Content

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Her wardrobe was an explosion of colour and glitz. Radhika was spoilt for choice when it came to clothes, accessories and almost everything else she wanted. She was the pampered wife of a millionaire who went on endless business trips around the globe in search of better deals and more money. They owned a lot wealth and lead a lavish life; an outsider could never find any flaws in their life.

Yet, as she stood in front of her cupboard trying to decide what to wear to the party that night, she felt a strange sense of emptiness. She couldn't fathom what it was. Maybe it was time to shop for new clothes and bags. Maybe the diamonds had been worn too many times and it was time for a new set. Or could it be because it had been long since a holiday in an exotic resort in a faraway land?

What was it she lacked? Why did she feel empty? Her thoughts were disturbed as she looked down from her window at the adjoining slum. Where did these people come from? She watched with shock and disgust as two urchins sifted through the garbage, picking bottles and jars. When their sacks fattened up with objects of glass and plastic, they exchanged them with a man, for some money.

The children dashed to the nearby shop that sold fly infested samosas, pastries and snacks dripping with oil. Radhika watched them munch hungrily on the samosas. Their faces burst into smiles as they wiped their oily hands on their knickers and prepared for a nap near the stinking pile of garbage. She then realised what was wrong. She had never once felt content.





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My Home away from Home

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It is difficult to tell you my story without choking on my words and wetting my eyes. Nevertheless I’ll give it a try. I am an ordinary person just like you. I dream, hope love and want to be loved, just like you. Aged twenty, I live with a group of like-minded people whose stories are different from mine, yet astonishingly similar if you care to pay a closer look.

I always knew I was different. Of course, we are all different, that’s not what I mean. I was different in a way people found unsettling and imperfect. Have you ever wondered what it is like to feel and think like a woman but to be expected to behave like a man because of a cruel, sadistic game of fate? I doubt it. Well, I was intimidated beyond measure that I wanted to shrink to the size of a speck of dust and freely fly around unnoticed.

I may have looked like a man but I always wanted to be a woman; I am a woman. My parents never understood me; I feel they never tried to. To them I was a cursed lump of flesh that grew in my mother’s cursed womb just to bring shame and ill-luck to the family. Taunted, teased, bullied and assaulted, I was the tip of many a rude joke. The wounds family and society inflicted mercilessly on me still feel fresh and the pain, searing.

Unable to bear it any longer, I fled with no particular destination in mind. I began my journey of escape. I soon found people like me and I can’t explain the relief I felt to be taken into their fold, to be seen as part of family. They took care of my needs, taught me how to earn a living and loved me for what I was. I find it strange that my own family saw me as a stranger but a group of strangers made me a part of their family. This was where I belonged, before my soul lost its way and entered the lump of flesh in my mother’s womb by a fateful error.

For the first time in my life, I felt at peace. It felt good to be back home, away from home.

This post was written for the IndiSpire prompt
Write a story ending with "..... It felt good to be back home."#MyStory

Linking to : http://www.writetribe.com/write-tribe-pro-blogger-challenge/
and http://ultimateblogchallenge.com/ 

Woman of the Night

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I am the woman of the night,

a dirty secret kept from daylight,

whose day comes alive at dusk

with a painted face and a touch of musk.

My captivating looks seek to lure

a man or two I am forced to endure

in silent pain and a lifetime of grief

so my babies sleep with some relief.

I live this life cursed and infernal

to fulfil instincts purely maternal.

The least I need is your heartless judgement,

an infliction worse than this predicament.

I am the woman of the night

erased from your life by daylight

before a fine gentleman you become

in whose life I’m most unwelcome.

Hospitality

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My balcony overlooks a small hut built (illegally) on an empty plot of land by a family of migrant labourers from north Karnataka. A couple lives there with their five year old son. The man works as a construction labourer and the woman works in a few houses as a maid. Their son, a really naughty brat picks up fights with stray dogs and roams around in dirty clothes, has dirty brown hair, a leaky nose and dirty nails. They grow their own vegetables in the plot of land, pilfer water and electricity from neighbouring houses and sneak out of their house before sunrise to squat by the roadside to flush out their bowels.

