Daddy, Lover, Bastard

 Disclaimer: This is strictly a piece of fiction. Has no resemblance whatsoever to my life.
She didn't wanna go home. As the day went by the shadows loomed past as if stalking her with their darkness. Blackness spread its tiny claws around her delicate neck. What the night would bring terrified her.

" I wish I could stay back in school."
" I wish I could play hide and seek with Sasha."

She hadn't been able to play hide and seek with Sasha . It scared her. Closed , dark places reminded her of the nights, the endless nights, suffocated her thoughts with the bad dreams she had promised not to tell anyone ever.

" I wish I could see the blues, the oranges, the pinks and the lilacs like Sasha always did."
Lilac was her favourite colour.
" Why does it all seem colourless?"
" why does everything resemble grey?"
" Mommy why are you gone for such long long times?"
The school bell rings and with every chime of the bell the sense of doom grows closer and closer. Daddy picks her up from school.

" Baby see what I got for you." She turns around to see the doll starring back at her, it had lovely golden hair and was wearing a satin dress with satin slippers. She takes it from him and turns away to look out of the window listlessly. In the confines of her room, all alone she strips the doll of the pretty dress, tears it away viciously, the tiny satin slippers are cut into bits and pieces with nail scissors and the doll is hidden away to the back of her toy cupboard that she rarely opens these days. The clock strikes 12 and the candle light has illuminated her corner of the bed, where she awaits him. He comes each night, night after night.

"Where are you Mommy?"
He says she will be punished if she doesn't do what he asks her to do. He commands her not to breathe a word of this to any soul she knows. He tells her that if she does so then they will think she is a wicked girl.He curses her and calls her names when she doesn't pay heed to his instructions.

" Why does he do this to me?"

" Why can't I tell Mommy about this?"

" I feel dirty from inside."
Knock Knock! Its him. She stands up as she hears the creak of the hinges. She can see his sooty profile against the ebony of the night.

" Little girl its me. "
She stays rooted to the spot.

" We are gonna have ever so much fun." He whispers softly as the shivers run down her spine.
"Open your damn clothes." He hisses like a viper into her ears.

She nods silently and mechanically opens one button of her nightdress after the other.

" Why do you look scared you conniving little whore?" He says with a glint in his eyes and they widen as they watch her undress.

" You revel in this as much as I do.Don't you look at me with that holier than thou look. You'll do exactly what I want you to do. Do you understand that?" He screams aloud.

" Yes I do Daddy."

" Come closer. I want to feel that silken skin of yours against mine."
He feels her, touches her all over, devours her life out of her.

" Why would my very own Daddy do this to me?"

" Why oh why does my Daddy hurt me so much?"

" Fucking bitch. Seducing me with her innocence. She thinks I can't comprehend the desire in her eyes. She made me do this to her. I'll wring that tender neck of hers lifeless like the way she treats those dolls I get her everytime ."
She can't breathe, she closes her eyes and tries to imagine she she was somewhere else. She saw the blues, the oranges, the pinks and the lilacs again. She tries to reach out to them but like each time they vanish.

The sound of running footsteps on the staircase. Someone is coming.

" Hide, hide, hide Daddy."

Silence and the door opens, bright blinding starlight, sunshine amidst the dark dark night. Mommy takes her away covering her wounds with a sheet and the veil is lifted.

She saw the blues, the pinks, the lilacs again.


Lilac her favourite colour.

But she never saw him again, never saw her Daddy, her lover, the bastard.

HAPPENSTANCE

She didn’t know what changed in her that day. Now when she looked back it dawned upon her how her dreams started taking substantial shape from their nebulous existence sometime that evening in the midst of meeting a stranger after more than a decade. She found the trail to the air castle her thoughts kept building. Things began to seem more crystal clear; goals became more concrete, milestones more important, the path to get there a little more visible. The mirage that he’d be there waiting for her at the end of the road just so that they could be fellow travelers sometime in this journey was her sun beam on dreary days, days when everything went wrong, silly misunderstandings, fights, failed deadlines, mayhem everywhere.

They kept in touch rather sparsely, but rarely were they not in touch. In some way or the other she’d know what was happening in his life. Long periods of silence were interspersed with a “Hi” one day or a “Hullo” a month after. When she’d want to feel close to him she would read his blog that were reflections of his thoughts over the years. His writing made her laugh, cry, giggle and sigh. She almost forgot his presence but then he’d appear out of nowhere almost magically and fill every nook and cranny of her being like never before. A midnight conversation with him made her cup runneth over and for days after she’d be smiling secretly to herself. Smithreens of his words kept coming back to her mind.

“Okie we won’t ever talk about this again. Try and forget that anything ever happened. I’ll try and forget too.”
“ Where are you when I need to hug you the most?”
“ Just when you think there is no one better, someone comes along and sweeps you off your feet all over again. There is only one soul mate though and that’s the one you should be looking for.”
“Can you cook? Oh you can. What a comforting thought.”

