The Awakening- part 1 ( the beginning)

She woke up long after the police left. She yawned and stretched her long hands. It felt stiff. The sniffer dogs had left a long trail of saliva and grime on her Persian rugs. It disgusted her. The chocolate rug, her favourite, gift from Rahul on her twentieth birthday. She trudged along to the adjoining bathroom. The mirror was tainted. The entire place had a mossy smell. "Ahh I should take more care......" she said lightly touching the glass. She hovered for a while eyeing her reflection. A square white face with deep set sunken eyes and hollow cheeks grimaced back at her.The air smelled stale, damp. The tiles on the floor slippery. Slowly she went to the opposite bedroom. The bed was unmade, it's sheets musty. Even the curtains felt damp; cold and wet. " but where is Anisha?" She wondered................

The storyweaver returns....

Hey, I am back....finally. it's like a long hibernation. But I've always meant to return. And now I've returned as the prodigal worker! But I promise you my readers I won't desert you again. Now I'm part journalist part researcher and part philosopher and a sceptic. My humour and sarcasm levels are a couple of notches up. I apologize to those who don't like it. But then, that's me. But I think going beyond the discourse of the new me and the old me I will just slide back to where I started, what I do best.........my stories. With the Halloween and Diwali mood still on I would love to give you a dose of thrills and chills and real shivers up your spines. So coming soon The Awakening, a short story of mine promising to give you a creepy flavour that you crave this season. So friends just stay tuned for more......

Language of the soul- a short story by Sampriti Biswas

Hello Friends,

hope you all are enjoying in this wonderful festive season. This story is a small Diwali gift from me to my lovely readers. I hope you all like it. Till then see ya folks!

 Language of the soul

It was noon. The midday blazing sun was high on the cloudless sky, as if glaring at every living, breathing creature. The underground metro station was buzzing with the humdrum of office goers, school students, home makers, college-goers. Popular Bollywood masala songs played incessantly on the suspended flat screens of the station. As an air conditioned train approached, everyone hurriedly jostled with each other to move forward, eager to have a seat in the comfort of the AC; it was after all a blessing for the middle class, a temporary relief in their hand-to-mouth existence. Everyone entered as fast as possible, most of them had to stand-it was still a relief to find some foothold, some space. They complained in their own way- some cringed up their noses at an odour; some stamped other’s feet while adjusting to be more comfortable; some elbowed their neighbours; some pushed; others uttered noises of irritation arghh, ahh, ughh......evident sounds of discomfort.

As station after station passed more and more passengers came aboard. In spite of the Air conditioner the train was literally a pressure cooker, brimming to its full. It smelled of sweat, grease and heat had its own unique smell.

In a particular coach, the ladies section was especially in a very bad shape. A few of them had even resorted to tactfully verbally abusing each other. As the busy women sweated profusely, their impending doom of household chores at the end of the day loomed at large, in front of them. They are always ‘double-burdened’. They were, after all, tired, edgy, after a hard day’s work. “Please keep your feet off my sandal madam, in case you don’t know, it hurts” screeched a lady, irritated clad in a pink chiffon with a black leather bag, her golden danglers sparkling as she moved her head in rage. “Oh in case you haven’t noticed there’s not an inch to move, so just feel free to move away your sandal clad, delicate feet instead”, retorted back her neighbour, a middle aged woman in a white salwar-kameez. She dabbed her head with her kerchief quite frequently. Three sitting college girls, giggled out loudly at some joke-some of the standing women glared. An old lady, eyes closed, went on silently praying, her rosary beads in hand. Few lucky women, sitting, tried to rest awhile. Ne even snored softly, her mouth half-opened, drool lacing her parched lips- someone quipped ‘bloody disgusting’.

Suddenly a baby from a corner seat bawled out loudly. The incessant crying went on for a few minutes. Then, quite astonishingly he gave out a wide toothless grin and then with a peal of laughter ending only with a loud belch. Everyone’s attention quickly, shifted to that one tiny mite, about a year old, in the corner clad in a pretty blue dungaree. His mother, sitting beside him, tried to feed him a bottle of milk which he vehemently refused. As the delightful creature squealed in evident pleasure of catching a lock of hair in his hands from his neighbour, a smile appeared on the women’s tired faces. Everyone became engrossed in watching the little adorable child, his frolics, antics, forgetting for some time their pain, their desperation, their daily monotonous existence, the same crowded metro-train ride, the same struggle for a little footing-without speaking yet in a common language, that little life, united them all. Or perhaps, it’s the unspoken language of the soul.

