#womeninsurgery and other things ft. Happy Women’s day!

“It’s a beautiful day to save lives”, a line from the show Grey’s anatomy which took a million girls by storm and thrust them into a surgical career to follow into the footsteps of Meredith Grey – someone I would learn off much later, connect to and sometimes be appalled at because of the hot mess she is. I had no clue, not a wee bit that looking at women in surgery and being a woman in surgery required such nerves of steel.

It’s a beautiful day today to pen down a post on what my almost inconsequential baby steps into the field of surgery has meant to me. From watching my mother run back and forth from home to hospital at any time of the day gulping an entire roti in bites of four – to me repeating the same pattern and barely managing to see my beautiful 2bhk that I maintain with sky high rent while working 90hr weeks and an NBM more than my patients.

The world has changed most definitely – there are more women in surgery – you have no idea how heartwarming it is to see when someone who said they are confused whether they should take Pediatrics or Pathology (because that’s what expected of ideal female doctors to get into and build family in a nurturing role that allows them to balance home with) instead of taking surgery, finally taking the surgical branch. There are more women in Super speciality surgical branches  even though a female pursuing an Mch degree is considered as ‘too ambitious’, ‘unsuitable for family life’, ‘won’t manage home’ and deemed unfit in the marriage market because the ones who make the demands are like fiefs sitting in a bazaar bartering women by the degrees and wanting the moolah alongside the demands of “Will you step back when it’s time to plan a family?” I had met a gastrosurgeon once who told how he led a busy life with 16-18 hours surgery and was unable to contribute to home yet he expects the surgeon wife in a similarly demanding field to be okay with him coming and going as he pleased and taking a step back when needed. He proudly declared how his friends had earlier told that a surgeon wife would be unsuitable.  It was almost funny, yet ironic. I have always watched how my father despite not being from the medical field has taken an almost indulgent share in my mother’s flourishing obstetric career braving her late night labour calls and OTs by dropping her back and forth from hospital sometimes sleeping in the parking lot. Never making demands of what a ‘conventional wife’ must do. Thinking of new ways to see her grow in her career and I have realized for every brave woman in surgery there also a braver partner who supports her through it. The ones who remind them that they got their back through it all. May we all be blessed with them.

Being a woman in surgery is knowing all this and also battling the learning curve alongside. While your biological clocks keep ticking you are their struggling in the OT under the lights. Your bodies through period flow and cramps standing through 12 hour OTs performing to its best –  because in surgery neither there are excuses nor sorry. You only get one chance and you have to grab it. For women these chances are also quite rare to come by.

I did my residency in one of the prestigious colleges in Karnataka – yet there was a whispered adage in the department – your life goes smooth in this department if you are a guy. The guys clinked glasses with the professors in private and in the classes gave mind numbingly stupid answers only to get away with it and be performing a procedure alone in OT the next day. The beauty of it was your self doubt would keep  increasing exponentially while they muddled in their ignorant bliss to glory. With surgical learning curve being so steep, you were left at the very negative odds of it. There are times you wonder if you should have taken a more female friendly branch – Dermatology or perhaps OBG. Yet somehow my uncle’s face during his last days of battle with cancer kept haunting my brain and I wondered what is this field which despite having a family of doctors we could never decipher or beat. Thus began my journey into it.

Four years down the  lane do I regret being in a branch that literally sucks my soul and makes me doubt myself everyday as I begin from the scratch – learning, unlearning and learning again? Yes, most definitely yes. There are times I feel I could have taken a medical branch and just been at it. Sometimes even the most ridiculously sweet patients, stories and gooey mush my heart is  in with the countless number of compliments, blessings that my patients give me falls short when a male surgeon misbehaves with me or tells me how girls are not fit for this – when the male locker room talk in operative procedures makes me feel like running away from the crassness of it all. When you do not get the same respect as a male surgeon by the nursing staff who treat them with more gravitas. Where your talent and skills are kept to the side and you can be just reduced to someone hit on or ogled at. When sheer exhaustion takes over with the balance of personal and professional. When yet another family friend – a doctor couple – tells my parents that they made a mistake letting me get into Head and neck surgery because guys do not see me as wife material. When yet another duty, yet another long shift and yet another exhausting day at work doesn’t leave me with the headspace to talk to my loved ones and suspect if everyone is actually true? That as a girl I might have forayed into something that’s professionally exciting yet personally draining. Maybe it’s time to take a step back?

