First Memory

By "Shlog"
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Rewind:

How a memory so young is fresh as a lily in my mind, I cannot say! I just close my eyes and see myself transform into a five year old running home after the school. It is quite a walk from the school towards the home and I tag along with my elder brother and friends. Suddenly I am all alone. I am shouting after them to wait for me but their stupid ‘ who touches the home ground first ‘ game has never worked for me since I invariably end up the last one . I intend to go shedding my precious tears all the way home so that my dear brother would be reprimanded

Along comes a sinister looking stranger. “What‘s happened to you dear child?

“Don’t talk to strangers” my innocent mind resonates.

“What a lovely girl you are!” says the guy with crazy moustaches.

“Don’t talk to strangers “my ears feel hot now.

“Come, come let’s buy you some chocolates!”

“Don’t talk to strangers “I so want to run off but my feet are glued to the ground.

“Now sweetheart come and give uncle a kiss! “

“Don’t talk to strangers” my mind registers what he is saying but I am too ashamed, too confused to react.

Finally I break off this hypnotic state and run as fast as I could. I am narrating this incident to my mother now. She is so scandalized especially because of the recent incidents where kids were lured on same pretexts. My brother is reprimanded, of course and in the evening my father is given the narration. All through it I remember, not a word is spoken to me. I am feeling so ashamed as if it is a fault on my part. Probably I should have never told them or maybe that stranger had some good intentions after all. I keep on blaming myself. I see that stranger once again and this time I want to call my mother to tell her that he is the one. But again my feet seem glued, again that feeling of confusion, again the doubt that probably he is harmless. And I keep on smiling back at him.

Forward:

Presently  reading everyday incidents of rapes and sodomising young kids, I live through the agony of these young minds. How they blame themselves with their misplaced sense of judgement, when their minds and bodies are being ravaged. Some retreating to their innermost recesses forever and worst of all some guarding it as a secret and blaming themselves over and over again.

A Reflection

By "Shlog"

“Sometimes in the evening, I sit on the banks of Yamuna Maiyya .It gives me peace”

“It is a stinky river now. Doesn’t it offend your feelings?”

“Well, it is because of us that the river is polluted. Yamuna is still the same as it was in beginning of the time”

Her moments of lucidity often surprised me. We were all wannabe Shahrukh Khans at Barry John’s acting school ‘Imago’. Though Mr. John slept through most of our tit – bit efforts at the craft, (his medication made him drowsy), he was a master par excellence nonetheless. So it was one of the projects that took me to Nizamuddin slums. I had to search for a subject, study it and at the end of five days base an impromptu on it. As interesting as it sounded in the beginning, it soon turned out to be a herculean task. Why the hell someone would tell me their stories? I was not even a social worker! Supposedly someone indeed end up doing exactly that then what? Should I tell them what time I would be enacting it out???

Bus dropped me off at Jungpura station and though it had taken me close to three hours to reach, I just wanted to take another bus and leave straightaway. I started walking in the narrow lanes. First thing that struck me was cleanliness. Almost all the doors were wide open in the street and I was surprised to see color televisions, DVD’s and refrigerators peeping out from most of them. So unlike my perception of slums! I circled thrice the same area hoping that I would find my hapless subject waving out for me.

Now is the time to ask for a glass of water, I reflected. A young woman was washing her utensils right in front of a public tap.

“Can I have some water please?”

“Here? My house is right over there, come, I’ll give it to you in a glass”.

“O…ok”.

I least expected it and followed her happily. The young lady was happily married with a five year old. Though it was a tough task to make the ends meet but she had no sob stories so to say. They were both working hard to make it different for their son. I don’t remember how many women came to me, out of curiosity, and ended up chatting with me without even asking me my motives. Tea and biscuits were served. Someone hit upon the idea of putting ‘mehaver ‘on my feet. A tray was brought with vermillion soaked water in it; my feet were submerged leaving them with bright red hue. It never felt like a beginning, it was a continuation of old acquaintance, it seemed.

I took another lane the next day. And I met Kamala, the one mentioned in the beginning of my post. She was walking with a sort of disdain about her as if she was annoyed with the people around, not even people probably the very soil she was walking on. I must have appeared like one of those journalists who sometimes walk past these lanes in search of some story. She invited me home. Without much ado she gets on with her story sounding more like a statement that she must have repeated hundreds of time. In the early 80’s she was employed in the office of one of the contractors. Life was finally looking up for her. It came to a sudden halt when the contractor raped her and what followed was her long search for justice, which eluded her to this day. Shunned by family and friends she was living all alone. Past is a strange thing, sometimes it become our strength, our resolution to do better in life and at times it so bogs us time that we too become a relic of the past in the present.

Five days later I performed an impromptu based on her. It was my closure.