History of the eternal captives....

Hello,

here's my insight on women; although published, this article is very close to my heart.......I hope you all like it.....                                                                                                    

                                 History of the Eternal Captives.

                                                                              

In our illustrious country India, women are worshipped, respected as deities. From Mata Durga the saviour, Mata Kali the demon punisher, Mata Lakshmi the goddess of wealth to Mata Saraswati the devi of learning; all are held in great reverence; each and every God fearing noble citizen abide by them, seek their blessings earnestly. Fortunes are spent in appeasing them; pujas, yajnas etc are made to do by pious Brahmins. Yet the “fortunate” women do not find such great honour in their individual lives. All over the country they are discriminated, they are the victims of domestic abuse, heinous crimes such as rape, infanticide, killing of girl foetus, murder etc. In this context it is apt to say that brutal crimes are committed against them not only in India but also all over the world. They are that hapless gender, the commodified gender; the eternal captives.

They have lived caged lives from time immemorial; from the valiant emperor’s harem, to the once geisha districts and the hellish red light areas. They are the daughters, the mothers, the wives, the sisters; they are the home-makers, the peaceful ones, the forgiving ones, the embodiment of love, values and honesty, the nurturer of all things beautiful. But they are made the scars of the society forcibly. They are burned in the name of dowry, raped and mutilated; her limbs torn apart in the name of lust, her face disfigured beyond recognition; driven to the brink of insanity with acid attacks by spurned lovers. Can we ever forget Delhi’s Nirbhaya? Or the Afghan women who went through unthinkable circumstances in the Taliban rule? Or the recent abduction of school girls by the Boko Haram? Every other day these crimes are increasing in number globally. The very character of the torture meted out to women is changing. The patriarchal system is trying its very best to repress women from seeking their true destinies. They are blamed for their clothes, their figure, their ways of life, their thoughts, ambitions and so on .Their purity, their modesty is of utmost importance.  Unwritten special codes of conduct exist for them all over the world. In the less developed countries the scenario is even more dangerous. For example the Dalit women face great struggle for their survival.

But most of us, the educated global netizens, know all these. So it will be a futile exercise to support these facts with statistics; the prominent daily newspapers give us our regular dose of crime, their related data and statistics. Instead I would try to shift the reader’s attention to the history of these eternal captives as I strive to uncover the long forgotten tracks that have finally led them to their present situation. These tracks have been well covered by time, blood and soil so the journey will be tumultuous. But the endeavour is rewarding nonetheless as it might unearth the very history of our unfortunate kind. The very first question that plagues my mind is that when did the first discrimination happen? Was it with the early cage dwelling man , our forefathers, who first divided their work, for the ease of their daily difficult existence, the first division of labour; that the women would look after the aged and the young ones whilst the stronger male would hunt for food? If it’s so then physical strength had a substantial role to play in this division. Women are matured yet soft, understand emotions and values and to inculcate all these they may have been given the duty of upbringing of their children. Also nature creates a bond between her and her young ones through its own unique creation. Thus the era of stay at home, vulnerable, women started under the protective wing of their chivalrous men.

A mini snapshot of different parts of the world would help us in the analysis. In the Enlightenment, the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau argued that the domestic role of women is a structural precondition for a modern society. The Age of Reason did not bring forth much for women; men including most of the Enlightenment aficionados believed that women were naturally destined to be principally wives and mothers. The higher class women needed to be educated and knowledgeable whereas the lower class women were expected to be economically productive; both for the benefit of their husbands. Here the Nazi Germany deserves special mention. Before 1933 women played important roles in the Nazi organization and were given some autonomy but after Adolf Hitler came to power the activist women were replaced by the bureaucratic women who naturally emphasised feminine virtues; the Nazis believed that women must be subservient to men. But in the time of The Second World War, women worked as nurses, seamstresses, support personnel and in the Luftwaffe although their wages remained vastly unequal and were denied leadership positions. The Nazis viewing the women as agents of fertility murdered two million women in the holocaust. Chinese Women’s Life History is a historical book written by Chen Dongyuan in 1928. This book is thought to be the first to give a systematic introduction to women’s history in China. It intends to explain how the principle of women being inferior to men evolves. He recalls the abuses inflicted on the Chinese women from the ancient times. From McGranan (2010) we come to know how the menstrual blood was thought of as a contaminating agent as she examines the role of the 20^th century women in Tibet. In Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution feminist lobbying gained suffrage and nominal equality for women in education and the workplace. In 2012 feminism was called ‘mortal sin’ by a lawyer representing the Russian Orthodox Church. In South Africa owing to the legacy of apartheid and other extreme social agendas women have become the major victims from drug abuse, gang culture etc. In the United States a pioneering work by Deborah Gray White ‘Ai’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South’ (1985) opens up a great analysis of race, slavery, violence and feminism. The foundation stone of contemporary feminism was laid by Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 treatise The Second Sex. She pens down exquisitely about the atrocities inflicted upon women. Women’s sexuality is of course a tabooed subject all over the world; family planning, abortions etc are thus topics of much debates and discussion. Evils of Dowry are still rampant in major parts of the world. Women have always been the worst affected by the wars; we can easily refer to the comfort women of the Japanese Military. Numerous women were raped, tortured and killed during the Bangladesh Liberation War and before that in the Indian Freedom Struggle. Tahmima Anam’s ‘A Golden Age’ is a heart wrenching read centering on the Bangladesh Mukti Juddha. In the times of the wars especially the world wars the women came out of their homes losing their husbands, brothers, fathers to work in order to support their families. They even worked in the factories to feed their children. This at least gave her liberty to some extent.

