Are We Going Somewhere?

Our country is changing and evolving at a rather fast pace, and I am not talking about the economic or infrastructural evolution but about the behavioral evolution. We are fast becoming a country of intolerable herds. The cultural evolution is obnoxious, and we are going to the dogs. The so called westernization is not the problem, at least in my view. Apart from a miniscule few, the people embracing a modern or western lifestyle are not lacking morality or values. They are as moral and value upholding as any. The problem is with the other percentage. Those who are trying to rebound to the ‘Indian Culture’, they seem to be the problem.

What is ‘Indian Culture’? How do these preachers of ‘Indian Culture’ define it? If we look at history, the culture that we see is something that has constantly evolved. The only constant in culture was change. Change in food habits, change in dressing (remember the ChannarLahala), change in relationships (you know the polygamy, monogamy, and shit like that), change in social structure, and more. For us, as in people who lived in the land which is now called India, freedom was an alien concept. If you really look into history, not the version from the history books that are taught in schools, but the original unabridged history of the land, you will come to the realization that it wasn’t all rainbows and laughter even before the British came. We were oppressed by multiple kings, royal families and others in power then, as we were during the British reign. The British, unwittingly, gave us access to their education and with that we got the idea of freedom. Freedom is a western concept. So everything western isn’t bad after all!

Anyway, coming back to what I was saying, i.e. ‘Indian Culture’. Let’s forget about the history for a while and look at India as we have it now, do you see much similarity in Culture? If you do, you haven’t really looked at it very well. The Culture is different from state to state. What is acceptable in Kerala might not be in Tamil Nadu, that which is acceptable in both these places can be unthinkable in Uttar Pradesh. Likewise, it changes from state to state. Even in the same state it has a lot of variation. Say Kerala, my state, the Cultural aspects of the South is very different from that of the North. Even the language is drastically different. Similarly in every state, there are different Cultures. So if you are a preacher of ‘Indian Culture’ what would you propose? Which of these ‘Indian Cultures’ should become ‘The Indian Culture’?

Then there are the increasingly religious governments that are bringing in changes which will in no way have a positive result for the country or to the world in the long run. Recently the government of Haryana has made plans to introduce Bhagavad Gita in schools. Nothing can destroy a country faster than the introduction of religion into the education system. There are plenty of examples for this globally. If you want to pinpoint an example we can just look at our neighbor, Pakistan. A country which was, during the 60s, growing to be a phenomenon by all accounts, Karachi was evolving as a cultural center and a haven for artists, all this changed during the 70s. Several reasons could be pointed out but a major one among those reasons is the Islamization of their education system. Look where they are now? Introduction of religion to the education system or to the judiciary, any religion for that matter, is not good for any country, let alone one that aspires to be a global power and prides itself as a secular nation.

As we grow, we move forward, one would expect us to be less parochial but this is not what’s happening in India. We are not becoming more open to anything, we are becoming narrow minded. In the U.S. many states legalized Marijuana and there are prominent personalities debating that the same should be done with drugs like cocaine, etc.  Their logic being, any reasonable citizen of the country has the ability to decide whether they want to do drugs or not. Legalizing marijuana didn’t all of sudden change every one into weed smokers. People who used to smoke still smokes others still don’t, similarly legalizing drugs won’t turn every person into a drug addict. It’s a choice whether or not to do drugs. I love this sort of attitude from the government because they are respecting the intelligence of the people who elected them and not trying to nanny them. But not in our nation! Forget about marijuana and drugs, Kerala government wouldn’t let you wear a t-shirt with Bob Marley’s image on it!

