Ignore me... and i shall pop right into your face.

Those are not my words...well not literally at least but rather what i hear life telling me every now n then. And it does pop up. At very unexpected moments at that!!

Not that i always ignore it. No. On the contrary I'm the one who believes in living it to the fullest. I know that sounds rather cliche'. But then thats how it is for me. Living each moment, sometimes taking them laid back or sometimes tipping them over the edge and sometimes just living. Yes, thats what i do in the end i guess...all in all...i am living. And what i choose to ignore about life in all my living 'life' are the gory faces and facts which me, a modern priviledged urban citizen has never had to face.

And then suddenly, it creeps up, in the form of a meeting, a chance encounter, a movie, a picture, a news.... anything. leaves me disturbed... partly maybe because i had to face it and partly because i could not do anything about it. just sit there and watch it.

Saw India Untouched the other day. Saw Perzania a few weeks ago. Saw Ammu a few years ago. All films... yet not fictional. And perhaps that's why all disturbed me. Because i saw something that i never gave much thought to. i knew it existed. Yet i chose to ignore it. Until the time i saw it relayed across the big screen. I chose to ignore it; perhaps because i never knew the depth to which they penetrated reality. In fact they were reality. Perhaps thats why i was disturbed.

I remember slapping a guy in my school bus when he was abusing India just because he had recently come back from a US trip. I was around 10 then. I punched another guy when i was 15 in the basket ball court. He claimed that girls cant play basket ball and tried to shove me off the court. Yes, I have claimed to be of quite a fiery temper since a long time... not hesitating to rubbish Gandhian stances and take matters in my hands. But then again... I wonder what ill do to the guy who tries to kill my neighbour just because she is a muslim. Or what ill do to the person who kicks and beats up the sweeper when he asks for a raise. Or will i rush out of the safe haven of my home when a family is being burnt alive just because they have a different faith? I wonder...

I really don't know the answer. I honestly don't. As i watch films like this they fire me up... just as they do anyone else. I curse and abuse and cringe at the same time at the acts committed by so called moral guardians of my Indian society. I get fired up... and i feel ashamed at the same time. Ashamed because i am seeing it all happen and cant really do anything about it...because of course it is happening on a screen. Also ashamed cause all this has happened in a place where i live in front of people very much like me and people who have let it happen without lifting so much as a finger. Ashamed, because i still am not sure if i were to take the place of the same people what will i do.

I want to... i want to stop all this in my own way. But will i be able to face up to my own self when such an extreme situation arrives? I try and ponder. I take myself to the place... trying to stop a person trying to bring an orange sword down on a head, rape a helpless woman and suddenly the person turns on me... i am a vulnerable target.. a person who can be made into a victim as well... i can be killed..or worse i can be raped... I can probably risk the former but my feet turn cold when i think of the latter and i close my eyes and i am back in the safe haven of my room... while what goes on outside goes on...

But then i shake myself. because i know the room is a safe haven but it wont save me from me. Will i survive myself when i question myself why i let such things happen around me. And then i realise that yes, perhaps ill go out.

perhaps... a big word...

I leave it at this.. cause my mind is too disturbed... i want some respite. But can there be a respite when a sleeping mind is shaken... and shaken so violently. I take to my pen n paper, or rather my keypad. I type for a while. Then i lay back and close my eyes and try to give my mind some rest. I think of home... the one place that takes away all the disturbances from my mind. And i think of Raji... the little 2 year old daughter of my maid who is my mothers pet. I imagine her sitting and gesturing playfully in my mothers lap while talking a mix of sense and nonsense in excited gibberish.

The problems may be big...and deep routed and violent... but then they can be overcome... by little gestures on our part.. a little bit of excited gibberish, sense or non sense... but full of love.