Yes I BLEED!

Talking about menstruation is stigmatized to an extent where she knows not why she bleeds!
Mommy, please explain to her that it's not impure
Aunty, tell her it's just natural
Tell her it's nothing bad
Why whisper it! ...

Scream out loud! Yes we BLEED!

Calling yourself progressive?
Well, you shouldn't be.
With temple doors shut on her face,
Within the confined space,
Oh, see her cry, feel her pain.
Face it! Yes she bleeds!

Why shouldn't I touch you?
Why shouldn't I have evening tea with my family?
Why shouldn't I breathe next to your food?
Let me breathe! Let me live! Let me be free!
For, I bleed to give a life.

#YesIBleed

The Last Rays of Humanity.

The plan was to gatecrash a wedding.
Dressed to suit the occasion, we took the train to Mylapore hoping to eat some Kalyana sapadu.
A series of questions were raised by the auto man about the wedding party and the marriage hall we were looking for, as we made him take us to three closed wedding halls. We had no choice but to get off that auto, to avoid those questions.

"I am hungry! What are we going to do now?" Ancy asked me. ...
"I know exactly what we are going to do!" I told as I grabbed her hand and crossed the road.
Why not test the generosity of our people?
The focus now shifted to orthodox brahmin households around.
We wanted to try eating dinner with random families.
Mr. Varadharajan, a retired economics professor let us into his house. Though we had highly conflicting ideas on demonetisation, I overlooked it as we got to drink Mylapore filter coffee made by the 'maami' herself! After almost an hour, we got to know that they had already had their dinner,so we slowly ended the conversation as we didn't have much time.I could hear my stomach grumble. We were still hungry.

After one or two failed attempts, we met Sarala aunty, a lower-middle class Brahmin housewife in her mid-forties. Though she only let us sit on her staircase, she gave us puliyodharai (Tamrind rice), hot dosas, chutney and paapads. We gobbled up the food as she kept an eye on us.
The satisfaction of a full tummy was just amazing.
On the flip side we did realize a lot of things that we wouldn't have if we had eaten at a wedding.
Be it the elite or the ones in the lower social strata, there still seemed to be the a strong presence of the idea of purity.
When the professor asked if it was possible for us to drink from the glass without sipping it and when the aunty wanted us to wash our hands outside the house, it hit us.
That we still have to deal with the binaries of life...That we are still stuck in the vicious web of castes and communities.

I don’t have to run anymore...

                                        

Harshitha D. Kumayaa

The street seemed empty all of a sudden. The vehicles and the people on the road froze for a minute, as I passed by. Even the silence in my head was slowly being sucked with a deafening vacuum whirling its way into the mind. I kept walking.

 A thread of thought began to weave itself.  It weaved into me gently, until I was wrapped in it. Tied up in those thoughts, I stared into the path ahead. The dark brightness I moved towards seemed hopeful unlike the rest. I kept walking.

With scores of people fighting their way through the crowded street, I didn’t feel any of it. For all I wanted was to move away from the rumbles of humanity. The sound of footsteps grew sharper as the echoes in the mind began screaming. Incessant mutterings of multitudes of voices in the head grew louder. Peace is all I asked for. Silence is all I wanted. I wasn’t walking anymore. My pace grew faster. Gasping for breath, I began to run.

Daddy didn’t do it because he wanted to. Daddy didn’t do it because he wanted to.

As the shiny metal plunged into her neck, this silence seeped it. This vacuum entered when she screamed for one last time. Fierce red blood gushed into the nook and cranny of every vein in her eyes. Absolutely startled, her eyes refused to blink. A drop of agony and betrayal rolled down her cheek as a tear. She didn’t scream. She didn’t defend herself. Neither did I. She just said, “Harsha, run away from this man. I am sorry I couldn’t stay with you forever. I Love…”

Those were mamma’s last words.

 I ran. I ran like she wanted me to. Away from daddy, away from home, I ran searching for the safe place mamma wanted me to go to.

Sweat dribbled down my forehead and my breath became shorter. Panting hard, I felt like being chased by dogs that weren’t present. I could sense being dragged into the void as I continued to run. I was being pulled into it. It grew darker.

I think there were people looking at me. I think there were vehicles honking, asking me to move away. I wasn’t very sure about it. I kept running.

As the moon vomited its light upon me, I kept running. As the night grew older, I kept running.

Time began to slow down as the dry leaves of August floated down to reach the ground. Reaching the end of my journey towards warmth, I could see mamma. A smile grew at the end of my lips. A sense of serenity and relief hit me, as my breath became calmer and longer.

“Take me with you ma!” “You are the only safe place I know. Take me with you!”

Mamma had sent the red Chevrolet. She wanted me to be with her. The kind man in the Chevrolet let me join hands with mamma.