Governments in India wants to restrict and control not only our inclinations towards drugs but also our dressing, our entertainment options, our alcohol consumption, our sexuality or rather sexual orientation (well, don’t even think about it, don’t you know Indians can’t be gay?), and even what meat you can eat (if anything at all). As I said before, freedom is an alien concept to us and may be these political parties are trying to go back to what we were or as close they can get to it. A totalitarian government, a government that interferes and dictates our lives in more ways that we can imagine! Anyone with half a brain should understand prohibition and restriction is not the way to regulate something. What is the reason behind governments banning alcohol? Is it to save its citizens from alcoholism? Of all the people who drink in this country, I can (with all conviction) say that no more than a miniscule percent are alcoholics. Most people drink socially and are responsible drinkers. Is it to stop domestic violence or abuse? That would be the most absurd idea. If a person gets drunk and abuses his wife and children, you can’t blame alcohol for it. If it is alcohol induced then that should be the case with everyone. My father is a social drinker and I have never, not even once, seen him misbehaving with me or my brother or my mother or with anyone else, regardless of whether he had a drink or not. I know a lot many people who are the same. One needs to understand that if a person is abusive that is his nature. Banning alcohol won’t change him, he will find alternative and he will keep going. But, who cares about reasons and rational thinking, the government has the power to do it so they do it.

What about the ban on beef? Beef is one meat millions of Indians (including me) are accustomed to and love to eat. If someone doesn’t approve of it, it’s their problem not ours. We shouldn’t have to stop eating it because someone else doesn’t approve of it. What I should eat and shouldn’t eat should be my personal choice (as long as I am not a cannibal or eating a protected species). Not in India! Here the governments will decide if I can eat meat or not. The worst part of these narrow minded authoritative people is that they are not open for difference in views or opinions. I recently read an article on the beef ban in Maharashtra and I checked the comments, one reader said ‘if you want to eat beef then leave India’ another said ‘will they allow you to eat pork in Saudi’ (not a country I would personally prefer as a role model)? This is the attitude that is prevalent, they don’t understand that people have the right to have different opinions and no one can insist that all have to agree with them. But in our country, a majority of the people considers their views to be sacrosanct, and won’t bear with anyone who doesn’t share them. 'How dare they question our views?' Do you doubt this to be the case? Forget about all the 66A victims and just take a look at how some MP wants to move a breach of privilege notice against Shobhaa De for her tweets on mandatory showing of Marathi movies in Mumbai multiplexes during prime time. Obviously, the dude doesn’t agree with her, and that’s fine, he doesn’t have to. But apparently this dude also believes that his and his party’s views are sacramental and hence are above and beyond criticism. So what about her freedom of speech and expression? Or is it that, Indian citizens have freedom of speech as long as we are in rhythm with the government views? Is that the freedom that we have?

I, for one, have issues with several of the views expressed by the politicians. Quite often some of these idiot politicians (regardless of gender) goes on a stage and blames the victims of rape, they trash people based on religion, caste and creed. What am I supposed to do about them? I do not have the power to move a breach of privilege notice against them (or do I? I don’t think so). Of course I can go to the court and then what? There are plenty of cases pending against them and this will be one more to that list. It will take a long time (not talking about years here, of course that happens, but even if it’s just a few months, this is time I do not have) and I have to work to live. If real time justice was a possibility, well at least close to that it could have been different. Say, I went to the court, I filed a case and I won. Still what is the worst that can happen to the politicians? They will get warned, they might apologize or not, three days of news, and we are back to same old, same old. What will happen to me? The morons who work for the politician’s party would be waiting for me and will take pleasure in fucking me up the first chance they get. So for a normal person it is a no-win situation!

How many times have you heard the proposers of ‘Indian Culture’ calling rape as an offspring of westernization? Is this the truth? Was our country a safe haven for women before we started moving towards westernization or modernization? Or is it that today we are getting to know these atrocities as media has come a long way forward and are now capable and readily reporting these? I believe, if we can call anything definitely a part of ‘Indian Culture’ that would be violence against women and objectification of women. Remember Sati? Remember putting Draupadi as a stake in the game of dice and what she had to endure? Her husbands (again wasn’t her choice to have more than one) valued their word more than her! Remember what happed to Sita? Remember Devadasis? These views and attitudes are so deeply embedded in our culture; the violence against women is not a new phenomenon but an identity of our existence. Remember what Mukesh Singh, the convicted rapist from the 2012 Delhi gang rape, said in the India’s Daughter documentary? We all contempt it and the government even banned it (may be because we, the citizens, of this fine country are not intelligent enough to grasp it), but did we listen? What he said is a reflection of what our society thinks and nothing else. Even in the psyche of a number of the modern Indians’ the culture is still alive and thriving! Remember how Twitteratis started blaming Anushka for Virat’s World Cup Semifinal performance? The new phenomenon is that a percentage of our population no longer believes that this is right. A percentage of our population wants to change this.