Childhood memories of him would resurface at the oddest moments. Like the night she stood at her window looking at the moon to be reminded of a moonlit night years and years ago when they had gone to the fair together, the smell of smoke in the air and their childish banter as they sat on the lone two-wheeler in the parking lot. How they had fought all the way during that journey when they’d gone with their families visiting their Dads at the base and how their Mums had to keep both of them away from each other as they nearly ripped each other apart. The hours and hours spent playing Houses and she could almost hear his boyish voice teasing the little girl she had been.

She closed her eyes and saw the man the boy had become, the man with whom she had shared fleeting moments of enchantment, the man she would never meet again. She’d never tell and he’d never know.

“I closed my eyes and the world dropped dead.
I think I made you up inside my head.”

Islamophobia

This entire hullabaloo about the failed bombings at Glasgow and Indian muslims being implicated in the United Kingdom for the first time in connection with terror activities got me thinking yet again. I am sure a lot has been written and debated upon by the media around the world including the clerisy, not to forget the common man, where Islamic Fundamentalism is concerned and shall be continued to do so. All this while most of the public was under the misconception that only poor muslim youth take a recourse to such anti social activities ranging from suicide attacks to bombings as it is their way of attaining martyrdom[incidentally I read somewhere that Islam says such martyrs have 72 virgins waiting for them at the gates of heaven which reminded me of this post by Evil Spock :)] and after their death their families are given a lump some amount of money by the terrorist outfit they had been a part of. This is true till a large extent; poor kashmiri youth are lured by outfits like lashkar-e- toiba and on the pretext of fighting for Islam what takes place in the Madrasahs is a complete brainwash where any semblance of sanity is systematically removed from their minds and the main goal in the life of these youth is battle against the non believers or plain old Jihad. That is the tragedy of Kashmir where true peace and harmony is a dream. Ethnic cleansing has turned this state to a graveyard of the dead.

9/11 ofcourse didn't make the situation any better and now it seems that the last 6 years ever since that fateful day in September 2001 the world has been gripped by this fear of Islam popularly known as Islamophobia. Muslims are discriminated everywhere, be it in England where they come up with proposals like muslim women should choose not to wear the hijab or France which goes a step ahead and bans headscarves in schools altogether and not to forget dear old United States. George Bush the self proclaimed Big Daddy of the world and his faithful battery of followers take personal pleasure in inculcating the fear of Islam in the western world. He calls it " War against Terror" though by the likes of it , it seems it is " War against Islam". What happend at Glasgow and London last year was just an after effect and the result of a major portion of the world trying to alienate the followers of a particular religion and insisting of labelling them as fundamentalists and insurgents. Muslims are looked upon suspiciously everywhere in the western world. Try any busy international airport be it Heathrow, or JFK you'd see the world of difference in the way a white man is treated and the way a bearded muslim is treated. It is these small prejudices which could be one of the reasons why educated muslims like Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed[brothers from Bangalore, one is a doctor and the other an engineer] resort to such drastic anti social activities like an attempt to bomb the Glasgow Airport. For them it is a vent out for all the frustration they feel towards the mass change of opinion this world has experienced after 9/11, it is a reaction for all the injustices done by the Americans and their allies in Iraq. Bush gets to carry out his agenda in Iraq, destroying the governmental machinery piece by piece and a certain section of the troops even indulge in perverted fun on the way[not to forget the incidents at the abu ghraib prison] to ravage and ruin a country which has already been wrecked by a three decade rule by an eccentric dictator.
We shouldn't blame Islam for all these mishaps, it is our own making, the fact that we did not raise our voices against all the injustices at the right time , the fact that America chose to bring Bush back to power even after the disaster in Iraq, the fact that we continue to be oblivious of what the true message in the Quran and very conveniently blame the religion for fostering terrorism. It is ironical that two men will be probably be put behind bars for the rest of their lives for failed car bombings which only caused harm to themselves at the end of it while Bush will continue to walk on this earth with his head held high proud of the fact that he carried out his " war against terror" successfully. This saga will continue, it'll be some other educated muslims expressing their anguish over the discrimination taking place and we humans will again and again choose the path of doom hurting none other than ourselves.

Much Ado About Nothing

I don’t exactly like all this fuss about being tagged cos then I have to come up with 8 facts about myself. I don’t wanna sound like some pompous, self obsessed woman. But nevertheless by the end I am sure I’d sound like one. Oh a certain maker of doggerels tagged me or should I just say plain and simple Doggerel Maker is compelling me to reveal 8 things about myself. So here goes the list of 8 hitherto unknown abstracts about me.

That I am not as innocent and gullible as I look. My unconscious Miss Goody Two Shoes look fools people very often before they actually see me in my real elements.

That I was an ugly duckling in school, very quiet, not confident at all, bloody shy and no not that I grew up to be a swan but a lot of people don’t recognize me now cos I didn’t quite turn out to be what they’d thought I’d be hehehe!

That I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was all of 11 because I was passionate about history but alas realized that in my country archaeology has very little scope hence had to settle in for something conventional.

That I when I was a kid I ran through a glass door whilst playing hide and seek and while trying to hide from my the then crush I ended up running through the glass door and in the process landed in the hospital with 57 stitches and life long scars on my legs.