But again I hold the scalpel and get the shivers like I did the first time – the happy ones – and as I slice open a neck I realize I am doing something that none of my forefathers, family or friends have dreamt of doing. I get to see the things that no one in my vicinity has done and tell a silent prayer to that little girl who dreamt big dreams and is getting to live it. I do my OPDs and rounds and ward rounds and know that I bring an empathy that most men can’t and that’s what sets me apart every time a patient smiles and remembers my face even after days.  I get handed a oddly sketched drawing by a patient’s child who wanted to give me a chocolate or get a text from patient I discharged home happily a week back,  “thank you happy women’s day for all that you do so exceptionally” or get hugged randomly by a patient or an ajji through a difficult diagnosis and know that some way I have impacted and made someone’s life better. When I am in my night shifts or in between OTs and have someone to ask me if I ate or slept through my shifts and bear my mood swings through it all and I wonder – being a woman in surgery is not a big deal once you have the right support system for it? Having parents who nitpicked yet let me grow academically/ professionally to the fullest which many, many, many girls step back with the lack of fills my heart with plain gratitude. No one will ever understand the sacrifices it takes to be family or a friend to a female surgeon – yet people do, and I am grateful for it. I am grateful for all the mess I am and every person who takes the pain and pleasure in unraveling it. Being in an unconventional path might have taken its toll, but in the end I have been left only with the realest ones.

As women we have held ourselves back for far too long by confining ourselves to the purview of what can be done or cannot to a point we don’t even know what we want anymore. We do not take credit, we do not make our presence known, neither our sacrifices or the work or love we put into the tiniest of things in our day to day lives. Here is to speaking up more, letting our presence known and most importantly letting ourselves be okay with acknowledging it.

So, here’s to all the brave women and braver #womeninsurgery – may we know them, may we be them and may we raise them. To having the magic of scalpel in our hands.

Happy Women’s Day ! 🙂

Love,

P.

PS:

The sketched chocolate my patient’s child gave me. ❤️

PPS:

In my happy space.

End of the year ruminations ft. My way or highway?

With the earth taking a revolution around the sun, the optimists scream new year, new me; the realists scream it’s just a change of calendar; the pessimists might just say fuck it and do what they are doing anyway. I had been wondering for a few weeks, ever since my last post of how I don’t want to make resolutions – which category do I fit into. Maybe I am the veritable cat on the wall – I have always found it difficult to grab a polarized opinion. Being on the fence helps me know that I can always take the comfort of either side as the tide changes without committing to the consequences of each. So maybe, my first resolution for 2024 is to start making resolutions. To be less on the fence and more in tune with what I want. Setting boundaries – or in my case discovering boundaries and setting them.

There was this beautiful quote in Dear Zindagi, Shahrukh looks and Kiara and says, “Agar hum apni zindagi ka steering wheel apne haath mein nahi lenge na … toh koi doosra driver seat par baith jayega”, and I feel this is so important in every context. Boundaries look like fences to us which is why I have always used them rarely, it is only off late I have realised that boundaries are a way to gatekeep my own desires and needs from anyone who is not me – be it my friends, siblings, extended family, colleagues, lovers or even my parents. There is a certain guilt or shame that comes to me when I don’t pour into them. A certain dissatisfaction when I am not going all the way out to do something they want. That’s something I can work on in 2024.

2023 was the year I made a lot of changes. Getting out of residency and its set pattern of ways to finally live in a city, work more independently and live independently opened up a thought process I lacked before. When we are kids there are so many things we learn to live with – my mum got Nescafe for coffee and Tata tea for tea. Now that I am nearing the end of my twenties and living in her own flat and having the liberty to do things on her own, every day I am learning newer ways to do life. I find I like Bru and Cothas coffee. When I want to make a cup of adrak chai, I like to use Brooke bond.