Another real aspect of Indian Culture is caste system. No matter what we try to think, no matter how we try to forget it or belittle its grip on the society, the caste system still remains and is as strong as it has ever been. Do we go a month without reading news or hearing about a brutal honor killing? Apparently, we are so honorable a lot that everything including caste and creed are more valuable than people themselves. But we don’t like to talk about caste as an issue. Our politicians won’t dare talk about caste as an issue. It’s bad for vote bank, right? Is this the ‘Indian Culture’ that we want to uphold? Another thing that we are intolerant towards is sexual orientation. Apparently being a homosexual in India is as bad as being a murderer or a thief, well not really – it’s worse. Once you land in a jail you will get respect for your crimes - if you are thief good, if you are a murderer even better, but if you are gay then you are fucked. Religions are dead set against homosexuality; then again that is not just an Indian phenomenon but a global thing. Apparently no religion has ever seen anything worse than homosexuality! The law that makes homosexuality illegal in our country should‘ve been struck down years ago but till this date no politician or political party seems to be interested it that.

Sensitivity or insecurity to most things is something that we seem to be suffering from. You can’t kiss, hug or display affection in public, spectators will be outraged and will cane you real bad. There are places in our country where you can’t walk or go to movies with a girl, people won’t tolerate that! We are sensitive to stuff like that. We cannot accept any form of affection in public. We can peep, put cameras in bathrooms, record other’s private moments with a hidden cam. If you are to stab someone to death, it can be done in the public you won’t see any outraged, concerned citizen coming to cane you or even stop you. We can pee in public or defecate in public, which would just be fine. But we cannot let anyone kiss or hug in public. As Indians, we are not supposed to criticize religion, religious leaders or politicians. The followers of none of these things will forgive that. They will lynch you at the nearest auspicious date. A book or film, no matter how well researched and written it is or how much of a fantasy it is, if it is critical of religion then it has to be banned. The religions in India, even with 100s of millions of believers are still so insecure that they will burn the street down to get their way. Generally it won’t come to that as politicians are more than happy banning anything and everything for anyone who has an issue with them. Freedom itself has little value to us, and are we talking about creative freedom? What a joke right? We are so damn patriotic that we would beat the living soul out of anyone who dares to sit during our national anthem played in theaters before the beginning of a movie. But we are ok when the world media, based on studies, report that of all the public defecation in the world, about 60 percent happen in India alone. Indians (obviously not all of us, just about 99 percent or so) are insensitive, intolerant, insecure and, above all else, highly hypocritical.

With all these on our shoulders, with ever increasing communal and religious tensions, with political parties that are dead set against most secular ideas and free thinking, are we moving forward? With an ever increasing parochial mindset and intolerance, are we becoming better? I don’t think so. We are not moving forward, we are not becoming better, nor are we embracing change, at least not the vast majority of us. We are standing back and watching as these idiots destroy the freedom that we hold so dear. If this is evolution then we need to stop and think again, what would our country be 25 years down the line?

Regrets

Regrets, well all got them, don't we? Some more than others. Things we did or didn't do, words we said or didn't say, people we should 've spend more time with, promises we should 've kept, things we shouldn't 've forgotten, so on and so forth. If only we could go back and do it all over again, how differently we would craft things. Oh my!

