...reflections, churnings & insights

coming to terms with herself...

She lived with an unsaid motto of "an unanalysed life is not worth living." Some times I feel that it was this internal compulsion to self-critique - self-destructive in many ways - which also gave her the strength to confront her dilemmas and vulnerabilities head on - an in the process go beyond them...

This "loud thinking" from one of her diaries is only one such merciless self-analysis among many.




... in his diary, he has a quote from Harold Robbins: "It is funny sometimes how hard you had to work to convince a man that it was right for him to do the thing he really wanted to do." He has been doing this with me, and not his ideal of what autumn does to cherry trees.

I feel I have never grown up after 14-15. I clung to my past which I remembered then. I wanted to be what I was before that, when there was no past to remember. Why? Because... I never faced a problem or tried to understand life was just unfair... all revolved around my periods... and no help!...

...Now I think it was again an attempt to run away from myself... not able to face this crisis of understanding... yesterday I thought.. of suicide... again... as usual... to me the most healthy way of living is dying... hence others die, for me, bit by bit... part by part... in order for a part of me to live... for me to live, part by part...

Whither all this?

I owe this to myself... and I owe him 6 years of life which I took away... misleading him and making him run in circles... Whither feminism? Liberation? Career? Whither Life?

I am facing this crisis alone - I may break... but I will not...

... Whose poem was this..

I have been freewheeling, double dealing for too long,
rambling, gambling chasing a song: It’s been
long since I met myself, after weeks and weeks
of hanging around. It’s been long since I paid my dues
and headed homewards searching for you.
It’s time you came and took me back,
a thousand songs back again...

...word for word... it’s time you came back and we started living together. On second thoughts, it’s time I came and started staying with you...

...Do I want to be like that? I have to question myself... or will I revert to my fantasy life with a dream partner... remember hunger-struck? It was a portrayal of myself... and this fantasy life has gone on for years and years... but without it... shall I be a stranger... to both of us? Is it better to be a stranger in this same body? Perhaps it is easier to live with a stranger... Yes.. one can live and learn about this being... new born... or not yet born? I need a midwife to get born...

I am scared of meeting you this time. If you came and knocked right now, I wouldn’t know what to do... how to meet you... how on the earth did I keep meeting you all these days... Perhaps because I remained a spoilt child, used to having my way... and used to others trying to understand me... not giving, just taking...

The greatest insight is the reproach of my blank diaries... they stare at me and ask me where is the experience you have got in marriage, in IIT, in Bhopal, everywhere? And another insight is the narrow outlook I have had all through writing diaries. My world centered around me and no one came in...I am - have been - living images and roles... and in spite of so much feedback about myself, I have continued in it. Obstinately and blindly... what did I know of feminism or liberation? My liberation was too personalized... I could never get involved in the movement... All of it was spurious and created conflict... I have carried it over and started smoking... another image that I am in love with... it shocks most people... but I don’t have the guts - to either go and buy cigarettes, or smoke in public - yet... and when that happens, it will be a contamination of the libber image... but where is the independence I wanted? What have I ever done which can be called truly liberated... free... except this that I am writing it down and trying to face it...

{ plagued by self-doubts } { openness to new vistas } { a release from the self-imposed shackles } { the meaning of being herself } { the need to leave footprints } { self in the face of death }

Main Page

Geeta's Poems

Stories She Wrote

Other Stray Writings

Poems for Manasi

About Geeta

• hopes and despair
• the point of it all
• remembering Geeta

Sign Guestbook


View Guestbook

View the Old Guestbook

---

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page