But we also have some very powerful women in the history of ‘man’kind. We have women of great merit, valour and perseverance. They were to a great extent the game changers and today’s women owe to some of them significantly for the relative betterment in their existence (for certain section of women in certain parts of the world). Hatshepsut, one of the most successful pharaohs, was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of the ancient Egypt. Women of the Vedic Period in India (circa 1500-1200 BCE) were epitomes of intellectual and spiritual attainments; Ghosha, Apala, Lopamudra, Maitreyi and Gargi were some of them. Gorgo was the wife of King Leonidas, king of the Greek city of Sparta. She was named by Herodotus and was known for her political judgement and wisdom. The Valide Sultan was the title held by the queen mother of a ruling sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The position was the most important one after the sultan himself and she exerted great influence on the affairs of the empire. The most powerful and well known Valide Sultans and Haseki Sultans in the history of Ottoman Empire are Huerrem sultan, Nurbanu Sultan and Koessem Sultan. Anne Boleyn influenced religious development in England indirectly by leading Henry VIII to divorce Catherine of Aragon and break away from the Catholic Church.

 Mother Mary continues to give solace to the wounded souls of the world. A’isha, wife of Muhammad, the prophet, narrates the largest number of Hadiths.  Parampurush SriRamkrishna Paramhansa saw divinity in his wife Mata Sarada Devi.

Today’s women politicians like Germany’s Angela Merkel, India’s Sushma Swaraj, Mamata Banerjee, Sonia Gandhi, the late Indira Gandhi, Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, Pakistan’s the late Benazir Bhutto, Michelle Bachlet the head of UN Women, Hilary Clinton the US Secretary of State, Michelle Obama the first lady of US, Christine Lagarde the French finance minister are some of the notable key players in the global politics. Women like Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa are immortal in the hearts of millions of people around the globe.

Perhaps there is hope for the freedom for the eternal captives as the above mentioned women and many others continue to inspire and encourage the millions of downtrodden helpless women all over the globe. There is change, of course, it has come with time, but the pace is slow and unequal. The 1987 paper Gender and cooperative conflicts by Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen is a very important and interesting read. Prof. Sen says, Household activities have been viewed in many contradictory ways in assessing production and technology. On the one hand, it is not denied that the sustenance, survival and reproduction of workers are obviously essential for the workers being available for outside work. On the other, the activities that produce or support that sustenance, survival or reproduction are typically not regarded as contributing to output, and are often classified as 'unproductive' labour. So women can be both ‘productive’ as well as ‘unproductive’ on the home front depending on how people perceive it. Again working women face the ‘double burden’ of both working outside the home as well as working inside it.

