pieces of a broken childhood

When i was in 4th grade one day I came home from school to find a kind looking lady standing outside of my door. She said she was called by my mother's boyfriend because she had swallowed all her medicines full packets and was trying to commit suicide. 

Horrified i opened the gate with my set of keys and i let her inside where i found the half versed half cried letter written in pencil where there were a few lines only, a line about loving her daughter, which is supposed to be me, a 10 or 11 year old girl confused about this behaviour of hers. She had been in a bike accident on her boyfriend's bike a year before and had brain damage from it. Lost her job and was in depression. As a very young child it is really hard spending your formative years in that environment. my brain has blocked out the rest of the memory about how this doctor lady sustained her back to life, because i cannot remember anything beyond seeing her in that half unconscious state in her dingy room and having to explain to a stranger that this is a mood i deal with often.

I wish this was an isolated incident. It was not. As a child I had not realised the things my mother was doing indicated that she was highly unfit to parent me at that time.

She would have fights with this boyfriend of hers, who was also to some extent mentally deranged because he tried to teach me mathematics and when i couldnt understand anything he would beat the shit out of me for no reason.

One day my mother had a fight with this guy, it was diwali and the three of us were going on his bike somewhere while both of them were fighting. He stopped his bike midway because he saw some friends of his on the road and wanted to say hi. My mother got down with me, she made me walk back to our apartment with her from wherever we were. She started shouting at me to ask him to come back and telling me why i exist and its all wrong because of me. She kept saying she has no purpose here anymore and that she is going to kill me first and then she will kill herself. 

I did not know i will have to protect myself from her. She grabbed me and started to bang my head heavily on the metal rod on the windows of her room. She hit me repeatedly as she tried to kill me. After about 5 minutes of me screaming, the diwali crackers drowning out my voice and me struggling to break free, i kicked her in the stomach as hard as i was able to, grabbed her phone and rushed to the balcony, locked myself from outside. She came after me running, banging on the grilled door and demanding, screaming at me to open up the door. I did not open it no matter how much she screamed. Now that I think, instead of calling her boyfriend I should have called the police that night. I however did the former. She had left me in that balcony screaming, saying then she will go and end her own life. I stood there, called her boyfriend and sobbed on the phone saying repeatedly "she is trying to kill me, I have locked myself out" I thank god everyday for his existence, because he did come immediately and rang the bell until my mother came out of the room with a knife and opened up the door, tried to swing it at him. I saw all this from the balcony as i looked into the dark living room, he held her against the wall and shouted at her, until maybe she was back to her senses. 

I came out of the balcony, rushed to my room and sat there in my room's tiny balcony with my knees to my chest. It seemed to be over, there was no shouting or screaming anymore.

Since that day, it has been a dozen years, that boyfriend of hers broke up with her after a few years which was natural given her behaviour. I still live with her. I am still afraid she might try to kill me one fine day.

I have no one else to turn to, my mother herself never wants to hear the account of this night from my mouth and when i bring it up to tell her how much it has affected me, and it will remain with me throughout my life, she tells me i am trying to make her feel guilty and why i cannot let it go ever. in my defense it seems really hard for me to let it go.

one of the events in the same lane, that i remember vividly during these years is how she stopped this streak of trying to end her life, she told me once that she felt jealous if i spent any time with her boyfriend. this statement was followed by the events of one night that went like this:

Her boyfriend had come back from a thailand work trip, he brought back chocolates for me, most of which i hated and threw away. For my mother he got expensive alcohol, which i do not know why anyone in their right mind would do. Again, as is obvious, they had a fight, i was watching tv in the dark outside and in my mother's room a soft yellow lamp was glowing. I could hear their argument from the living room, during this she swallowed a very large amount of alcohol from one of those bottles, she swallowed a bunch of her medicines and then she was or pretended to be unconcious, after which she threw up in the entire room, all over, again leaving me and her boyfriend petrified beyond imagination. An ambulance was called and he told me to be in the house, I begged and said that I cannot stay there, the stench of vomit and the screaming that was still ringing in my ear would make me go insane. He did not argue with me and i went to the hospital, my mother was admitted to the ICU, outside which i lay the whole night on a sofa, thinking why i deserve this? thinking why am i never important as someone to take care of? i was barely passing my classes in school, now that i think, i imagine they passsed me in the 4th grade becuase they were aware of my condition at home. 