Residency and its toxicity had put my brain in survival mode for a long time – my nervous system was jumpy and I had developed coping strategies that people would not normally choose in a healthy atmosphere. Finding a good Fellowship program and mentor that literally said, ” Happy holidays, enjoy, no worries” when I asked to extend my holiday from 2 to 4 because I was clearly guilt tripping asking for one at the first time made me realise that life actually changes with the boundaries and the consideration to your own self you put in them.

Living in a hostel having the liberty to just open the door and having someone to talk to makes you find a comfort zone of the same routines, the same parties and the same conversations. Living alone and the loneliness that came with it helped me discover things I like to do on my own again. I started writing again (albeit, rarely), no one guilt shamed me for just taking a book and spending my time reading it in a cafe, I could pick up my bag again and wander in museums and streets taking in the culture of things I have never seen before, I discovered I could again cut out the noise and listen to songs and found newer genres of music and newer songs I liked. In a world that asked me to settle I tried dating someone for the first time wholeheartedly who brought a newer perspective to everything I thought I deserved and ways I could be treated – having someone as a rock solid support system to give you the liberty to pursue other things in life was calming in ways I had never felt before. Understanding that even in such relationships not taking it for granted and investing time and effort to keep regular check ins without making it just a part of your routine and vent out was the second lesson. Trying to move on from something that significant quickly by using quick fix mechanisms and not acknowledging I am hurt was third. Breathe, pace out, new lovers will come, yet let me acknowledge that what I had was significant and worth crying over. You don’t lose someone you see your future with everyday, and even in that loss if you are alone – it’s okay. I discovered different ways to do things and the way I liked to do it. I found different opinions on things but my own voice in it. Also, no one can decide your timeline except yourself.

There is a certain beauty in knowing the year is ending and a new one starts – because even if a part of me is realistic to know nothing will change, a part of me is also hopeful that with a new year comes the new possibilities of things and newer ways of doing it. Even if the settings are the same and life is following set patterns and cycles of things – I will get the chance to do the same things in a different way and get a different outcome.

Adios 2023, you were bittersweet. 2024, I am ready for your lessons but I have a few tricks of my own now. I believe you will be a gamechanger – mostly because you start on a Monday. *Facepalms*

Cheers.

Again?

There are feelings

Solitary

Empty

I feel mostly

Yet feelings have no meaning in them.

They are mixed –

Like every other attachment I’ve felt in the past

Careless

Idiotic

Like a summer sunset you would miss out on for the accompanying heat.

But the feelings feel different this time

It’s a strange mix of yearning and guilt

Being the perpetrator and not the victim

Being the loved not the lover

Being the one who didn’t stay

The one who didn’t say.

And now that I feel this

I feel it’s good to have overlooked, over loved, over cared in the past

Because this guilt,

This burgeoning ball of guilt

Makes me feel I have fallen

With no arms to catch me,

Because I had cut them myself.

मौसम

He said he can’t tolerate
Shades of me
As varied as the weather of the city we lived in then
He couldn’t tolerate
The way I had an opinion
Loud enough to break the glass his thinking was entrapped in.

He said I wouldn’t be
What they said was “domestic”
I had ways too unbridled
Too free
Too uncharted
For him to a put a finger to

That my unique was a hindrance
My different was a difference
Both could never meet
And he was happy to let go
And shove another on my face

One who knew how to play the cards well
Knowing to push and pull
Knowing not to be everything to him
Knowing how guys like him detest girls like me

Girls who want to be something
Before becoming someone’s
And for a long time I thought
The fault was in me.

He said he couldn’t tolerate
How I was as moody as the city we lived in
But now I am in a city
With a weather moodier than me
And people seem just as eager to love it.