Novels like Arthur Golden’s ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ or Katie Hickman’s ‘The Aviary Gate’ or Tracy Chevalier’s ‘The Virgin Blue’, Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ etc portrays captive women and their sorrows, fear, joy, their undying spirits and their shackled lives. The celebration of the International Women’s Day will have no meaning whatsoever if the society does not change its attitude towards women. The society must acknowledge that she is an independent, free spirited, mature, loving yet firm entity. Given the same care as her male counterparts from childhood she lives longer. Women must be educated everywhere and allowed to pursue their dreams; they must be freely allowed to make their choices and the world must make itself a safer place for them to live in. That unseen chain bordering their lives must be eradicated and this can only be possible if along with the Government, the NGO’s the common man comes forward. Otherwise measures like the Gender related Development Index or the Gender Empowerment Index (started from 1995 by the UN) will never be able to showcase the real scenario and will just be a bunch of data. The over expectations that a common woman face both from her family and the society confines her, confuse her, embitter her and she breaks down both physically and mentally subsequently. Today’s urban women in India are confused in the face of globalisation; should they be traditional or contemporary in body mind actions, what should be the ideal concoction of traditionalism and modernism that  the society might approve of? As the gender politics and positions shift, the society points its finger at women known to be in live-in relationships, or indulge in pre-marital sex etc but never care to stop the commodification of women.

I will end with a positive note; Scottish tennis star Wimbledon champion (singles title) Andy Murray recently chose Amelie Mauresmo as his coach. In the sporting world this came as a big shock. His mother Judy Murray evoked a striking metaphor in a speech she gave in London last month. She said “women are like snowflakes; we float around, we look pretty, and we usually hit a wall and melt away. But if we stick together, we can form a snowball. And snowballs can cause trouble.”

Book Reviews

Hello friends,
Ah! the sweet monsoon is here..........one can curl in a nice, cosy couch with a warm cup of steaming coffee and read a lovely book. Herein comes A Golden Age by Bangladeshi author Tahmima Anam. I tell you my friends it's a must read for all book worms. Also Katie Hickman's The Aviary Gate is very commendable. Friends I will soon be back with the review of these brilliant books and so just stay tuned. Till then, goodbyeeeeeeeeeeee.

Life in a box- a short story

Hello friends,
I am back again.........I hope you are all well. Belated happy poila baisakh to you all, I hope a wonderful year awaits everyone. And here I am with a fresh new short story exclusively for my readers. I hope it delights you. And do give me your much awaited comments...........and then I will be back with more.Till then........bye.

Life in a  box

Everyday Shikha saw the lady with her petty wares on the road. She laid them out with utmost care and diligence, her wares mostly cheap, outdated and dirty to some extent being exposed on the roadside for long. Gently after laying those down, the plastic soap cases, safety pins, tapes, boxes, spools of coloured threads, scrub pads etc, she would dust them and then burn incense sticks in front of a picture of a deity, asking for divine blessings. Her stall was by a very busy, dusty main road with buses, taxis and autos honking loudly all day. But it was the child that caught her eye........... a merry kid about a couple of years old or maybe even less sitting inside a big cardboard box. His mother kept her wares in it every night. The child was not as boisterous as any other children of his age; he was rather a patient, soft and sensitive kid. Sometimes he seemed shy sitting huddled in one corner of the brown hard box, sometimes he laughed out loudly pointing at something and showing it to his mother. At times he even slept inside the box, cosy and unaware of anything around him. His mother looked tired in her threadbare, cotton saree, or frayed salwar kamizes, her sunken eyes filled with a silent grief. Yet the same eyes sometimes lighted up at some antics of her child and she smiled. Sometimes Shikha stopped to buy a packet of cheap ear buds or safety pins for her mother, on her way back from college. It was at these times that she watched Dev, the child, more closely. Shikha was fascinated by Dev, she had never seen a child like him before, small that he was he was so uncomplaining and sensible that she became very respectful of his mother Fulari didi. Even in the hot humid days of summer in Calcutta the duo would be out. Shikha sometimes brought him a sweet, or a lozenge, or an old toy and watched in joy when his soft little fingers clutched them meekly yet with confidence, as if he knew he deserved those.

It happened in the time of Shikha’s final exams. Some of the local goons had threatened Fulari to leave that small space for a friend of theirs who intended to open a cheap dvd stall, selling mostly pirated dvd’s. But Fulari did not go away; it was her only means of livelihood for her fatherless child and herself. So they burned her tiny place down, in the dead of the night, she barely escaping with Dev on her shoulders. There was not even much smoke. As Shikha walked home from college on the last day of her finals, she noticed Dev sitting in front of a shoe store by her mother. The old cardboard box was nowhere to be seen. Fulari lay on the ground, her tear stained face caked with dirt. An aluminium bowl was by Dev’s side, some of the passerby’s threw coins noisily in it without even glancing at the duo. A gaunt man standing in Fulari’s place shouted out loudly with a dvd in his right hand, le jao le jao sabka tis, sabka tis..... A horde of people had gathered around him, of all ages.......busily toying with the much valued items. Shikha bought a chocolate and handed Dev. He took it silently, never meeting her in the eye. His angelic smile was no more on his face, instead, there was a fire in his innocent eyes, they burned with such intensity that Shikha felt afraid, afraid for the civilized world she knew. She touched Dev’s cheek lovingly, he pushed her hand away.

