It's been a long wait. I really wish it to be over now. It's been years that Mumbai has waited. The city runs in our blood. Time and again, it repeats itself. The long wait continues for us everytime..for our loved ones to be freed of this torture, of the belief that Mumbai is a place where when one goes out and she might not return back home.
The stranger I can relate to so well -she is like me.Mumbai runs in her blood too. The stranger suffers..and my heart breaks.Three officers laid down their lives. I don't know them well. But, my heart breaks. I want it to stop now.
I don't know the people in Nariman house either.But, their house seems so like mine. It disturbs my sleep. I cannot imagine my city like that..with people with guns running about our home.
Tear becomes a dew drop with the touch of leaf. With touch, it becomes the tear that fills the ocean and makes it whole. Tear becomes a rain drop with the touch of earth. Under the rising sun, on the blade of newborn grass the droplet announces coming of a season.
With the touch of his finger tear comes alive and speaks of those thousand words words could not speak ..of love, hope and peace.
It's not a dent in that silver idol. It's just a black spot on silver. It can be washed clean.
The wedding shopping for a woman begins with buying a silver idol of GoddessParvati. I started mine with the Parvati with her straight backbone and lean posture. Then days later one aunt noticed a defect, a dent in the idol. My mother like any other believing mother took the dent on the idol to her heart. Deep inside the dent did disturb me a bit too. Though I did not give it a conscious thought.. Mother decided to change it and get a new one. This was months later and I had finished most of my other shopping till then..Parvati was the first thing I bought and I wanted her to stay with me. So what she had a defect in her. But then you shouldn't keep a defective idol they say. So I kept quiet and agreed to getting a new idol.
Mother decided to change her and yet couldn't make it to the shop a couple of times. Finally, the festival of lights danced at every window. Laxmipuja. I had the most bright Diwali this Diwali. Love lights you up like nothing else does.
This was the first LaxmiPuja I attended; where I could understand the woman my mother always spoke to me about. Ideology that talks about the strength of the woman, the divinity of her idol in all her temples made perfect sense to me. Maybe because I have grown now and can identify with her more now.
The marigold saffron, the rangoli creeper green, yellow of the earthen lamps. First time in my life as I bowed my head in front of her under the Diwali lights I saw another head bend down in rhythm with me.I smiled.
The day became a beautiful night by the time I went back home. Mother said she could not go to the shop again. I spoke to her about the LaxmiPuja. Then suddenly I picked up the Parvati idol and it struck me that the idol is not defective. It is just a black spot, silver getting blackish over time.
Mother and me , we had a spark in our eye as we saw the flawless figurine shine under water.
Can time stand still a bit? I want to touch every pixel in the image. I want to see every second before it becomes a minute. Sometimes when you find a book you love to read you don't want to turn a page.
The magic happens just. You cannot see it being born one spark at a time. Yet you know the miracle for a miracle for just that.
In my teens I used to think being a single woman was a statement-of strength and independence and of style. The single creative woman and her pack of cigarettes. The single rich and famous woman..the one we get to see in Bombay Times. The social butterfly with the come into my parlor approach towards suave men . These are the single women. I used to believe of the single woman passionate about some art form, too intellectual to take the conventional route .
I used to think then that I is a stand-alone thing. It has to be that way to feel your full strength. One needs to be superior in some respect to want to be alone. ..I used to think. That image in my head of a single woman, that of a woman wearing silver and stones. The woman an activist, that woman the owner of some plush boutique.
I was a teenager some years back. And I patronized the single woman ..the one in my head.
She has been with my family for more than a decade. She doesn't know how one reads time from a clock. Her family doesn't like her much. She is pretty daft, we all say and know. Her siblings don't like her visiting them. Her husband used to beat her up just after they got married. He was already married to another woman. The couple needed a full-time maid and they thought she was a cheaper option.
Other day as I read through another Bombay Times story of some rich single woman who got ditched by her rich fiance... I remembered her. The single woman I have known all these years. She is an uneducated yet employed and empowered woman.
Absolutely alone. She will never be the cover page for any women's magazine. Some of us never outgrow our teens.
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