I 've many regrets, enough to write an epic poem. But the ones that burdens me the most are not living up to the expectations of my parents. Now, I did not use the phrase 'expectations of my parents' in a negative way. I do realize that now a days that phrase has come to evoke a negative connotation. As we are all fleeing farther and faster than our feeble legs could take us cos we are afraid of ending up looking like our parents. We are all so concerned about 'living life on our own terms' or something like that, and so the phrase 'expectations of our parents' have a negative connotation. But no, not for me, not now anyway, not in this post. Here I regret my incapability to fulfill my parents' expectations.

Their expectations weren't big, mind you, all they wanted was the normal good life for me. All they had were small dreams, but I didn't care. If they wanted me to go north I always wanted to go everywhere but north. Not because I hated north, oh no, but because it is what they wanted. Cos if I do that then how can I be 'living life on my own terms'? Yea, that was the thing. In my struggle, in my fleeing, I failed to realize that they had changed their own paths and were running behind me in order to support me. Their dreams, their life, their plans, all took a back seat because they were willing to go the distance for me. They were willing to do things to help me reach my goals, to make me happy. How can I ever repay them, how can I ever thank them enough! Yet they are not asking for anything.

Why weren't my dreams aligned with theirs? Why didn't 'living life on my own terms' include them? After all I did on my own, am I really happy that I did 'em on my own terms? If I am then how come I 've regrets? Tomorrow morning, when I am sober again, I will be the same insensitive prick that I was before, the guy who is 'living life on his own terms'. But now, when am drunk, when my ego is not casting shadow on me, let me just say, Mom, Dad, am sorry. 

Mirage (Part Three)

It has been 2 years and a few months since that first time. Her life is going on; sex and beating are two things that happen like clockwork. Her mother in law is mostly bed ridden now, it’s not that she can’t get up, but she is too weak to do anything more than her basic rituals. For about three or four months this has been the case, and so she has to look after two cows, a calf and her mother in law, plus all the chores that she used to do before. These chores are not a big deal for her; she is used to it by now, more of a muscle memory than anything else. But the beatings and the sex, she just wonders if ever a time comes when she could start feeling about them as blank as she feels about the chores.

Her husband, these days are becoming an expert in finding her faults. All he needs to do is walk into the house in the evening and he would have already found them. It seems to have become a sort of muscle memory for him now. He is so good at it that, even after she spend half an hour or an hour of her tight schedule inspecting the house and everything about it and her to make sure nothing is wrong, he will find something in a moment’s notice. Or there would have been something in his mind, some wrong that she did in the morning on the night before. Anyway, even after two and a half years of marriage, she is still trying to figure out a way to be on the good side of her husband.

Another noticeable factor about her body is that, it is getting lingered in scars. Have you heard about scars telling stories? No, right? Well, hers does, in fact they sing epic stories. Each and every one of those scars come to life and tells a tale. One sings about too much spice in food, another about not waking up in time, yet another about making sound or screaming or crying in sleeping, so on and so forth. Some of these stories are so long, elaborate and complicated that any person with an average or above intelligence quotient fails to makes sense of them. Not that the simple stories made sense.

One scar in particular, starting just below her hairline on the side of her forehead, it continues inside her hair for another couple of inches. It sings about a girl, may be four or five years older than her, who, she was told, was her husband’s ex-wife. May be eight or nine months back, she was told about the elder girl by some girls on her way to fetch water. She did not get the whole story, something about continuous bleeding or so and she going away, the story ended there.  That was all those girls knew, that was all she knew. She was intrigued; she wanted to know who that elder girl was, where she is and what happened to her. But, her bed ridden mother in law was not of much help. So she asked the only other person she knew who might have known something about it, her husband.

He was washing his hands outside their house after dinner when she asked this. He stared at her for a good long minute. She was petrified by the look, she knew what was coming next and she was preparing for it. After a good minute or so, it came, a steel cup that he had in his hand came crashing on her head. Once it landed, she fell on the dry ground like an axed tree. She blacked out instantly. She woke up a while later, don’t know how long, but there was her mother in law sitting beside her and the village doctor had put something on her head, stopped the bleeding and had left. Her head was hurting like hell. But she was aware of the surrounding, when she saw her husband’s shadow outside, she picked herself up as fast as she could, ignoring the objections of her mother in law, went to him and apologized for her bad behavior. She did something 'wrong' and he 'disciplined' her. He has got the 'right' to, hasn't he? She tried to held tighter to that 'logic'. Her mother had taught her that!!!

