I'll rise - the spirit of a woman

Every woman goes through phases of being looked down upon, of being isolated, of sorrow, of troubles, of being emotionally frail, of being called weak.

I’ve been trying to figure out how best to describe a woman when I came across this beautifully written piece by Dr. Maya Angelou, the American author-poet.

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

the melodious her..

She took in another drag amidst the small ring-like clouds she huffed, just so the husk would stay in her voice, for that perfect break when she hit the highest pitch followed by a loud strum on her acoustic. Her dark black braid danced somewhere around the left shoulder, strands of careless hair straying across her cheeks. A perpetual hint of pout on her round face flirted with her perfectly arched brows. Her uncared for skin radiated some warmth, it was uncanny. A steady, almost stubborn reminder of her beauty was the melody she weaved in her songs.

I cannot fathom what was so perfect in her, when everything around her was just so wrong and just so raw.

Shhhh...that person is MAD...yes? no!!

Shreya was on the verge of committing suicide this morning. Her close friend had seen her go towards the hostel terrace & had followed her when she did not reply to her calls; only to find her sitting on the railing & staring at the miniature vehicles below. After forcing to get down to the safer side & pulling to go back to attend the class, did Shreya confide to her about the thought of suicide.

She held me close as she wept. Shreya was her only daughter; a brilliant student, a gifted flute player & really beautiful. But soon after her graduation, she started being someone she wasn’t. Her situation could not be described, for there were days which were never absolutely normal. Either she was too cheerful to stop laughing all day or she was gloomy enough to pull her hair one by one from the scalp. She stopped being her usual self & her mood could transform to hysteria in a matter of few minutes.

On consultation & second opinions from the best psychiatrists in the city, Shreya was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder.

Seeing her mother cry, I strangely felt nothing but a whole lot of emotions surging through me. After a decade, I still vividly remember delivering my child & hating it from the moment I saw it. I still feel that it looked like a monster with patchy, really dark skin, on those initial days. I preferred not seeing it in the first week but I had to feed it.

As days passed I started liking the monster, after all how long do you hate someone who’s a part of you. The patchy skin gave way to soft fair skin & he turned from being a monster to being my angel. Everyone kept saying that he looked so from day one & they frowned at me when I told them about his previous state of ugliness. My husband consulted the gynaec, who told that I suffered from postpartum depression. She promised that it was common & that it would soon go away.

I remember sitting on the rocking chair contemplating suicide. I had no reasons for doing so, but I wanted my life to end. I knew it was because of my situation but how do you control the thoughts, shut them down? The thought of my baby, my family held me back. They are the only reason I am alive today.

I remember overhearing Shreya’s mother tell her friend over a tele-converstaion, that I was a mad-woman & that I needed to meet some tantrik. She even thought that I was possessed by the devil himself. It took me a year to be normal again. It was the support & patience of my husband that brought me back.

Now I watch her weeping. Should I take her daughter to a tantrik? 

****

Have you ever realized that information is actually the cure to many blind beliefs? We tend to believe nonsense when we do not know the truth. It seems only rational when you are equipped with knowledge.
Yes, the power of knowledge. 
And no, not every person who is not in the right frame of mind is MAD.

the storm

Those were the last days of summer just before the winter was to set in. Mom was waiting for dad’s Ford to drive in. Little Vani ran around in the house with the dead tortoise from the aquarium in her pyjamas, something I was waiting for mom to find out. Everything that day seemed to set in an hour early, even the sun. Mom was still standing in the balcony looking at the far end of the round as far as her eyes could take her, the pallu of her faded sari fluttering in the wind.

That night Vani slept with the tortoise in her pocket. Later, mom almost whispered this to me “Veena, the heart has the power to overrule any storm; it also has the power to brew & blend stillness into the storm it conceives with no rhyme but a lot of reasons”

Vani doesn’t remember our father returning that night. She doesn’t remember him at all, now.