Dreams and aspirations go hand in hand...people say that your dreams turn into aspirations once you start working towards it...but i have a question what if our aspirations break fall...do we stop dreaming as well? does that illusion stop reminding you every day that you could have done it...or is it this way...dreams...turn into aspirations...if accomplished milestones...if not then regrets!!
i was never too much over the top lovey dovey person...i respect love..its emotions but being young i knew myself for good and never vent my emotions for the over top oogling feelings...frankly even today i dont understand them much...i comprehend them sometimes when i see people around me...listen to them...sometimes over phone...sometimes on a coffee shop...but there, right at the coffee table i leave those stories..may be im totally incapable of handling them after a certain point...
but does that stop me from dreaming my picture perfect..i know this topic is tricky and touchy...we being the general Indian women do not talk about our love lives or expected picture perfect life so openly...and the reason being we are a set of genetically diagram ed people who are to the core of their heart are conservative of their feelings...specially if the feeling is love bound.....For that matter i have never seen my mom being vocal about her care for my dad in front of us...I have never seen my friends mother controlling her extreme urge to cry while her husband was unwell...may be on that hospital bed she would have desired to hug him close to her right till he gets all well...but she sat composed and restricted...or for that matter neither have i could ever express my deep emotions towards anybody quite well..
I understand that writing these stuff in the age of "show love" and PDA's (Public Display of Affection)might be little unsuitable...but where as im concerned...to me a kiss and tell love story is just that .. first kiss..then tell and then forget that you did either of the two...Im neither against PDA's infact my whole intention of writing this piece of whatever is to question .. why Indian women restrict their mode of expression when it comes to serious love....mark my words "serious" and not the 'every friday' change ones..mind you more importantly we are talking about not so platonic love.
...
In a government hospital...the out patient door was jam packed...thats how it is on a usual day...thats the only place....where a rich, a poor and a beggar..all sit on the same bench waiting for the one pseudo God who can..or rather makes us believe he can fix our troubles...right across the bench is the general ward....I see a lady sitting across an empty bed and waiting...may be her patient went for some tests...my checkup was over and i was scheduled after next three days......and as i was due for some injections....i was being asked to show to the general ward nurse....
same time ...another day
and i went across the same bed....she, still sitting as if in waiting...after a lot of 'needle in me' melodrama....my check up went over and i ask my nurse...
"unko parso bhi dekha tha..roz aati hai kya?" (i saw her day before yesterday to..does she comes daily?)
she replied
"haan pichle 2 saal se aati hai.....uska pati admit tha....jisdin vo shant hua...us din se roz ati hai" (she is visiting since last 2 years...right from the day her husband died)
i dont know what made me inquisitive ..but i wanted to know why..she was an old parsi woman..very fair and probably belonged to a middle class family. I asked the chit chatty nurse more...and she told that the day her husband died she was not allowed to see his body leave apart come near...as she is doomed to carry bad omen.
A sudden feeling of sadness engulfed both of us...me n the nurse...may be even she was feeling the same what i was feeling...
A woman shares her extreme personal relations with just one man in her life..she might remarry..she might be with five different men but those intimate true feelings...is of such serious nature that she doesnt even trust her other members of family close enough to talk about him...if anything a word like dedication and sacrifice exists..possible a woman's love would be its apt meaning...but all this and more ..she is not allowed to even see him when he is in his death bed?
is it a dirty face of humanity or is it the boundaries we Indian women have defined for ourselves that those very boundaries of controlled emotions are now being slapped right on our faces as just a set of rules...
for a second i just shut my brain and i think of the person who is most special to me...and god forbid if that has to be his last day....when i know he would be no more to talk..to feel..to walk with...and im not allowed to even have a look...my needle prick suddenly pained harder and i opened my eyes...and i saw my nurse looking at the woman with moist eyes...
assuming her composure she looked at me and said...
"jitna bhi kisi ke liye jiyo..utna kam padta hai"
(no matter how much you live for a person ... its less)
my throat was heavy...and my head thronging inside. i came out of the ward....and while i was returning..the first thing that came into my mind was my mom dad's courtship pic....their wedding pics...my dad's pic holding me when i was a day old....my 5th birthday me sitting on my dad' lap n my mom feeding me cake...my first day at college....my placement day..my dad standing at the door at night 12 waiting for my return..and the day i joined my job and dad left me on the training school gates..
the rickshaw halted..i payed him i guess and i walked inside my apartment so blank that for a sec i forgot my flat number..right there standing in front of my door i suddenly realised what if im not there with the person i love most when he/she needs me most...mom dad sis anybody...my feet went cold...i have no idea why i thought about those moments...in most of them my mom n dad both were there....probably i stood froze for few more seconds before stumbling on to my keys for the door.
May be....i just realise how happily people dedicate their lives to one another....my birthday becomes our child's birthday....my room becomes our room...my sadness becomes our sadness ...my joy our joy...and my life transforms into our life....
and still after changing every single aspect of our life...we women fail to express our emotions for that one person.....in front of everybody...is it because people lack respect for a woman's desire and feelings....or is it because we have risen those feelings to such an extent that we dont feel the society...this world worthy enough to understand them the way we want..
The parsi lady might come and sit and keep on waiting till the end of her life.....cz the irony is ..... what she lost was her life...and what she is left with is also her life....neither can she take it or leave it.
.....
The truth is....we are a bunch of in-tolerant social animals...who lose respect very easily for others affection and love...for such a long time till today her emotions have been looked through a coloured glass of impure nature...her identity as a social individual who has her needs and desires is practically non-existent..
she is expected to work till late but she is not expected to say "i do" before the guy does...she is expected to bear children...but she is not expected to name them.....she is expected to take care of her soul mate ..till what remains is just the soul....but not expected to torch her husband's funeral pyre...
What is this?
and even after this realisation if my hesitation remains intact.....I just have one answer...purity of ones relationship cannot be judged by society....which constantly I and the plenty like me are trying to justify.
..an in-expression of ones desires...will not increase the quotient of purity by any measure....what will diminish is our expectations from the person who completes our picture perfect....or else we all will be some parsi woman...sitting on a bench...waiting for our finality.
....
Nothing.. absolutely nothing can dilute our dreams....just like a ray of light..it can neither be created nor destroyed....but can transformed..across ages...across lives...and across souls..emerging from the same source..
A beating Heart.