Like this, all the scars sung a song. All you need to do is listen carefully.

                                                               (To Be Continued)

Ashamed In A World Filled With MCPs

Male Chauvinist Pigs, well they should be called bastards and not pigs. What else should we call them? A girl got brutally raped and they are blaming her for her dress? 

I had a very long post written denouncing these group, once I finished it, I read through it. Then it hit me. There is no point, there is no point in me saying all that, these ignorant pricks won’t change. So I am cutting it all short to this one sentence – MCPs FUCK YOU ALL!!!!

Murphy At His Best: My Business Story

Now, this post is no more true than any of my posts before. It is no more false than any of them either. So, how true is it? My friends, who have been with and around me knows, the rest of you, keep guessing.

The story starts in 2011, November. A cold night.  It must have been half past 12. I was dropping off a friend after a movie. We were talking as usual. But, for a change, instead of our meaningless, fruitless, purposeless conversations, we were actually talking about something that is worthwhile. We were talking about starting our own business. Well, what business was the primary question. My brief yet eventful time as a technology and business journalist have given me enough insights (or so I thought) into the internet arena to tell my friend that it is the right path. Then, the next question was, what in the internet space. Neither I, nor him, had any background in technology. The best we could do was play games and send sms, and that ain't a business. So, what shall we do?

Ecommerce!!! I do not remember which one of us came up with the "brilliant idea", any way it was out there. Once it came out there, we never thought about another field. We could have easily started a content writing firm or a news portal, that was our forte, but no, ecommerce it has to be. Well then, ecommerce it is, we went ahead. Then came the next question, what in ecommerce? There are already many sites, (around 20 - 25 was our estimate. Later, much later, we realized it is more like 200 - 250 in India alone) so what can we start that will stand us apart from the rest? Discussions went on, in the mean time we roped in another one of our friends. So, there are three of us, thinking about what to start. "Brilliant Ideas" started flowing. It was like 'Dumb and Dumber' bouncing business ideas. The ideas were so irrational and insane that they seemed like a castle floating upside down in a freaking orange cloud. Yea, that didn't make any sense, but that pretty much says it.

Any way, at this point a forth friend of ours jumped in and gave us an idea which, we felt, was excellent. An ecommerce clothing portal. So, we went with it. Then another friend joined us in the venture. For those of you who have lost count, there are five of us now. The plan was to start the company in 2 - 3 months. We did some research and came to the conclusion that 2 - 3 months, ie. 60 - 90 days is a reasonable amount of time to start our business. It was not a bad estimation, theoretically it is apt time, I even put in some buffer time in the estimate so that we will finish the pre-launch work on time, if not with time to spare. So, how good was my estimation?

In a project management class, or on a piece of paper, the estimation and plan looked spot on and absolutely spectacular. But not in the real world. In the real world I was off by a mile and a half, so to speak. Well, let us put it this way, today is the 17th of October 2012 and I am at least a good month and a half away from the launch. And the best part is I have been a month and a half from the launch for last 8 months. Oh yea, this is not the first rescheduled launch date, it will more be like the gazillionth rescheduled launch date.

It is not like we were lazy and have not tried hard enough to start it. It is more like, no matter what we do, something or the other always goes wrong. That is why I said, 'Murphy at his best.' Anything even with a minuscule chance to go wrong, went wrong, and went wrong big time. Where shall I begin? Got a friend of a relative to do the registration process (idea was to save money), and ended up spending a good amount and taking about 3 months more than it should have taken. Gave website designing to a very close friend (again financial motivation), three months and seven thousand rupees later, he gave us one page, one single page and said he cannot do it. Now, I am no professional designer, but I can, for sure, tell you, that page will not take 3 months, nor will it cost seven thousand rupees. And the best part is, we never used that page. Re-did the entire stuff again. Then there is the product, which, instead of a promised 20 days, took about 145 days. Shall I continue? No need, right? You get the idea?