We have been neighbours for the past 4 years but hardly spoke to each other until recently, there being no common language for communication and my urban conditioning raising suspicions about them being thieves or worse, frequenting my house asking for favours. But soon, the lady of the house started giving me an occasional nod and smile and so gradually I started returning them too.

As I had feared, the little boy, comforted by the presumption that his mother and I had become “friends”, frequented my house every day. He was barely three and knew neither his mother tongue nor English; a blank canvas where I could freely paint. I taught him some songs and rhymes that he seemed to enjoy, numbers, names of things and so on. He would wait for me to return from work and just barge into my house, unrestricted by the codes of conduct that I was bound by right from my childhood.

Last year, much to my surprise, his mother told me that she had enrolled him in the local school (by then we had begun conversing in short sentences, thanks to my improving Kannada). I was really happy to see him in clean clothes, well groomed, eagerly walking to school. He came home every day and told me what all he had learnt. I could see the unmistakable glint of pride in his parents’ faces when he recited “1 to 100” or “One, two, buckle my shoe”. One day, with a liberal dose of cajoling and persuasion from the boy, I accepted his invitation to their home. They were celebrating Durga Puja and wanted to do so with their son’s “first teacher”.

I was totally flattered by the love and respect I got from the entire family. Since there was enough space for only two adults to be in the house simultaneously, the boy’s mother called me in, spread out a clean mat and served hot rice, lentils and tasty sweets that she had painstakingly made with the limited facilities (a crude grinding stone and a firewood stove was all she had) while the extended family waited outside, by the road. I cannot describe in words what I felt that day, for it was a cocktail of humility, embarrassment, gratitude, happiness, sadness and surprise.

It did not end there. They had arranged clean drinking water just for me and the lady of the house gifted me with an extra helping of fruits, sweets and snacks to take home for my husband and mother. I was deeply moved by their hospitality and generosity. They could hardly afford to feed their son with fruits and sweets but felt it necessary to treat me well. I drowned in a surge of emotions. This incident was so touching; it will remain in my memory forever.

I learnt a great lesson in hospitality and reciprocated the love by sharing sweets and gifts during Diwali. I realized that to be blessed with plenty and then share the extras is one thing, but to share one’s meal when the next meal itself is doubtful is another, that requires a really kind heart. 

                                                       

This post was written as part of the Ultimate blog challenge and the Write Tribe Pro Blogger Challenge
http://writetribe.com/write-tribe-pro-blogger-challenge/

Share a Tiffin

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With just a day left for the Blog to Feed a Child campaign to end, I thought of writing one more post to do my tiny bit in eliminating classroom hunger. The number of young stomachs that go hungry in India is huge and classroom hunger is one of the reasons behind students dropping out of schools. Want of money for meals drives children away from school, to work as labourers, mechanics, cleaners and cooks.

If the RTE and all other campaigns towards ensuring better and equal opportunities in education for all children of India are to bear fruit, elimination of classroom hunger is a must. The government already has a mid-day meal programme running and several NGOs notably the Akshaya Patra foundation are doing a great job in this regard. But the number of mouths to be fed far exceeds the output of these community kitchens and there have been serious flaws in the execution of the mid-day meal programme of the government.

So it is time to share responsibility with the government and do our bit as voluntary groups, corporates, NGOs social workers or just as a citizen who cares. Here is a suggestion for what we can do as individuals at a more personal level than donating for the cause.

Sharing Your Tiffin

The basic idea is to encourage children to volunteer to carry extra tiffin box to share with a needy class/school mate. Share a tiffin programme can be of use especially in private schools which enrol students from underprivileged backgrounds through the RTE act. Very often being a minority in private schools, these children face ridicule and isolation by teachers and students that makes them drop out. Added to this the problems of poverty and hunger makes them flee from the intellectual demands of academics. Due to the small number of such children in these schools, there is hardly any NGO that supplies them food.