The friction between the tires and the road and the shriek of a few people followed by the silence was when I knew I was there. I was there at last. I don’t have to run anymore. I feel the warmth. I am safe, in the arms of my mamma.

Passage to the Throne

Harshitha D. Kumayaa

I dodged as the answer sheet pierced through the air towards my face as my physics teacher threw it. Physics and I were never meant to be together. Yet again, I had passed the test merely because of my teacher’s generosity.

 Just like every other class XII student I went to tuitions, after the long sessions of “special” classes at school. I wonder why those classes were called “special”, when they were purely exasperating. The crisply ironed white uniform put on at 6am looked like a flag holding on to the pole lifelessly after incessant rains, by 8pm.

 “What is your ambition in life?” asked the principal before the board exams during a career counseling session. Without much thinking, “Not an Engineer for sure” I said. Shock. A dramatic silence. The tension in the room intensified. “I want to be a journalist”. I didn’t know then that I would grow to be this passionate about journalism. All that my mind said was, “Run away from numbers, calculation and theories! Run! Run!”

Though I preferred calling myself “a free spirit”, a label was stamped on my forehead- a label with the word ‘REBEL’, written in red bold capital letters. Parents of my friends hung an invisible “beware” board on my neck. I was the ‘bad influence’ on the ‘good’ students who had an ‘aim’ in life.

 When my comrades went on to continue schooling for the next four years in an Engineering college, I wormed my way into the English department of WCC. Yes, I did go through the trauma every arts and humanities student faces in Tamil Nadu.  The derogatory tone when one says “Oh English-aah,” had the ability to break down even the strongest soul.

 My aunt described me as a person who has a stone in the place of a heart. Probably that’s the reason why I didn’t care what others thought.

 If I were to be a mess, I wanted to embrace that.

I didn’t bother showing my mark sheets to anyone but my mom. Ranks didn’t matter to the father who thought his daughter was going to be a failure. Performance didn’t matter to the relatives who thought she was doing “some” course in a city college.

With a crazy group of friends, I was not the only rebel anymore. We were the REBELS of the college. Bunking classes, bullying students and getting into fights were regular.

Three years flew.

 Results were announced.

 The best student of the college in arts and humanities over the period of the course, yes! That was me.

 Life changed.

 The five awards did something that I couldn’t do as a person for all these years. Dad started loving me all the more. He said I was “Rancho”- the character played by Aamir Khan in ‘3 idiots’. Aunties started calling up for career and educational advice for their children. Uncles who turned away began having conversations with me.

 I was still the 110^th rank holder among 120 students in class XII Half Yearly exam. It didn’t feel any different.

Probably, tokens of appreciation made of metal could make an outcast, a king.

And, I choose to be free. . .

Harshitha D. Kumayaa

The smell of Dada's perfume spread across the hallway as he passed by, to leave for work. Niki and I jump out of our study as we heard the thud of the door being shut. That was happiness.

Not that I didn’t love him. Not that he was a terrible dad. Yet, his absence made me feel a lot lighter. The sound of that door felt like kicking off stilettos after reaching home. A huge sigh of relief. Though my little brother was there at home, we didn’t engage in any conversations.A sense of loneliness begins to kick in at that instant.

 Being a 20 year old girl living off her parents’ resources, I couldn’t afford to have an option to live alone. So, I tried to optimally use the space I had or rather, the space I was given.

My family loves to bond and participate in every aspect in each other’s lives. Being a loner, moments of utter bliss were hence the short durations in the toilet, warm showers and the drowsy minutes before falling asleep.

Like a blanket, loneliness wraps around me, as the sound of people talking becomes incoherent background music. I drown in my thoughts. An echo  reverberates within me. The thoughts aren’t complex ideas, but are flashes of memories, random thoughts about things that might possibly never happen

Happiness is predominantly a sense of relief when left alone.With impeccable social and communication skills as a part of my resume, it is usually a surprise for many that I cherish solitude. Finding peace in a serene place is too mainstream. The bustling city streets sometimes serve to be a much better source of solitude. Getting lost in a crowd seems so much better than a Sunday’s family meal.

 Probably, years of living with an overprotective dad makes every second of seclusion celebratory. Happiness is when I am all by myself. Happiness is when I free myself from the clutches of the chaotic world. “You are a strong independent woman”, I repeat over and over in my head, to reassure that I don’t end up being my mother, tamed by love and care.

As we searched for kids..

  Clueless about what we were about to experience, we ran to catch the bus outside the campus. The “kid hunt” started right away in a bus where we could merely move our limbs. Our eyes searched for our target of the day: children.