CAN YOU AND I STAY POSITIVE IN THIS LOCKDOWN? Ft. Coping Strategies

It’s so hard to stay positive when we are trapped in a pandemic situation and on the top of it depressing news are getting added up – it only makes me think of the times which were simpler – like drawing a smiley face on my bread loaf in Apollo when I finally got to eat food after working at a strech till 5pm. The truth is even those days were hard, but we were too caught up in our lives to debate why it’s hard – now we are stuck, in our homes without work – some unfortunate ones away from home with a lot of work and recession looming overhead.
It’s frustrating and frankly depressing. What can we do? I created a list for myself to turn to whenever I’m depressed and want to check myself. I hope it helps you too 🙂
1. I find that sometimes the best way to get out of the cycle of negativity is to count your blessings amidst it. You can keep a journal – count the things you are thankful for. I keep one, and it’s a great thing to look back when you are caught up in the dark with no sight if light. Just spend 15 minutes with it every day and record the things you are thankful for! You might realise you are having more fun in this lockdown that you realise 🙂




2. Makeover. This the absolute best time to get yourself a makeover. And I don’t mean the outer one – an inner, spiritual makeover can gift you a better future where you have the right coping  techniques to deal with tough situations in a better way. I started therapy for this; and I am being tremendously helped by it. Ofcourse I am still not done yet, progress is slow – but the slower things are the deeper they impact. I can’t wait to come out as a better person and be a better friend, daughter, sister, partner to people post this lockdown 🙂



3. Pamper yourself. Skincare. Haircare. Yes, now I am talking about the outer makeover too. Now that you don’t have to show up for work expose yourself to pollution and grime – it’s the best time rejuvenate what you’ve lost – oil your hair everyday : No one is going to call a champu, because no one can see you sitting at home! 🤷🏻‍♀️ Geddit? Moisturize, scrub, detan, massage yourself with inexpertise (salon wali ka massage bohut yaad aata hai 🥺). Just unlock that lockdown glow.




4. Workout, workout, workout. I can’t stress on this. A simple workout has the ability to make yourself feel better by decreasing stress hormones and increasing the serotonin, the happy chemical. Today morning I felt so fucked up after reading about the vizag tragedy I spent minutes scrolling my twitter feed, reading, debating, getting stuck in a negative loop – but one dance fitness class with my favorite trainer Naveen on Cult. Fit later – I was back on track.




5. Practice clean eating. It’s hard I know, when your body wants to make that 10th plate of maggi when you’re so lazy to cook for yourself three times a day when the maid doesn’t come – but c’mon yaar! That new diet you’d been waiting to try but couldn’t because of bad hostel/ PG food/ cook adding too much oil to stuff – now you can happily indulge in it. Clean eating with lots of fruits and vegetables and minimal oil has been shown to boost happiness. So add those reds, greens and orange to your diet, will you?




6. Try spending time with your family. If you are away from them video call and talk. If you are fortunately like me stuck with them in this lockdown, you can spend a lot of them with personally. Help them with their chores. Try to make their lives and home brighter as our parents are getting old and need our support now more than ever. Some of us who are going away for higher studies, this might be the only time we get to spend them – so use it wisely. Talk to them even if you risk running into awkward conversations that make you want to break the lockdown and runaway like – marriage! *Squeals and hides*



7. I remember when I was a kid we used to have very long summer vacations. Summer in Odisha can get pretty hot and you could be pretty sure whatever date they had given for the holidays to end – it would keep on extending – just like this lockdown. I loved it then, I wonder why this was bothering me now – mostly I realised because then we used to appreciate our time alone – now we need a lot of distractions to make us feel better about ourselves. This lockdown is the perfect excuse to indulge guilt-free in your hobbies. If you are a photographer then improve your photography skills. If you are a writer, write each day. If you love to read books, read one if you have or download a PDF and read everyday. I feel this lockdown is God’s challenge to everyone who said they needed time to be able to follow their passion. Aapke paas duniya bhar ka time hai ab, fir aapka excuse kya hai to have a profession that compromised on your passion?




8. Last but not the least, chill the fuck out of this lockdown. Kya pata itna free time dobaara kal ho na ho!


Cheers,Parnini.