It was less like starting a business and more like experimenting and learning what not to do when you are starting a business. Learning from ones mistake is fun when that 'one' is someone else. This experience is not fun. We struggled, and struggled, and struggled, still we are not there yet. As usual, we think we will be there in a month or so. The only thing that is certain now is that giving up is not an option anymore. So, let us see who wins, Murphy or us!!!

Murphy... Damn Youuuuuuuuu!!!!

Mirage (Part Two)

It has been three months since that so called ‘auspicious’ day, exactly 3 months. Today is special for 2 reasons, she lost the last two of her baby teeth, and it is the day it began. Before going into the details of what ‘it’ is, let us see how she is doing. The new house is nothing like her house, it is different, she does not know how. There is she, her husband and his mother. His mother is a sweet yet silent lady, who rarely interferes in their lives. Apart from her, there are two cows, and enough work to keep her busy throughout the day. She has to walk about 4 kilometers every morning to get water. A tiring task, yet she enjoys it very much. She gets a good hour and a half away from her home. Time that she finds piece, it is her time of Zen. The harmony, the early morning dew, the trees, flowers, birds, everything fascinates her. She has never noticed any of these when she was back at her home, it seems as if the nature was different around her village, it was never this beautiful.

She has grown a lot since, an awful lot. She had no choice, so to speak. What did she know about marriages before? Apparently nothing! To say clueless, will be an understatement. She was unaware of majority of the responsibilities. Cooking, cleaning and washing, she was trained in, but that weird thing that he tries to do with her, how he forces himself upon her every night, she still is trying to figure out what that is. Obviously, her mother did not get a chance to explain it to her. In her mother’s defense, how was she supposed to know that her daughter was getting married at 12 (she would have reasonably figured that there would be ‘2 – 3 more years’) or how is she supposed to explain what sex is and how it works in less than 2 weeks to a 12-year-old? Well she has heard about it though, from some friends who are elder than her, but never into the details. She knew from their suggestions it was repulsive, never knew the complete magnitude. Anyway, she does not like that activity of his, a bit, but, when that takes place she always tries to remember the thing that her mother told her last. ‘Listen to him, do whatever he asks you to. Remember he is your life from now on, second only to God.’ She remembers that and let him do whatever he wants to do with her body. Too mature for a girl of her age, I know.

She still remembers the first time he did that. She thought he was trying to kill her, still she stayed quiet. What was she supposed to do anyway? There is no point in crying, screaming or running. She cannot out run him, she does not know who to run to and ask for help, and her parents are at least a couple of hours away by bus how long will it take her to reach there by foot! So she stayed on the bed, hoping that it will end soon. And it did, technically it hardly took 5 minutes, but she felt like she was under that sweating monster for an eternity. The pain, the sweat, the sting, the blood, the white gooey liquid, she cried throughout the night. He didn’t hear a thing though; she made sure he would not. In comparison to the night, she found all her day time chores as relaxing. She practically enjoyed her daytime and wished the sun would never set. But, soon she learned the trick. Dissociate herself from her body at night, and it is starting to work. She is no longer concerned about what he is doing with her body.

Now, coming back to the ‘it’ that I mentioned before. Today marks as the first time he took a shot at her. No, that didn’t cause her teeth to fall off, that was natural, but the fist did some reasonable damage. Physically, she had a black eye, not because he punched in her eyes but because he gave a good right hand smash on the back side of her head, also a swollen right wrist. What was her mistake, was it the pot that she dropped or was it the extra salt in the curry or was it something else, she is not very clear! Okay, whatever it is, she should never have made him angry and he had every right to discipline her, this is what she tried to believe. She was not convinced about this argument though, nonetheless she had to accept it. She made a mistake, and he disciplined her, it had to be that plain and simple. She had seen it happen once in a while back at her home, with her mother and father. Still it hurts, not just physically. Yes, it was physically gruesome, but there was more to it. A sort of soul hurt, she struggled and failed to recognize that feeling.