At the crack of dawn, some attendant placed a copy of that day's Times of India on the coffee table in front of the sofa on which i was lying, the headline read: Delhi CM resigns after 42 days.

It is easy for people to quit in the face of crisis I thought. So easy. 

Later that day, my mother's much trusted doctor told her "if you do this again, we will refuse to admit you in this hospital." She did not try these activities again. 

We moved to a different city a few years later, I saw my mother abuse her mother, I saw her abuse her own brother, I saw her practically having no real connection with anybody, everyone she knew was keeping their acquaintance with her out of the obligation of being a family member, most of whom called her crazy and in need of an asylum. 

My grandmother passed away of a broken heart I think, her son had abandoned her for what it is worth and her daughter behaved worse with her than a stranger, she absolutely hated her mother for everything. I was the last to give my grandmother a glass of water. 

A day before she died, I told her that I was afraid of my mother's behaviour and how she was treating both me and her, my mother had restricted me from even talking to my own grandmother. While I was  giving my grandmother her evening tea the day before she passed away, as i told her this fear of mine she looked at me and said "as long as I am here nothing will happen to you" which brought me to tears because this frail woman who had no means to protect herself, somehow wanted to protect me.

My mother often tells me that if she did not look after me I would have been in the 'gutter'. She openly tells me that I have what I have because she gave it to me, I would be absolutely nowhere without her. While I agree with the fact that after her divorce with my father she worked a very draining job to take care of me and her mother, I do not agree that I would have been in the gutter. Maybe I would have had more or less very traumatic incidents in my life despite her absence, but I wouldn't have to live with the fact that my mother had tried to kill me when I was a helpless child. 

As i have grown older, people have told me that my mother has always been this way, her colleagues, her family members. She married my father against the wishes of everyone in the family, she apparently wanted to escape from her life which is why she had done this. It landed her in a way worse life where she faced domestic abuse by the man she had fallen in love with and married. She told me that she had me in an attempt to save her marriage, and I became a collateral damage of her whole life. My father is a horrible person, I do not have much to say about him. 

I have realised that most of my life my mother has not loved me at all, it has only been when she needed me. When she wanted to feel like she has somebody. The moment she feels she has found somebody else she wants to leave everything behind in a mess and run away with this person, who, again, ends up betraying her in some manner. Not that I blame them, my mother has very little empathy for anybody else and she says very hurtful things to people most of the time without even realising it. She has never stopped abusing me mentally or physically, for all her own mistakes. 

I breathe with more ease when I am away from her. Life feels easier, lighter, happier. It is true that as you grow older, older memories start to have newer perspectives in life. Things that you had not realised before. These realisations make you question everything. My mother hates me for my life even, me having a stable boyfriend, going to have a stable job in a different city, someone who loves me.

As children we feel things even before we realise or know what this feeling is called, it only becomes clear to us when we are older, what we actually felt. 

 

dynatroy

I lay on the paper-like hospital bed of the emergency room. a hole in my left arm let drops of Dynatroy surge into my body like blood. slowly draining away the pain. as i silently and half sleepily lay on those sheets, a daunting realization washed over me. "what is the biggest fear of my life?" a resounding answer came from the parts of my brain not busy processing Dynatroy was "being left alone."

However, this realization was not scary or new. I knew it in the back of my mind, from where the answer came. I realized something else. what makes the fear so big?

