Tag Archives: anger

The Cynic in Me is Cynical about being Cynical

Cynic
Sometimes I feel I write such rubbish, why do I write at all? No one will read what I write ever. Then what is the point in writing? Anyway, I think I write because writing is what I do. There are times when I look around the world and see everything wrong. At that moment I know the cynic in me is alive, like right now. When the cynic wakes up…the world seems like a strange place and I feel like a stranger to myself. My cynic is a tall man around seven feet high, he walks with a little hunch and has a scar on the left side of his face. He looks like a Red Indian. He has brown hair tied behind in a rough knot, and his soft eyes show remorse and regret. He has a loud hoarse voice, which needs to be heard, if you don’t hear him he will speak louder and louder, until he is sure you have heard him. He is in his mid fifties and has knowledge about everything happening around the world. He is angry and sad.

According to him, water that we drink is bad, the food we eat is ostentatious, the seasons are not the same they used to be, little children are being raped, the financial stability of countries and individuals is questionable, cholesterol and sugar are all time high…so on and so forth. The world is a horrible place to live in, he remarks. Nothing seems to be right. People are marketing themselves and their skills just like whores and sitting and judging the whores.

Everything that we know is up for sale including a crash course in soul cleansing. Organizations are milking their people dry for performance and numbers, they are making sure their get into the psyche and soul of each individual do a quick repair for greater performance. Everyone is conning everyone into believing their truth, when there is none. Media can be easily bought and the rich can create their own stories and their own history. The poor on the other hand are busy feeling victimized all the time, they seem to have only time for their sob stories. These sob stories also get bought to make some movies and documentaries, which the poor have no clue about. Rich nations are telling stories that they want to, about themselves and show the poor nations in the light they want to show. Everyone seems to be busy creating their own piece of illusion, sitting inside their own bubble. Sometimes they call this bubble, “Perspective”. Everything has been made so damn complicated, the money is complicated, relationships are complicated, work is complicated. Marriages don’t last. Love doesn’t last. People throw their garbage around. I don’t see a single clean mud ground. People with wolves make them shit all over the place and don’t bother picking up. This is the time a big tsunami should come and end this world, he states as a matter of fact.

When the cynic is alive the dark clouds emerge and a sunlit day has all shades of Grey. That day everything seems pointless and fake. He is like a bully, who stops everything that is happening and questions the purpose of it all, not wanting any answers but knowing that the answer is hopeless.

He rebukes the Gullible me and hurts her badly. She sits and sobs. He yells at the Neurotic me and she runs, scrambles to do something with her time. And after he has made his voice heard, the Cynic sits with his face covered in both his palms and turns into a scared little boy.

His little voice speaks between shivers, I am scared of you, I am scared of the world, I am scared of the future, what is happening to me…he shrieks as his shivers increase. I run to him and hold him in my arms…”shh…shh…all will be fine…I am there for you…I love you” I hold him tight and rock him through the night…

Image Courtesy: http://chiasuanchong.com/category/devils-advocate-da/

Bed Ridden Patriarchy and My Issues with Self Acceptance

Patriarchy

I am the eldest of the three daughters and was raised by a single working mother. Being independent is not only a value but it runs in my blood. I was raised to believe I am no less than a man and there is nothing I can’ achieve. My growing up years were filled with brawls with my school boys, self defense practice and studies for earning money while I was growing up in Mumbai. There was also something else, which I can’t forget, a lot of pity from people. People who believed that not having a father or a brother made us helpless and hopeless. So I took the role of the elder brother and my mother became the father. So in our family actually it was mother and elder sister who were missing. But I guess no one realized that.
I would bully any boy or girl who tried to patronize my sisters and also bully my sisters into doing what I wanted them to do. Me and my mother became the patriarchs. I also created new story about my family structure just to ensure that I was not pitied by the society.
I grew up to be extremely successful in a man’s world, I made money, travelled the world and most importantly I was considered powerful. Since success of a woman was equated with dysfunctional marriage or no marriage, I proved the hypothesis null and void by getting engaged to a successful man of the same caste belonging to a extremely patriarchal family approved by the patriarchal society.
Now I was one with the society, my close family and larger family was awestruck with what I had achieved. I was now a part of the society and was trying to learn its ways constantly. But I was still not sure which role I was in my family.
 Men will eat first, they need to be served, I need to wear a Saree and seek my in-laws approval, I shouldn’t sit on an equal seat as men…I started to mould myself to fit in. I was a coward trying to rebel from within my self, not knowing what is it that I looking for. I was torn.
My mother and sisters were shocked at my self transformation from a bullying teenage girl, to a powerful career woman, to a subservient daughter-in-law ( the patriarch in me believed, that is how it should be).
I became an unhappy and angry wife and started having issues with my husband. Latent anger and rage started affecting me physically and mentally.
In this story I am not the central character. The central character is my father-in-law the carrier of extreme patriarchy which took me 500 years back in human evolution. He and my mother-in-law became my teachers who helped me realize what I really wanted and what I will not accept.
My father-in-law’s conversations were degrading and disgusting. He spoke of women like slaves and objects. I started having deep feeling of abject resentment of myself when he was around. He would just sit or lie down the whole day, only getting up for his bath or defecation. During his bath or defecation the warm water had to be filled by my mother-in-law, she was an epitome of a great self sacrificing woman- always ready with “Garam-Garam roti”
Today after eleven years of my marriage my father-in-law continues to sit and order around while my mother-in-law serves like a chained slave. Now he believes that as he is growing older, she also needs to feed him, put water in his mouth, give him a bath and wash him after defecation. This man has no Physical issues, no diabetes, no heart problem, no cholesterol, no obesity. But my mother-in-law does whatever he expects her to do. It fills me with disgust when I see them in the act . I cannot relate with them. I do not want to relate with them, I seem to have come to my senses after many years of trying to learn “How to sacrifice self for others?”. It is like a cosmic jolt to my own camouflaging Patriarchy.
Who brought me to my senses? Do not be surprised, It is my mother in-law. These days every morning she comes to me with tears and pain in her eyes like a whipped animal, and says “Forty Four years, this man has ruined my life. God why don’t you just give me death.” This man calls her to serve him every five minutes, so she can’t be anywhere but near him. When he says “I have had a great life, I have done a lot for my sons.” I just want to shake him up with all my rage. This is a man who stopped working at the age of fifty and has been sitting or lying on his arse since then. He talks endlessly about morality and what a great man he his, how the coming times will be horrible, how the food we eat is horrible, how Mumbai will drown in a horrible Tsunami, how everything is horrible. This man for me is bedridden hopeless patriarchy within me, which is acting like a vegetable but its voice will be there for another twenty years, testing our hope for a bright future.
I have tried to detach myself from the voice but now I think this voice is my path to self acceptance.

I still don’t know what to do about my situation? but I know what to be….I will be myself, I will follow my instinct and wisdom in  my daily interaction. If I do not agree to any statement I would practice courage. Although I know I will get to practice a lot about self preservation and self growth while they are around….but I still want them to leave my space…NOW!!