through a window...

when i was about 8 or 9 - i was out for an after-dinner walk with some adult from the household (i don't really remember who any more) one night. just a short walk along the familiar streets of the neighborhood, or para, as we called it in our langauge. back in those days, it was a safe neighborhood. the nights were pleasant. there weren't hundreds of rickshaws on the streets jostling for space. life was different in my old city back then. normal. decent.

our little residential lane emptied on to a street where - if you went right, it would take you straight to my school and if you went left would take you straight to what we called mouchak market (a shopping mall much frequented by my mid 20s aunts) perhaps one of very few shopping malls in the city at the time.

just at that intersection, across from our lane was a small two story house with whitewashed exterior. although we knew most of the families in the neighborhood, this house was relatively new and we did not know who lived in it. to me that house was a mystery. and it intrigued me. whenever we passed by it (which was pretty much every time we went out), i would look at it. perhaps i was trying to see if there were any kids who lived there - kids my age. i don't really know the reason for my curiosity. on all those previous occasions, i saw nothing of note.

on this particular night though, i looked up and saw that the second story window looking onto the street was open - the curtains drawn apart. in the room a ceiling fan was spinning at high speed and there was a desk kitty corner from the window (towards the inside of the house, not the street). there was someone sitting at the desk - their back to the window. a boy who in my fertile mind i deemed to be my age although i had no real way of telling how old he was. he was wearing a crisp white punjabi (i could only a third of his upper body). his head was lowered as if he was working hard at some maths problem - an assignment due the next day perhaps. somehow this everyday image got burned into my mind. to this day i can see it as clear as if it was yesterday. a boy studying at his desk. i don't know what it is about that image but it touched me. i can only guess why i was so drawn to that boy's world ... because it appeared so foreign. i wanted that world. i wanted that quiet peace of a rapidly spinning ceiling fan. the fluttering curtain at the window. the desk where he studied. the crisp white deshi style pjs. i wanted that life. i wanted that routine. suddenly - out of the blue and for no rhyme or reason - i wanted to be that boy. whoever he was. to this day, i can reach into my mind and touch that feeling.

non-returnable

with the proliferation of social media sites and people's penchants for publishing photos of every trivial event in their lives, i live more or less inundated by the imagery of 'happy family units'. all around me are stories and pictures of such happy families - loving parents smiling at the camera holding on to happy little children - gap toothed ... obese... snub nosed .. no matter what just perfect in their eyes. and i think back to my childhood. think back to my experience in a family unit. i am more than convinced that the reason i was ignored the way i was, emotionally abandoned the way i was was because neither of my parents were able to like me. forget love. that's asking too much. who can blame them really? by my teens, i was grossly overweight, dark complexioned, plain looking.... well, just ugly. how could you blame them?
where's it guaranteed that parents will love their children for the sole reason that they are responsible for the gene pool?
i see these photos everyday - children in even worse shape than i was at their age thanks to the excesses of the current lifestyle - and i cannot believe how they take for granted so much love that is showered on them. like a birth right. i hear the pride in those parents' voices. the affection in their eyes. the complete acceptance. i don't know how it happens. it didn't go that way for me. and i don't blame my parents either. it is possible i think to end up with a raw deal in life's random roulette of procreation. what if you just can't love this being that has arrived and cannot be returned? what if the child fails to engender love and affection in you? it's the child's weakness if anything - it's their failure.

birthday boy

for my fifth birthday, my mother had a shirt dress tailor made for me to wear at the party. this dress looked exactly like a shirt a boy would wear, only resplendent with color as was the fashion in the 70s. i remember seeing the dress for the first time right before guests were supposed to be arriving for the party (i was to have a corn on the cob shaped cake for some inexplicable reason). needless to say, i was shell-shocked. i asked them only one question: where are the pants? i was told there wasn't going to be any. i remember first the panic, then the sadness, then the anger and then the sense of being utterly betrayed. i was five. i didn't care what women were wearing in the Sears catalog that year. i wanted to be properly clothed. happy, for a change. because it was my birthday. it was supposed to be my day. and they took that from me. like most other things.
what made it so much worse was that as far back as i can remember i had wanted to be a boy. perhaps quite early on i realized that i had no currency in my family as a girl. they already had one of those and made my redundancy amply clear to me. through verbal cues, disinterest and inattention to anything i said or did. i was almost non-existent, in sight yet out of mind. so i thought if i could be a boy, i might be accepted. fill some void may be. be noticed. perhaps even liked. given my psyche being already damaged, it was absolutely traumatizing for me to have to parade around in what i considered just a shirt with no pants on. i felt mortified. i did not want a party. i did not want to smile for people. i did not want any part in it. not that i had a choice. i wanted to die then. even as i think about it 30 yrs later, i still feel the same. i feel it just as intensely as i did on that day. nothing has changed. time doesn't heal all wounds.