The Decision- A Short Story

Hello friends,
I am back once again with a short story once again written by me just for you all. Its a story about a 'he' and a 'she'.........a story that I am sure many will be able to relate to. This story signifies the pain often faced by unfortunate lovers, their thoughts, their determination. I hope you all like it. Do give me your valuable feedback friends and till then bye.....

                                                                          The Decision

She knew she had made the decision..........she knew it was wrong yet she could not turn back. She knew the Gods were laughing at her, yet she moved on. She knew time could never be turned back yet she trudged on. She needed tranquility, inner peace.......she was too long at war with herself. She wanted an answer once and for all. She knew only then she could move farther. It was never for the best person, oh no, he was far from it. He was fickle-minded, selfish, unsophisticated and brutally realistic. Yet there was a part of her that belonged to him; it was her weakness, her secret which she knew she would carry to her grave. Yet she sought an answer.......an answer which had the potential of changing her life radically forever. She mustered every bit of courage she ever had and with a thudding heart she said what she had discovered long back, “I love you, do you love me?” She knew the answer; it was supposed to be that, anything other than that would have shocked her. She grasped the full meaning of the simple no and the ensuing explanations. He was not a gifted orator and did not choose his words with care; they were like thorns inflicting wounds to her trepidating heart. She understood time had distanced them enough and there was the possibility of another woman...........yet she had perhaps hoped against hope. And when she got the much awaited answer she knew it was all that was for her; it would always be that. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet, she was not unhappy; he was rude, yet she was not unhappy........a heavy burden was lifted off her heart for ever. What remained was a lifetime of bitter sweet memories that would surely fill all her voids in life. What remained was the warmth they once shared........like a flickering fire. What remained was a ray of hope.........maybe someday, a promise to see each other, a hug that had been postponed for years. That was their moment. As tears flowed freely down her cheeks, she could hear their merry laughter ringing in her ears.....hers and his, years before, over a silly joke. She had let go of all that to embrace a lifetime of pain and pretense. No he was never the perfect person, yet she knew she could have had the perfect life with him. But it was all gone, gone forever to never come back in its original shades. The young love was intoxicating, yet never acknowledged. She was foolish not to realise it then, only to lament later. She knew even that she suffered for him was foolish.........yet she pined for his love, his stupid laughs, his stare, his advice. He promised he would always be there, a good friend, even more than that. That was all..........for her.

She had learnt to live her life in her own self created way. She had learned to live in the face of adversities, both big and small. She was on a turbulent sea, an immature, young sailor on a mere raft. Yet she had tried to smile......to carry on. It was then she had understood her true self and realised her mistake. The full gravity of it shocked her. It was too late. Until after years....he came back. His mere words opened the gates to a flood of memories. Oh no, they had never confessed love to each other- their relation was far from that. Yet she knew she loved him in a way, a different way; a love from respect, admiration. She longed to be with him, backing out at the precise moment when they could have met....but they met only to as if lament of the past, to see how they had changed, aged and hardened. There was no future for them........ He was even two faced, at time yet she loved him unconditionally. He kindled her hope and retreated time and again, yet she never could forget him.

Until she made the decision of finally confronting him, was she at deep pain. The pain came back and forth.........sometimes forgotten only to come back with terrible depth. He gave the final reply, she knew it before..........yet she heard the soothing voice, the familiar joking voice, and the sharp reprimands. Yet she found her place back in life, her peace. She knew she had to carry on with life........but she made the final decision too. That she would wait.......wherever she was, whatever she does, whatever he does, she would wait for him even if it took her forever, a lifetime......maybe someday the laughing gods would just pity her; kindly make her happy..........after all that’s all men crave for. She took the decision that she wouldn't deceive any one, not even herself and carry on but she would wait for him and him only as he was truly the man who visited her in her dreams. It was only there he showed his raw, visceral desire for her, his fiery love and promised a lifetime of togetherness. It was only for that dream that her decision to wait lived on.....it was for those wonderfully, precious dreams that her waiting was worth for. She only had to be patient.........for her love.......for her untitled life.........for her unfinished dreams and ........her decision.