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It's Me Or It Is You Or The World

When does a person get emotionally extinct - when he lives in a 'box with just cardboard all around'. Forget it - only a piece of dialogue heard in a movie, yes it is true about people leading mundane lives with only activities to do, to sustain or to breathe. Then why not go on a holiday,  a vacation? What do vacations mean for a stick-in-the-mud antagonist. Not me but I know a few.

Dia has it all.......bears it all

Dia is someone one would like to associate with. She is not old or not too young, but an ideal partner for the man she married. Don't tell me marriages are made in heaven but Dia makes it look like. He, an ex-sailor, lived life to the hilt with water, friends and sailing all around. Just one swell of a time globe trotting and rich by any standard. Today he is holed up with hardly any friends, a chronic ailment that apparently has no trace of cure in the pancreas. Diabetes, a silent killer that drags its feet which drags the victim to death, slow and steady. Well, prodding too much is like turning the ladle in the gravy for better taste. Life which spins like a top must slow down or a bump can fling the top to a halt. So go slow. Be like Dia who bears it all.

Rhea got stuck in the porridge of life. 

Am I poking fun at lives which attribute meaningless existence. No, but then does life have to be meaningless till one gets philosophical and utter an 'O' that holds up a lot of meaning about life. You see that 'pretty' span of life which swings from the 30s to the 60s should have a hold on your ideals and goals or else life gallivants to unknown goals and then begins the unending search for solution to learn from mistakes. Rhea, hailed from a Haryanvi conservative family, got married a bit late by normal standards. Destiny struck an unusual blow when her ambitions to grow in the field of media got stunted. She was endowed with a disabled child which  keeps her indoors for the entire day.Battling with odds she does show an uncanny courage but only a divine blessing can steer her on with life.

Nay....nothing can stop her from enjoying Ramzan*

Sana, a name chosen for her, quite an ebullient character with unlimited vigour in all she does. Initially I thought it was a facade, for she and I joined the school together as English teachers. But being a few years senior to her and a bit more loaded with work May be she was trying to impress the higher-ups. The dual pressure for me of handling two languages - English and French - made me look like a female Atlas, carrying the globe as if it was a cotton ball. All said and done, needless to say, Sana was more popular as she could spare a smile. Thank Heavens for all the lesson plans that were doled out from my factory which she carefully worded with Sana-like language for presentation. But I never cribbed about it as she had a bigger mental baggage to carry.

Her life....still etched with the same question Why Sana? Oh God!

She underwent a major surgery at the age of fourteen which deprived her of a female organ for conception. For years together she underwent this stigma that she would never find a suitor. But as luck would have it, she finally married a widower with two sons. Sana donned the cloak of a do-gooder and stepped into matrimony. The honeymoon lasted a year (I mean the goodies that came unasked after marriage). After a year she was cajoled to look for a job in a school. Then the grind of working for an unemployed husband and two kids.The husband was not only highly ambitious for 'others' but was a stickler at making foolish investments. Today, Sana has moved on to a better position in her career with a university. But her role of being the sole bread-winner stays. Her sons have grown up to be responsible adults. The man of her life still remains unemployed with no entrepreneurial skills. Sana is a physical wreck with a broken back, a broken spirit still dodging wolfish stares.


*For years together I have seen Sana displaying her culinary skills from Biryani to Barfi.

March 8 every year a day to remember for all women and men (?)., My heart goes out for Dia, Rhea and Sana. These are the women who are not exactly ill-starred but lead lives that do not invite compassion but pride. How many do you know? Let them remain memorable stars in your life.

(Names used in this piece have been changed but their lives remain status quo.)


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