It started when I was 4 and unmindfully asked my mother to promise me she would never leave me and to do anything the stay demanded in the upcoming years. The little things I would always do to please people no matter how badly things were going for me underneath all the concern. I would go out of my way to help others and always be the better person, the bigger person or the smaller person, whatever the sacrifice was for not being alone.

sacrifice. the bigger the sacrifice, the bigger the fear. the sacrifice of going out of your comfort zone for years for a person, the sacrifice of being vulnerable to them that you wouldn't be to anyone else, the sacrifice of sharing everything you had hidden. the sacrifice of laying down all your weapons and then prating to god that you are not judged for it. slowly it builds the fear and feeds it even more. for someone to leave after having witnessed those parts of you and your life. 

when i lay on those white sheets alone i wondered, i have been good at making people happy, making people love me and yet here i am alone in this hospital bed. without anyone. crying alone at the reception. nobody's son and nobody's daughter. just laying there and surrendering to the Dynatroy which helped me drown my pain in a way humans could not.

often i have wondered that there must be something wrong with me. and lately i have begun to take that as a "so what?" thing. yes something is wrong with me, what about it? let it be wrong. if everything was meant to be right then i would have been god. 

but i am no god. nothing is godlike about me.

the Dynatroy was almost over but my pain was not coming back. i wondered if that is what relief would feel like in the life outside my body too. but it never did. what is my life's Dynatroy?

i dont know, and maybe i never will. maybe something will come someday and straight away pierce my skin and shoot up my veins with such relief that slowly drains out all the trauma i have ever endured and all the pain i have cradled so long that my brain hurts.

and may i be left alone, for the sacrifices i and others have made by being vulnerable were never sacrifices at all, it was just part of being human

sleep well

To, The Last Day of August

 Dear Last Day of August

As i write this letter to you, my veins are overflowing with hot blood and my mind is quite thrown off  balance by reminiscing the unkindess of the predecessor of your days. 

I know you will arrive in a few hours, but here are a few things I wish you brought with yourself: empathy for September, some respite from my disturbed frame of mind, comfort in the form of love, preferably packed in boxes big enough so i can dissappear in them, and the most expensive thing of them all - a peace of mind. I seem to have slowly lost the last item over the past month. 

As the year drives itself into the foggy lanes of September, I know not what lies ahead of me. Only what was lost in August winds. Admittedly, life had shown me its dark and disgusting colours till the second last day of this colourless and cruel month. It is through sincere request that i ask of the last day to bring me a much needed respite.

The disappointment and agony that trusting fellow humans and putting your love into someone can bring has only come to my notice quite menacingly these past 29 days. I thought I was reflecting on things in June and July but to be honest, August was the nastiest of these realizations. 

Oftentimes I have found myself staring at the pink wall opposite my bed with my heart racing on account of a fresh new disappointment. Tears do not come to me naturally anymore, my heart grows numb day by day. Things still shock me, and I have no idea how many of these shocks and of what degree are enough to shut down my hopes for the things I have wished for in the future.

At this point if someone were to use the words "it will get better" they will decidedly make it worse. 

Many Augusts ago, I was afraid of the winter. I was afraid that the year drives itself into madness and crashes into the wall of 31st December. Accelerated, perhaps by the fuel of my own madness. Now, I think differently, This year has shown me what struggles are in my own life or precisely, that even though you might be facing the most vile adversities, you have to show up with a smiling face and a beautiful character. Everything taken gracefully and with an open heart. 

Dear Lord, have I believed in something so against the fabric of my being before? I do not know. And if so, please forgive me, for the world you have crafted has led me to this road of living in dishonesty to my own emotions.

Now as the fog of September tries to engulf me in its ruins ahead, glorified and romaticised by the mist, let me tell you this, respected Last Day of August, I will not fall for its lies and deceit. 

August has opened my eyes.

Hopefully still,

Person

the ministry of gnarly disguises

your sweet disposition

behind which your nothingness hides

hollow and cruel

never felt happiness, never felt sorrow

and you will be snide and cruel

for tomorrow and tomorrow

burning the world with your silence

not a word of disgrace uttered

only shown

only felt, like a knife piercing my palm

the cradle of despair

creaks when i laugh at your jokes

unable to oil away

the emptiness of it

and once a dove sat at my window

as i wanted to feel its feathers

a hawk snatched it away

bloody and barren 

stains on my window

and the stench of death

washing away every bit of peace

same as you do

and you are nobody's friend

nobody's foe

laugh in joy

absent in sorrow

bitter and hard 

faithfulness punished

my dignity skinned alive

in the trial of truth

moral compasses have tilted to the right

or maybe lost its balance

just a hollow circle with a directionless arrow

moving at your convenience

skin to bone, bone to marrow

for at tomorrow's dawn

your sweet disposition 

will wrap itself like a blanket

of deceit on your face

ready to strip me naked again

A Notice

 I never justified as to why this blog is named "words in coffee cups"

Here are some images that may provide explanations to the same. Enjoy. 