To my grandfather with love

Dear Jeje,

There’s not a day I don’t miss you.

I haven’t eaten a orange candy since days,
Noone gets it for me while secretly buying paan from the local shop now.
The pan box and the art of paan hiding is lost to me,
There’s no one I have to worry to choke on betel nuts now.

Papa made me cut his hair that day,
While I combed through it,
I could only think of the texture of your hair and the number of greys in them when you said –
“French, Russian, Chinese – which hairstyle will you give me today, Sanu”, and enjoy while I made you look like a clown.

I play songs and mamma sings to them,
I watch movies and mamma watches with me,
But I don’t dare to watch Anand, Padosan and Sahib Bibi ghulam again,
You won’t laugh crazily when “Ek chatur naar” plays.

Some ask me how being a girl I am interested in cricket
They don’t know the number of fours and sixes we have cheered
The number of time I risked the dining table top falling over,
As I danced on it when Sachin beat his six.

When someone tries to tease me I think of your goofy smiled jokes and pinches,
I am still irritated easily,
But I tone it down than I did with you,
I could do anything to you and you would still love me – they won’t.

I remember you sitting on the porch
And call out to me for tenth lemonade as you chat happily with your best friend or welcome me whenever I came back from school,
I don’t see him now,
I don’t even see the porch now.

I remember the midnight I was pressing your feet tired from studying
You woke up from sleep and said my face shines brighter than the moon
It’s still better than the dozen compliments I recieve
From the half-hearted men that half love me everyday.

Emotions aren’t honest once you digitalize them,
Maybe writing this would mean I am showing off
My poetry skills or humane touch
But we don’t have to be sad and still miss someone everyday.

I might not be your favorite grandchild,
But you were my favourite grandparent.
I can make a dozen friends
But none of them can fill the void of a grandfather like you.

DEAR VIKRAM FROM #THAPPAD – WHAT YOU AND I BOTH NEEDED TO LEARN FROM AMU

Vikram, tumhari galti nahi thi. I needed to start with this. You know, few days back in my locality a neighbor filed a domestic violence against her husband; when her husband hit her she filed an FIR, she stood in the dead of night in the rain not going inside the house – it surprised me in the most surprising way. I thought it was brave of her, not that it was logical – why didn’t I think a man hitting his wife is something that can be resolved, Vikram? Maybe because I have seen a drunken uncle beat his wife and watched her never walk away and people hail it as the ultimate sacrifice for keeping the family reputation intact. Maybe because I have seen the women in my family being taught their place too. Maybe because my mother defends that and tells me I should obey when my husband will ask me to do too. Maybe because my mother tells me stories of how when a man cheats on his wife it’s always because the wife never kept him happy; not that he cheated. Maybe because my father would tell a woman who speaks creates family problems. Maybe because the guy I dated in college told me he didn’t consider me wife material as I have a lot of opinions. Maybe I did tone down for him – removing myself from social sphere, wearing only ethnic, lowering my voice and self to find his place under him. Why did I want to be under him, Vikram? Do we come from the same conditioning? Do we think everything can be compromised as long as we seem perfect to the world with having a relationship than working out a relationship?

How can it be your fault when even my mother, my Maa, my aunts, my conditioning of years and years has taught me to compromise. How can it be your fault when I see what you did and I found Amu’s response unreasonable too. How can it be your fault when I saw those one or two kisses or a hug you gave here and there to the efforts Amu made and thought it was enough too. How can it be your fault when in my family men decided what women wear, how they talk, how they behave, their pitch for years and my mothers never chose to protest; sometimes not even me. How can it be your fault when a family’s reputation is always greater than a woman’s needs. How can it be your fault for doing everything a middle class man has been taught to do?

