Safe...

This happened to me a couple of days back. I was waiting to pick my little one up at his bus stop. It was 2:30 in the afternoon, the street was pretty busy with so many shops around and lots of people. I suddenly notice that a person who’s walking in the opposite direction, suddenly turns around and starts walking towards me. I get scared. With every step he’s taking in my direction, I grew increasingly nervous. I am 34 years old. It is an afternoon, there are at least 20 people around, not particularly close but close enough to hear me if i were to scream.

But I did not feel safe. At all.

5 minutes. That was all. For 5 minutes, he was walking around me. A little sway in his step, and that's all it took to terrify me.

When my little one's school van stopped, this person started walking faster. And I was ready to pick up my son and run. But then I realized he was just trying to get into the van not knowing it’s a school van, he might have looked at me and believed this is where people stood to take a taxi…maybe. However, my 5 minute hell was real. I was so scared. I felt vulnerable. I felt unsafe.

What could be the reason?

The reason is that this is not a one off incident. In my 34 years of life, I've seen a great number of men behaving inappropriately towards us. So many instances. So many lucky escapes. So many so-called safe spaces, absolutely unsafe. We’ve seen a lot and nothing feels safe anymore.

Give us nunchucks, or a pepper spray, or swaddle us in clothes, or put us in an iron armor - but all it takes is one man walking towards us when we are alone, to make us feel unsafe. We could run, yes, but how many times, from how many men, and until when? And to be honest, we are tired. Tired of being on our toes day in and day out. It’s exhausting.

So, no - cladding us in safety gear or locking us indoors is not going to work. It never did.

When the problem isn’t lying with us, how will imposing solutions on us help? 

We’ve spent years trying to do that…and failed….!

So maybe, at least now, let's start with those who make things unsafe for us…

These people are often hidden in plain sight. Their words, their jokes, their ‘harmless’ jibes give them out - when we spot them around us - let’s call them out, hold them accountable, tell them it’s wrong…tell them it's not ok. Shout. Scream. Until all of them learn that they can no longer get away with this. Until they can see themselves as the monsters they’ve become. 

To those who urge women to stay safe… tell me

What is safe?

When is safe?

Warmth

If I could carry just one thing with me,

it would be the warmth of your hugs...
I’d take a bottle full of your love along
and when the world turns too cold to be,
I’d open the bottle and set it free...
I know it will come back to me,
and cover me up like warm yarn.

Picking up the pieces

One thing about being too critical of yourself is that nothing ever seems good enough. The words that once easily danced on the paper - would slowly lose their ease. The dreams wouldn't have that starry sheen - they'd just fade into nothingness. The poems wouldn't feel alive, the stories would get lost, and the soul struggles.

Second guessing becomes a habit, and you wouldn't remember how everything was so effortless in the past. You try to create again and again, but something always falls short. You have this perfect image in head, but nothing seems to come close enough. Even though you know that perfection is not possible all the time, you'd still seek for it - and in the process you lose bits and pieces of yourself that has made you delightfully you. 

I know this. I do. But I really don't understand why I keep trashing my own ideas. Why I always end up weighing my worth on a scale that never existed. Or why I feel so little all the time.

I wish I could stop finding my worth in perfectly written prose, or beautifully woven poems, or elegantly drawn lines - Instead I wish I could find myself in the mess of thoughts I have, in the imperfect poems I write, and in the stories that keep me alive. 

I wish I could pick all the bits and pieces of myself that I've given up. I wish I could pull myself together, and rewrite my story over again. I wish I could bring back the time - where everything felt so effortless and every word was so full of life.

Magic :)

For me - magic is something that's always lingering around - it is very sneaky - if we are not paying enough attention, it just slips through the creases of time. 

Like a child's smile that we miss while our eyes scroll along with the mobile screen.

Like the leaves that dance to the tunes of wind.

Like a series of traffic lights that seem to be playing a secret game.

Like the cycle bell that sets nostalgia in motion.
Like those stars that blanket our dreams.

For me - magic is simple. It is a fun little thing that makes us smile, but if we aren't looking for it - it struggles to reach us. May be, that's the reason I am always on a lookout for them - I try to capture them in words, in poems, in sketches, and in stories. Once frozen in art - magic can be shared. It can be relived over and over and over again.

And trust me, all of us can use a dose of magic every now and then.