That I am hooked onto this song called High by Lighthouse family at the moment and have been driving my housemates a wee bit crazy cos I wanna listen to it all the time.

That I love pink. [Tsk Tsk ….how cliché am I ], I have a pink phone [fluorescent pink mind you], pink bags, pink shades and on a given day you’d see me clothed in pink from head to toe. However I am forced to adorn black and white professionally:(.

That I am attracted to tall men, really tall men . A la’ Daddy Long Legs. I can't relate to people who are aimless or without a goal. I'd love a go getter and not some lost soul who doesn't know where he is heading.

That I love body splashes with fruity smells, I smell of strawberries, or all peachy and lemony. Sometimes people say I smell “yum” heheh!

Okie enough of me and since I happen to be the proud owner of a happy disposition today I shall not name 8 other bloggers who have to carry on this chain. Cheers people! Lemme end with the funniest quote I found the other day J

“If they keep crashing stuff into the moon, the moon's gonna get pissed off, and the tides'll change, and all the women'll start PMS-ing together. Then you guys are going to fucking regret it.”

By The Pricking Of My Thumbs, Something Evil This Way Comes

“Rape's not something where you just go, "Well, get over it" or "Believe in love and peace, my child, and it'll all be over." Well, fuck you, that isn't the answer. It's a great thought, OK, but you can go and stick crystals up your butt and get on with it. I'm all for love and peace, but that's not the side I work on. If somebody would talk about it, or worse, joke about it, I would be ready to kill. That's not healing. It was a very long time after that before I was able to be with anyone again. And it has never been the same as it was before”
Tori Amos
Famous words by American pianist and singer-songwriter Tori Amos. The reason I chose to start this post with this quote was another blog I stumbled upon the other day. I love blogging and in the process end up coming across a wide range of blogs, some are nameless poets, some are mystic storytellers, some are passionate activists against the war, while some are regular people like me who are a comfortable mish mish of a little bit of this and that. But this girl was different. I found this particular blog and what I read disturbed me. She was unusual, wrote with a certain aggression, an unexplainable force, something pent up inside, simmering on the surface but difficult to pin point what exactly it was. I read on and saw signs of a dysfunctional family but curiosity had got the better of me until I finally reached a particular post where she had described her nightmares. She’d written about a dream of that heinous act of rape, which had taken place when she was only 13 years old, and how it all keeps coming back to her in her dreams. The nightmares don’t seem to end and how she just wished that the girl next door who looks ever so happy would just stop smiling because she cannot stand to see someone else so gleeful and without a care in the world cos she can never be like that. Tragic, isn’t it?
The author of this blog was a smart young woman with an amazing job. This girl oscillated between from being brilliant to being the angry feminist to being downright eccentric. I liked the way she wrote, one moment she was a human rights activist advocating the cause of Muslim women and how the purdah and hijab should be abolished and next moment she’d be making downright fun of people who smoke ultra milds cos she thought they were gay cigarettes. However throughout her writing there is always an underlying sense of pervading doom. Why wouldn’t it be there? Some man did the unthinkable to her when she was only a child and he killed her soul, buried her very existence , her sense of wonder, her happiness and gave birth to another being.
Rape is an unspeakable horror and for most of us it is something we read about in newspapers, or see in movies or news channels. I know that in today’s world it is very much a reality. Statistics prove that every half an hour some woman is raped in our country. The irony being that now we can’t constrict the term rape only to women. Men are being raped; small boys are also victims of this heinous crime. I can only imagine how tragic it would be, how violated one would feel. It would leave terrible psychological scars that are sometimes almost impossible to obliterate.

This girl lives in the same city as me.

She is in the same profession as I am.

I might have passed by her sometimes.

She has this garb of ordinary on for the world.

But no one knows about the tormented existence she leads.

The voices which grow louder and louder, the monster who doesn’t go away and the horrible memories which haunt her.

Would I have grown up to be such a cynical and dark individual if I was raped as a child?

Would I have let that rape define my whole life, dictate my thoughts forever?

I don’t know, don’t know at all.

But what I do know is that “You know that saying, bad things don’t happen to good people?. That’s a lie.”

It can happen to anybody , we have been lucky , damn lucky and to those who have gone through this,and come out of it hats off to you women. You don’t need my pity or for that matter anybody’s pity but darn you have some strength of character. For all those women who lost their lives cos they became the victim of some filthy bastard’s twisted thinking may your soul rest in peace.

As for the rapists, sexual abusers and every category akin to them , well they should be bloody castrated, then blinded and have their hands and limbs cut off. I wish the Indian Penal Code had death penalty for rapists but in our country life imprisonment itself amounts to 14 years in prison. 14 years is too less for this evil to die. We should have multiple sentences like the kind they have in the United States where the convicted murderers and rapists are given life terms comprising of 100 to 150 years in prison. They make sure that the beast rots in prison and dies there. Hope even hell doesn’t give shelter to such hideous criminals.

“I don’t want to know about the constitution of the rapist—I want to kill him! I don’t care if he is white or black, if he is middle-class or poor, if his mother hung him from the clothesline by his balls: I only want to kill him! Any woman who has been raped will agree.”