Vikram tumhari galti toh bilkul bhi nahi thi. You went to office, you worked, you tried to best in your work – it was great, I cheered for you. I am a career minded woman – I know how difficult it is. The pressure of having to perform, the office politics, the deadlines, the meetings, the appraisals… you know. It’s perfectly reasonable to burst out – I do myself – on my Maa, my mother, my best friend, my sister – but I wonder why never on the guy in my life. I thought I was a feminist, I am the equal in the relationship – but I never make it hard on the literal “man” in the relationship. Maybe, a part of me has accepted the conditioning and compromised. Maybe a part of me feels, it has to bend to a man and massage his ego always. How can it be your fault when the woman never knew how she deserved to be treated? When Amu admits that “hum dono mein sab baraabar ka tha.. woh office sambhalega aur mein ghar”, it sounded so simple – hogayi hai emancipation – but home is not only about household work; it has relationships and emotions too; she never distributed that load with you – how is it your fault?

When you went to Amu’s house after she leaves your home after you hit her and offered her a hug, a simple apology and an ornament as a gift to ask her to come back – I was floored. If I was in her place I would’ve come back – why are my expectations so low, Vikram? My father always taught me how I should be ruthless in my career, i followed it; he taught me to be ruthless in the world and reign over it, I try to do it; but that night when he and I were discussing he said how Sita should have towed the Lakshman Rekha and she faced all she did as she didn’t listen to the advice of her elder. I asked him who is the elder – he said Ram – I asked innocently, “By age?” – he replied, “No, by being her husband.” “How being someone’s husband makes you their elder?”, I told this to my father and he said I will have a lot of problems in my marriage in future. Even my aunt tells me this every time I tell her a guy treated me poorly – she tells it’s something I have done. She never sees how the guy mistreated me in the first place for me to burst out on him. In the end you said you hit her because you thought you had a right on her; is this what my father and aunt meant too, Vikram? Is making a guy my husband or my partner allowing him to draw the lines for me? Is it letting him treat me whatever way he wants and me having to be the one that compromises and massages his ego each time? Don’t I need to be taken care of emotionally too?

Vikram tumhari galti thi aur meri bhi. You know I love fairy tales. I was even obsessed with Twilight. Now that I am 26, my best friend tries to convince me of even liking Christian Grey. But you see the pattern right? Emotionally unavailable men, with supernatural skills or unnatural wealth as their only saving grace. Unhealthy romances with the guy being so unsure of his feelings he decided to fuck up the girl’s brain too; the love is in the chase – not the man. The love is in the outer covering, not the insides – when millennial girls are raised on these, will they demand healthy guys who know how to treat a woman right ever? They won’t. I have seen the media of our parental generation – if it taught them unhealthy marriages; my generation media and movies has taught unhealthy romance. Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh is famous – psycho guys who control the woman of their life and are toxic to every other girl calling it love. I think just like Amu and you took a break from each other finally to understand how you both can grow as healthy individuals to begin again with or without each other in the future – our generation needs to revaluate what’s love and needs to grow too.

I hope you and Amu find each other again at a later point of your life when you have figured out your shortcomings. Yes, I don’t denounce you as bad – how can you bad when you were conditioned to behave that way. We can’t decide where we came from – but we can definitely decide where we to go. I hope you find your place, even if it’s not next to Amu as her husband again – I hope you both are great parents to your child.

Love,

A girl who will try to be Amu from now on.

***

PS : I am glad to be living in times when a movie like #Thappad is being made. It has taught me how to demand not only a financially secure future with a man but an emotionally secure future too. It has laid out roles for everyone in this. If you are a girl’s father you get to look at Amu’s dad who was rock solid support for Amu from start till end – and even didn’t hesitate chiding his son from misbehaving with his girlfriend trying to save him from being another Vikram. If you are a mother-in- law it teaches you to be like Amu’s mother-in-law in the end letting her go and be happy. If you are a neighbor it’s being like Dia Mirza in this movie refusing to give false witness to save Vikram’s ass and tell that she had a wonderful husband who respected her and treated her the right way – he shouldn’t try to obliterate the respect she has for men-kind. If you are stuck in a bad love marriage like Nethra looking for escape outside marriage, trying to find your lost lover in another guy, maybe you need an escape from the marriage itself; not try to honor lost love by sticking to an unhappy marriage and fuck up the guy’s life outside your marriage too. I thought the housemaid’s ignorance and acceptance of her poverty and living will always let her accept that her husband bashed her up to show that he is a man every night. If she could rise above that to stand up against her man – can’t we? We can. If you are the man who I build my future with reading this, I hope you know now what we both need to bring to the table. I won’t compromise and I won’t let you too. Let’s be equals, for real.

