This is it

This is it. The end of the line. I want to start afresh, break all links with the past. Just be myself. Dolly Ghosh, mother to Jigeesha, wife of Jaydip Ghosh, and lecturer in English in an institution located in the back of beyond. No past. No family I was born into. I would like to think I just appeared on earth one fine day and started to function and grow. Like some wild seed, accidentally in fertile soil, nurtured by sun and rain and flowered into what I am today.

Cutting links with the past seems to be the most important thing in my life now. Today is supposed to be my birthday and I like to think of it as just another day in my life. The wishes of friends and others seem unwarranted. Do we ever wish a flower happy birthday or an ant, or a tree or a tiger? They too live as I do.

No disregard here to the little teddy bear birthday cake my husband and daughter bought and presented me with because I was upset and disturbed about certain recent incidents. It was the nicest gesture and touched me deep. Made me feel needed and loved. But gestures of love can be made as "un-birthday" (Lewis Carrol, of course) gestures too. Its the caring that matters. Family is a matter of caring. I always believed that. It was somewhare along the line that the family I was born into stopped caring for me. They wanted caring too but what I did was obviously insufficient. But no one ever asked me if what I got was sufficient. Accusations and counter accusations have followed. Confrontations have led to conflicts. Did I do anything wrong? I must have. But I can't wipe the past out. To my immature sensibilities then what I did seemed just the thing to do. No one stopped or explained to me. Now they expect me to understand and take all the blame. I do not feel in a frame of mind to take all the blame. So I would like to break away from it all. And just save and nuture my identity as wife and mother. God are you on my side? Wish me luck.

Backseat blues

Recently, I learnt that a little girl whom I have watched growing up had become a soon-to-be published novel writer. Trisha is the daughter of a very close friend of mine. In fact when she was born, I appointed myself her godmother. We share a lovely relationship. Sometimes I find I can speak to her like a friend. I wish her all the best with her latest endeavour.
But this incident reminded me of a secret wish of mine. I too wanted to be a writer at one time. I guess I just did not have the necessary spark. I wrote a lot of diaries about my daily and other experiences in my teenage and young adulthood. Most of those diaries I once destroyed in a sudden fit of disgust. Some remain, of not much worth. What hurts is that the present state of my life has so crippled me that I do not even write diaries.
Thoughts that come and go in my mind simply fizzle out without taking shape or character. One needs exposure to be able to think fresh thoughts. The brains resources have to be periodically replenished for it to become fertile and creative. Any interesting episodes took place in my life maybe ten years ago. Anything new I read or came across or experienced was maybe an age ago. My thought processes seem to be caught in a whirlpool of domestic mediocrity. Every morning I wake up to a crippling worry of how I will get through this day. Will the domestic helps turn up? Will I be able to go to work today? Will I be able to get Mistu ready on time for her school bus. I perspire and feel ill and nervous. I get things done on time all right. But I wish all the time that this were not the daily round for me.
Not so many months ago, I started this blog, with the optimism that from time to time I would be able to record my thoughts in it, and allow those who so wish to take a look. Blogs are a wonderful invention. They can be private and public at the same time. The subject matter that you are writing on may not be stuff that novels are made of, yet they can be a truly literary exercise if one chooses the subject to write on with discretion and then express it in a pleasant manner. It would somewhat fulfill the wish to be a writer.
But even my blog writing seems to have taken a backseat to domestic hassles. I cannot understand why I am allowing this state of affairs. Why have I become this piece of sod?
Both home and place of employment do not seem to match up to my expectations. At home I am the multi-tasking woman, in college I am the good-for-nothing academic. I neither take trouble over the lectures I am to deliver any more, nor do I bother with any other creative activities with the students. I am the typically burnt-out case. No more new thoughts, no enthusiasm, no looking forward to anything. There are at least 13 working years in my life and I can’t imagine how I will get through them. There are that many and more years to my life and I don’t have the foggiest as to how I will get through them.
Time for some inward searching. After all we cannot control our circumstances, but we can control our response to them.