there. Then I walked to the roadside bench, with sore eyes and a sullen face.
I stared at the tiny stars in the sky, and wondered if I mattered even that much to anyone.

Was anyone bothered?
Did anyone care about what had happened today? Any day?
When there came no answer, I walked back to my shack and lay down.
I forced my eyelids into sleep.
My kids still needed to be fed, after all.
Tomorrow still had four monsters in the waiting, after all.

The Tale Of The Jungle

Each movement brisk, each look guarded,
Slow and steady, it trudges through.
The eye is swift, the paws are ready,
The night is dark, the sky a scary blue…

A slight rustle of the leaves of the bush
A predator on its usual prowl,
But tonight is going to be different,
The weakling springs to action, and growls.

‘My prey, what cheek? Who dared to dare?
Thou art to die, thy end is near!’
The weakling maintains a profound silence,
No silly movement, it wants to steer.

The predator looks around,
Terror strikes his killer eyes.
As the weakling pounces and dives,
The trees tremble, thunder the skies!

‘Thou kill me tonight, my prey,
Thou art the King, Thou win…’
The predator breathes its last,
Defeated by its weakest twin.

The twin breathes heavy,
It trembles with dread and fear,
Victory it has finally achieved,
It rules the jungle, the mice, the deer…

It raises it head towards the sky,
The moon, the stars, all in reverence seem to bend,
It smiles, wryly, and then weeps,
And mourns at its sibling’s sad end…

The Writer's Desk

I stared at the blank paper in front of me. Surprisingly enough, it stared back with equal innocence, as if it were waiting to learn a lesson that it would never forget. I could almost make out its twirling lips, and the childish eye brows, and the playful eyes, through its ruled lines, and margin.
I lifted my pen and saw the paper jump up with excitement as I breathed out. The innocent smile had miraculously changed into a happy grin, like that of a kindergarten child awaiting a prize from his teacher. I smiled back with the serenity of the teacher, as she hands out the prize to a jumping kid. I stroked the ends of the paper like she would fondle a new student on her first day at school. The eyes looked back at me with admiration and awe. I uncapped my pen, and rested my hand on the paper making sure that I wasn’t hurting it in any way, or folding it from any side. Dog ears and crumpling edges, they hurt. The paper smiled gratefully, and stared at me with unconditional love. It was ready.
I smiled as a thought crossed my mind. My mind began to set itself into WRITE mode, and all that remained to be done, was pen the thought down. I looked at the paper one last time, and satisfied with the eagerness in its eyes, I began. The paper chuckled and laughed and gloated, as I wrote out my initial thoughts onto it. I wondered the reason for such hilarity. I soon realized that the whole writing episode must be a rib tickling experience for the paper, in its true sense.
As I continued to vent myself out, I briefly saw the paper undergo a mix of motions, best compared to those a child undergoes as it trudges through her initial years of schooling. It laughed boisterously at times, and wailed loudly at other times. It hummed playfully for some time, and acted snobbish the remaining times. When my thoughts paused for breath, I noticed the paper heave sighs of unrest, as a child would on his morning games workout. I ruffled its edges, assuring it that it was in safe hands, as it looked on hopefully. Then my mind began to race again, and I continued to cast my imprints on the once plain and white paper, now blue with my thoughts. When I ended, the paper seemed tired and rugged, like a fifth grade student returning home from a hard day at school. I consoled it by running my hands all over it, but it was all blue with color, desperate to tell a story, dying to babble something out.
I read it up to down, not even barring a single full stop or punctuation. When I finished my read, it seemed content and satisfied, as if its purpose in life had been fulfilled. Its smile exuded the confidence of a teenager narrating her experiences of her sleepover to a pretending-to-be-stunned father. I smiled knowingly, as it stared back at me with utmost happiness and vigor.
I then read it once again, like an examiner would recheck a student’s answer sheet, and frowned like the examiner would on catching a blunder. The paper seemed apprehensive now, and looked at me with shivering lips and fearful eyes. It seemed to have realized what it’s fate was coming to, and pleaded me to let it stay. It had the emotion a twelfthie goes through as she realizes that time to depart has arrived. It begged to stay on, as I tore it out and threw it away in the dustbin, wherein lay a million others like it.
I only heard a feeble cry, as the paper seemed to battle its way through the big bad world outside. Leaving the security of my desk was indeed very painful for it.
I grabbed another paper hurriedly, ignoring the paper’s cry as it made its way out of my cocoon. I nervously looked at the time, and wiped drops of sweat from my face.
I couldn’t afford to lose my job as the columnist. I must come up with something in another hour.
As I wrote again, the paper in the dustbin seemed to look back in nostalgia, and seemed to be calling out to me. It didn’t take me long to realize that it would be calling out forever, but I mustn’t listen. It must brave the horrors of the world outside.
That’s growing up.
And this was a farewell, indeed.