“Just a slap?”

“Just a slap par nahi maar sakta.”

A letter to my beautiful self

Hey sweetheart,

You call everyone a sweetheart

You call everyone “mine”

But how long will it take you

To handover that same gratitude

To your very self

And make yourself your “mine”.

Didn’t get it?

I couldn’t at first too.

But that’s how it works

This thing with one and two

Of every one around the world

Who have learnt the trick

To keeping their self loved.

They wake up everyday

Even wash their face

But when they lift their face to the mirror

They keep it there

(Not the way you flinch away)

And tell their horrid selves

I love you,

I love you I love you I love you

Like I’ve never loved anyone else.

Like I’ve never felt for anybody else.

I love you like you are the only thing that can love me

Or make me happy

So I’ll love you and keep you happy.

I know it now,

I am writing on the back of my palms and hands

Getting it tattoed on my skin

I could dream of a hundred men

To come save me

In a hundred ways

Yet a single none of them

Would ever love me

The way I can love myself.

Love,

P.

New beginnings

Those new beginnings they ask me of
I want them too
But put this on record
Right now
Right at this end
I dream of another night with you.

Those new places they ask me out to
Golden days; beaches and salty air
Yes, I would have them
But put this on record
If I could
Never without you.

One can never know
What last times might life show.
When we dream of chances;
We should dream of knowing when to not let them slip by as well.
All I know
What matters now
Is to act on what I’ve already known
And feel that this is it,
Let go
Let go
(Or would you hold on?)
I need to know
Before letting go.

Those new beginnings they ask me of
I want them too
But put this on record
Right now
Right at this end
I dreamt of a forever with you.

Six months of disgrace

There are times my mind wanders,
To a time gone by,
A time that tortured me,
Like a soul sucking fly.

I think and think,
But I can’t remember the face.
The man who carried out
What was to be six months of disgrace.

I moan over my torn reputation,
I think about construction areas and sun drenched afternoons
I also think about my hands trying desperately to clutch
To a pair of hands too slippery to begin with;
Which is why they let go so abruptly soon.

I think about all the people talking behind my back,
My best friends talking infront,
The mess makers talking down at me –
“Just forget him and focus on your own life. He never cared for you”
Was what I got after letting my emotions spiral down at their behest.

I think about all the raging days,
And crying in my best friend’s safe space
I thought I was so cool,
Didn’t respect the layers I had donned by the by,
That unravelled at the slightest prick.
I thought I was strong,
But found out I was strongly sensitive.
‘Such a fool!’
I cursed at myself over that piece of shit.

I think about how he broke my barriers day after day,
And then pierced me at my vulnerable best.
I remember all his snide remarks trying to make me feel small,
All his probes at my defences.
For the very life of me,
I couldn’t gather, a little bit of self respect.

Every day he battered me down,
With his lies and games that became the talk of town,
I forgot anything good that had happened between us
For me to get involved in the first place.

One year later now,
Now that I am safe and sound,
I realise that it wasn’t so complicated as it seemed.
That maybe that’s how these feelings work,
It clicks with one,
And rejects another – who doesn’t meet what the soul needs.
That it was chance, fate or destiny whatever,
That had led my eyes to a pair of eyes beneath
And your luck, my bad karma or whatever
That I thought I could replicate those feelings I had two summers back with the scraps you threw at me.

Thank you,
For letting me go,
Correction : Almost pushing me out!
I could never have loved you,
I now admit.
I hope you find peace in the arms you’ve settled in,
Enough to never come looking for me
And if ever, our paths cross each other
Please take the nearest exit –
Or my hands will form a fist on your lying, scheming, manipulative face –
And it won’t be as poetic as this.