 With a failed attempt in finding them, we got down at the Gandi Mandapam bus stop. With our eyes scanning to detect our subjects, we spotted a little girl dressed up in a pink and glittery gold dress who stood with her stern dad. We approached her. Smiled at her dad. Moved closer to say “Hi!”. The extremely shy girl hid her face by hugging her dad. As we made constant efforts to make conversation with her, her dad smiled asked us to leave. That’s when we realised that there was a fine line from being nice to kids and being a pedophile. And.. we seemed to have crossed that according to her daddy.

The next bus took us to Tambaram. En route to the orphanage that we were to visit we wanted to have regular small talk with the children we met. It was not as easy as we assumed it would be. With parents and elders accompanying them, it was as if we had to get the permission from the manager to interview the celebrity.

There were mixed reactions, with a few mothers who were happily grinning as we spoke with their children and a few who demanded us to stay away and delete the pictures we had clicked :P

 Dharshini (5yrs) and her little sister Jeevi (2yrs) gave us the most hostile stares and were absolutely uninterested in talking with us. Unable to react in anyother way, we had no choice but to smile wide and say, “oh! So cute!”.

 Harry, the international school kid just had a little too much attitude! His mother wondered if we were playing a prank on them and didn’t believe that we were on an assignment from college. With no proof like that of an ID card, we had to delete the pictures of Harry whose mother wouldn’t move until we deleted the pictures that we had taken with her permission.

We reached Tambaram and took a share auto to Arul Illam. With latest tamil songs in full volume and head bangs, we reached kolapakkam with a swag! Though on the way we behaved in the most inappropriate way, by clicking pictures of random children on the streets without anyone’s consent. *pure badass*

 Running short of cash we could afford to buy only chocolates for the kids and decided not to buy pencils that we had planned to buy earlier.

At last, we reached our destination. Arul Illam.

   As we entered the small and weak building, we had a feeling that something amazing was waiting for us. We went up to the first floor where the children where waiting for us. They were assembling chairs for us to sit while the kids were seated on the floor, which made us a little uncomfortable.  We said that we would sit down to interact with them.

 The look on every kid's eye was just so pure. There was some sort of an innocence that we could sense in their faces. We didn't know what to s with so many kids as we were just hoping to do something spontaneously.

  There were a few extremely good singers who sang songs for us. We couldn't play music and make them dance to loosen up a little bit, as there were no speakers. The mood lightened up and we were having a great time that my zygomaticus major muscle was dead tired. Smiling and smiling and smiling. This was only until Kristuraj sang his version of an "Amma" song.

 The smile left our faces... teardrops were ready to trickle down our cheeks. Though it is cliched, there was a thought that passed my mind, thanking my parents for so that they have done for me.

 We couldn't let the room drown into the silence that set in with that song. We sang a few songs and the laughter and the light heartedness returned.

 On our way to the orphanage we were puzzled about what the children thought about complex topics like that of God and religion. As we had nothing else planned for the children we decided to ask them those questions whose answers Nan might never find.

  " kadavul na ena? Kadavul irukara ilaya?" We asked the kids. The question of " what is God? And does God exist?" had various replies.

  We were in for a shock with all the responses we got. One wouldn't generally expect such profound opinions from children who didn't have parents to mould their viewpoints. We were proven to be absolutely wrong. Santosh, an 8 year old said, "God is what we believe in. It's not the various religions like Hinduism, Christianity or Islam." While Jayashree, a class 10 student said, "God to us is Arul sir, the one who is educating US and giving us a comfortable lifestyle."

  There was one very interesting response from a nine year old girl who believed that God didn't exist. She believed that the idol's one worshipped was just stone and that there is nothing called real god. We couldn't decide whether this was because of a traumatic childhood or a well thought opinion.

 As it was the day of Ramzan that we had gone to celebrate with these children, we decided to make them draw or write poems on a sheet of paper individually to give it to the people outside the illam as some sort of a Ramadan gift from the children of Arul Illam.

 Once we told the children  about this they were super excited about the fact that their work was to be given as a token of love to other people. They began to ask questions as to what to draw and what colour to give the mountains and the Sun that they were drawing.

 One of the most touching moments of the day was when shaktivel, an 8 year old boy, drew a Batman logo which had my name designed in it! As he came to me to tel that he had done that specially for me, made my heart melt.

  There were poems on the Tamil hero Vijay and many national flags that were drawn. While I was walking around the room trying to look at what each kid was doing, there was one girl who held on to me like a starfish on a tank. I couldn't do much about it, so I decided to let her hug me as I continued to move around the room. The love they had to share was so immense that there were a few little kids who were refusing to let us go and a girl sheda few drops of tears as we waved goodbye. There were promises made that we would return soon, only for those promises to be broken later.

 On our way back, none of us spoke with each other, owing to the overwhelming experience that we had had. Each of us, immersed in our own thoughts, looked outside the window of the bus, trying to relive that moment.