Nutritional and social inclusion of children can be made possible if sharing a tiffin box is encouraged. It involves other children of the school (along with their parents) volunteering to take up responsibility of sharing a meal (nutritional food) with one class mate from a less privileged background for a certain period of time. Given the diversity of eating habits, number of kids admitted through RTE and their needs, the programme can be implemented differently in different contexts. The whole idea is to bring together kids, socially and emotionally over a tiffin box.

    I am going to #BlogToFeedAChild with Akshaya Patra and BlogAdda.

Black and White

Anita loved reading stories to her seven year old son. She looked forward to those moments of togetherness, when both of them would cuddle inside a blanket after dinner and step into the truly bewitching world of stories. Fairy tales, stories with moral, fables, folk lore and stories from her own childhood would come alive in their cosy little den every night without fail. Nikhil loved stories that taught him some value. He would imagine himself as the protagonist of such stories and feel like a hero, with so many good deeds to his credit. “I will grow up to be an honest, caring and wise man” he told his mother, who would then feel proud of her kid. “My son will grow up with a lot of good values”, she thought to herself with great happiness.

One evening, as usual mother and child prepared themselves for story time. With great curiosity and interest, little Nikhil listened to a story that taught him the important value of compassion. The story became etched in his mind and he decided to be kind and try his best to help people in need. Apart from wanting to make his parents proud, he also wanted to feel good about helping someone in trouble. Anita told him many more stories that fascinated him, but this one was always in the forefront of his memories. It was his favourite story. He badly wanted to experience the joy of caring and sharing. He just did not know where to get started.

On his way back from school one day, he happened to get the coveted window seat. He was only interested in the window and not the seat. He gazed with childish amusement at all the wayside sights- people returning from work, other school children, shopkeepers and hawkers, beggars, high rises, houses, huts, tents, trees and so many other things. He then saw something that touched a raw nerve. A child of his age was begging on the streets, a baby girl ( probably his sister) in his arms. Initially he was surprised at that sight, but deep hurt and many many questions haunted him during the rest of the journey. Why didn’t the boy go to school? Why were they poor unlike him? How could he help the boy? Nikhil decided to do something about it and bring a smile on the boy’s face.

Anita was pleased that her son empathised with the street urchin. She repeated to him, “Good boys care for others and help them in times of trouble. You feel like helping that boy. So you are very good at heart. Daddy and Mummy are very proud of you!” Nikhil felt triumphant. He was going to give his parents and the boy a big surprise. The next day, he did not take the school bus home. He roamed the streets in search of the boy and his sister. He found them and talked to them. He learned that the boy and his sister had been orphaned. They were hungry and had to beg or pick pockets to get enough money for some bread. His heart went out to them. He seemed to know what to do.

Anita was surprised that the boy hadn't come home. She was beginning to get worried and decided to call the school. Her fears melted when she heard the doorbell ring. She rushed to open the door. What she saw left her perplexed and angry. There he was, her little one Nikhil, holding the hand of a dirty, unkempt kid from the street carrying a baby with dirty nails, tattered clothes and a running nose. “We will take care of them Mummy”, he said excitedly.

Her head was spinning. How could they have kids from the street at home? What if they were part of a group of gangsters? What if they carried some disease? What would friends and family say about these new filthy members of the family? This was ridiculous. No one did such things. She lost her temper and screamed, “What’s wrong with you Nikhil? Go inside, take a shower NOW! And for God’s sake ask these creatures to go back.”

Dark clouds of sadness gathered on Nikhil’s face. He was deeply hurt.” I thought you would like the surprise, Mummy” he cried. The other two kids stared without any expression on their faces. They were used to being screamed at, so they left silently, without any fuss. But Nikhil was inconsolable. He threw himself on the bed thinking about his new friends who left suddenly. That was his first encounter with the hypocritical world of adults which was like a black and white chess board.