Again she cried to sleep. How would she cope with this? Like any children who have an abusive parent, she tried to please him more and more, hoping that one day he would stop and like any abusive parent, he never did. She better get used to it, right? It is the life she has to live for so many years. It is just the beginning of what is to follow.

                                                                           
                                                                      (To Be Continued)

Mirage (Part One)

It is a Sunday, the entire gully is bathed in light, filled with people in colorful dresses, loud and cheerful. And in the midst of all these is she. She was very happy about the attention that she is receiving, the night belonged to her. In a deep carmine pink daaman she looked like a little angel. Her eyes sparkled, her face was lit up like a diwali night, and she was so excited that her cheeks resembled the finest red rose one can imagine. She wanted to run around with her peers but her mother had told her not to, being the responsible girl that she is, she has resisted the temptation. It is an auspicious occasion and she was at the centre of it all. She has to be in her best behavior, she has to be in her best qualities, she has to do what the elders around are asking her to. Then came the part they all have been waiting for, the arrival of the groom. She is 12, and yes it is her marriage!

Until the week before last, she was just like any 12 year old of her village. Helping her mother in day to day chores, feeding her younger brothers, washing their and her clothes, and learning all that she needs to know to be a good house wife. She had no idea what being a wife meant, why or even she wanted to be one. She is going to be a wife regardless; it was only a matter of time (in 3-4 years give or take). It was the Saturday before last that her mother told her the news, her father has failed to arrange the money that he owed someone from the next village. Her mother took almost an hour to explain to her how her father had borrowed money for farming, how the rain gods where not giving them rain, how the crops where lost, how he was looking around for money to pay the debt back, and all. Throughout the duration of the explanation, she was thinking why she had to know all these, half of it made no sense to her; above all she had no money that she could give to her father. She would if she had, but she doesn’t have any. So she was listening, very quietly and carefully to understand what is it that her mother is expecting from her. She knows for sure her mother wants something; she has seen that look in her mother’s eyes. So she listened.

It took her mother another hour to reach that point. She explained to her how she, being the elder child of the family, has got the responsibility to save her father. She explained to her, how her marriage with someone from the other village is going to save her father. She had no clue what all those meant, but since her mother promised her a new pink dress, she agreed (it was not like she had another option). 

So here we are, her wedding day. She took a peek through a hole in the wall of the small room where she is getting ready. She does not know who her groom is. She checked out all the boys and young men among the party and even found a couple of impressive matches for her. She can only hope one of those two is her groom. Well, she will soon find out. She is exited too. 

The time has finally come and she was taken to sit beside her groom. She is shy and is keeping her head down. Once she sat beside her groom, the elder women around her are teasing her and asking her to take a peek at her groom, which she did after much hesitation. Once she did it, she could not take her eyes off for a while. The beauty and youthfulness of the groom prevented her from taking her eyes off; this was not the case here. It was rather the lack of those two factors that kept her eyes from moving. To her horror, she found a scary looking guy, who is older than her own father sitting next to her. That was her groom? She could not believe it, there was some mistake she thought, or maybe it is her would be father in law. She had to clarify it, so when her mother came near she asked her as silently as she could, ‘who is it, mom?’ There was no need for much explanation, her mother understood why she was in shock, but there was not much to be done. So she received a weird smile from her mother and a nod towards the old man sitting towards it. Oh, god! She closed her eyes as tight as she could, it might be a nightmare, nothing more. Once she opens them again, it will all be gone and she will be alone with her family. She opened her eyes, no, nothing has changed that ugly, cruel looking, old man is still next to her talking and laughing. She closed them again, tighter than the last time, tried to fade away the sound around, and opened eyes a second time. This time a perfectly spherical tear drop rolled down from her eyes to her cheek to her new dress.  

                                                                        (To Be Continued)