Thanks, Goodnight.

Musings Of A Miser

Sleeping deeply at night is a distant dream for me. Afternoons, however, present a more promising respite from my sleep deprived mind, today I wrote jumbled words consciously in my class notes which gave me some awareness of the state of my mind. The afternoons have recently started transporting me right to the epicenter of my subconscious mind, seeing things that I would generally not want to think of. Completely paralysing all possible forms of motor functions in my body. As a child, such dormancy used to make me anxious, imagining people moving ahead of me in that time. Children have a million other wasteful activities to keep them stimulated. I used to wake up angry and irritated, bargaining for the time I lost out in the world, the time I won't get back. That too with my confused grandmother, who felt least amused by this behaviour of mine.

Now, things are different. The constant chittering of the electrons in my brain need considerable power saving hours. I want to lose out. After all, this generation is not far off from treating our bodies like machines. To note one of the behaviours I have observed in myself so far this year, there is a lack of will power. Is there any way to rekindle interests or even old vices?

Everyday, I carry a steel pink lighter in my bag. Failing to understand what I want to do with it. Do I wish to smoke a cigarette? Yes, perhaps a Marlboro Advanced. To be utterly specific. However, the moment I see the cigarette shop, I cannot seem to make my way towards it. Something stops me. Do I not want to smoke alone? I do not understand this behaviour myself. These days I have stopped spending on anything. Barring the absolute neccesities like taking the public transport (even in this regard I find myself arguing whether to take the more comfortable bus or the cheaper alternative), I hate the idea of money being spent. Sometimes, I have found that I would rather suffer in an adversity, when I can easily use my monetary support to mitigate it. A miser, which is what I just found out the term for this sort of person is. That sounds too close to misery. Which is what this sort of behaviour makes a person, miserable. 

I promise I am working on it. 

Being Confused About Identities, I suppose.

 None of our own habits are really our own habits. I think we hardly know ourselves, everyday we find out a different segment of the house within us, built by someone else.

In the past few days I realised it is as easy to pick up the best in people as is easy to pickup the worst too, humans are selectives sponges. Absorbing only what caters to our needs. I am hardly honest with myself about myself. Often times I find the maintaining of a journal also futile because i find that I am unable to be fully wedded to the idea of honesty even in my personal diary. The relationship is already built on the foundation of cheating as you can find me writing here. As if writing on the web would be harder to discover for people than my neatly hidden journal. To ask myself who is it that judges me would be a foolish question because I possess the harsh awareness, that it is none other than myself. 

Maybe I need to let go of this innate fear of being perceived. It is not judgement by the world that stops me. What is it? do I want to have a holier-than-thou image or am I just really such a person and suffering from borderline personality disorder trying to prove to myself that I may not be who i believe myself to be.

See? I am already finding out much about myself through this eccentric rambling at 11 am in the morning on Sunday, the 11th of this month (11th already!).

 Why do I not have better things to do? 

Things to do:

1. Read my to-be-read books...no wait, that really is not as important as 2. finish the reading for this week's course material. and 3. finish editing the magazine the first draft of which has been requested by this week, but 4. decide what i will be wearing to my cousin grandmother's death anniversary (not my cousin, my mother's cousin's mother) lunch is looming on me more heavily. It is such a morbidity feigning decision.

Isn't that strange? not my deciding how to dress, but throwing of a luncheon for a dead person? I wonder if someone will throw me a luncheon when I am no more. What will they eat? It is most unlikely that my mother will be aware of the dishes I enjoyed eating, although it is a grave thought to have for one's mother to be alive a year after their child's death anniversary. However, why should people eat what I used to enjoy eating, that too a year after my ashes turn to dust and earth? I suppose it is not the case when we are alive. Like Anne Frank said, the dead receive more flowers than the living because regret is more powerful than love. What a pitiful world we live in. 

The list is not complete, and my thoughts have stagnated. I shall return with them next time.