Rat Stories

This morning there was a rat in my kitchen. Until last night s/he was free to roam and break my 'Thought For The Day' coffee cups with impunity but now s/he was occupying a well ventilated 1 BHK trap in a corner. We both waited for release.
But, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The first time a rat visited a house I was solely in charge of, was in 2014. At the time, I was flush with the privileges of my birth and didn't want to engage with the rat issue (the way some people "just don't believe in politics"). But when there is no one else to prevent your home from becoming a cesspool of vermin, one grows up well before their time (or right on time, if you, like me, are in your mid to late thirties). The rat was in my house and so was I. We were alone together.

Back then, it seems like a lifetime ago, I opted for bars of sweet-smelling rat poison. "Ghar ke baahar martey hain" seemed like the ideal final situation. I didn't stop to think about the violence of it all (someone once told me, "You eat meat. Don't pretend to be against murder" so I shrugged in agreement and from that day on, became a dangerous assassin). The poison worked well that first year and I didn't stress about rats anymore.

In the second year, I found a rodent skeleton in the nether regions of a cabinet that I'd just removed from storage after 3 months. The skeleton and I stared back in horror at each other. I couldn't believe I had to deal it with myself. So I got myself a boyfriend (well, ok, the boyfriend already existed. He just happened to be in the house when the body was discovered). He came from a chaste upper-caste family and I could tell that extracting rat skeletons didn't jive with his vibe. So I wrapped a plastic bag around my hand and went in. And I mean all in. Because even though its little ratty soul had left its body, the body refused to unstick itself from the bottom of the drawer. Ladies and gentlemen, I tugged.

Have you ever tugged at the mortal remains of a once-alive-with-hopes-&-dreams thing? I don't recommend it one bit. It puts you off your grub forever (yet somehow your weight keeps increasing). Once the body was disposed of, the boyfriend decided to overcome his yukkies and helped me clean the cabinet. He received a medal of valour that day. Then we broke up. Despite this, the rodents kept visiting.

By now, social media had grown me a conscience and I decided that I could no longer kill rats, who bore no ill will towards me. I had to trap and release them like a compassionate Buddha (who ate meat by the way so shut up). This went against every ethic held by the entitled shit that lived inside me. She argued - why do I have to be brave all the time? Why do I have to be the one who cleans the toilet every single time? Why do I have to put all my hard earned money into house rent? The answer came swiftly from the annoyingly-smart-lady in my head - because you live alone and get to eat whole blocks of cheese without sharing.

2017 was a new dawn. The monsoons arrived and with it, a new rodent. This time it was caught not by the noise it made in the kitchen, but was felled by its unfortunate taste in pop music. One morning I was listening to whatever Apple Music tells me I like and Ed Sheeran came on. As he warbled about loving the shape of me (stay tuned for the remix version 'Shape Of You - Time To Go On A Diet') a tiny rat nose peeked from behind the speakers. I saw it but didn't scream. I mean, how can you get scared by a rat who's clearly gettin' its groove on (or, if it's like the ex, getting off on vibrating surfaces). We waited for Sheeran to fade out and then I yelled. It ran. I set a trap that very evening before I left for my walk.

One of the most under-reported benefits of cardio exercise is the courage it gives you to deal with vermin. When I returned from my jaunt I was practically reeking of irrational bravado. I opened the front door, saw the president of Sheeran's fan club trapped in my aluminium cage and right there decided that I was Sparta. I invoked the memory of my father (he's not dead, he just lives in a different house) as he'd set out on muggy evenings like this, trap in tow, off to look for shrubbery at a safe enough distance so the rat couldn't return.

The rat and I went for a walk. Along the way, we met folks from the building who cheered me on with "Oh. Rat?" and "Ohohoho." Many gave us wide berth as they saw us approach (was it the rat or was it my unmarried-at-38 status? We will never know). I made it to a barren spot of land outside the colony. I opened the cage door and waited. The rat refused to leave. It didn't trust me and I couldn't blame it. It sat in the trap as I made hrrummpphing noises. Then I begged "Please rat, please go. I'm trying to be nice." Never underestimate the power of good manners. The rat bid me adieu and scampered off.

Which brings me to this morning. I woke at 4.30 am knowing there was a rat in a cage in the kitchen, where my breakfast also lives. But I felt none of the bravado of last time. It must be PMS I thought, sorely disappointed with myself. Stop being an ass that rat is more terrified than you you've done this before imagine people who kill rats with their bare hands your privilege (or is it patriarchy?) has ruined you you can't even carry out the basic acts of survival. For some strange reason, I put on an oven mitt and changed from my shorts into a salwar. That didn't help. I still didn't want to engage. Meanwhile the rat was getting restless. It must have been tired and scared and was probably regretting taking that gap year to go see the world. I had to make a decision.

I decided to wait for the young man who collects the garbage. No, how could I? Wasn't that terribly exploitative? I will pay him. Yeah still doesn't make it better. I will request him nicely and if he refuses I will be okay with it. Acceptable, you phuddu. From 5am till 8.30 I hung by the door like never before (wondering when I will stop waiting for men like this and just get on with my life). At last, he appeared with his sunshiny happy face.
'Psst'
'Hello?'
'Hello hello. Kaise hain?'
'Good?'
'Accha aapse kucch kaam thha. Aap manaa kar sakte ho. Mai pehle bhi kar chuki hoon lekin aaj bahut darr lag raha hai. Matlab pataa nahi kyun wohi cheez jo pehle daraati nahi thhi aaj dara rahi hai. Kabhi aapke saath aisa hua hai?'

'...... kooda hai?'
'Hahn. Lekin, ek second andar aiye...?'

In an instant he went from sunshiny happy to 'am I going to be murdered by a dangerous assassin?' and I realised I needed to get to the point quickly. I confessed about the rat. I confessed my inadequacy. His face relaxed and the smile returned. Show me the rat, he said and strode into my kitchen. With a gallant sweep of un-mittened hand he scooped up the trap and exited the premises, my grateful cries of 'ghar se door chhodna....' trailing behind him.

I returned to the kitchen to sweep up the debris of nibbled bread and rat poop. There was an air of lingering rodent in the air (Not literally. Like relationships, rats don't stink until they're dead). There was this feeling of having shared this space with an unwelcome roommate, now gone. The relief was yet to set in, I knew it would take some time. I felt nauseous and defeated, most un-spartan. I was grateful for the young man who helped me but also ashamed of my cowardice.

Then the phone rang. It was the rat. Calling to tell me, in a hissing voice, "you can't get rid of me so easily...you know I'll be backkkk....sssss".
No it wasn't. It was my mother. When I told her this story she got impatient and said, "Shut up. You think too much. We used to get rid of rats all the time. Besides, rats don't hiss."

The Image of Saffiyah Khan

First off let’s face it, this is straight up hilarious - this Chihuahua of a man nipping at the ankles of human decency. You can just about hear his ridiculous yelps (like our ruling party’s goons but with an accent) growing more and more hysterical as the mistress of bindi stares him down. “Should I swat him now?…Now?” I imagine her wondering which Louis Vuitton handbag he leaped out of. Bigot want a biscuit?

Look at her power stance – does she walk around like that, with her body angled for battle, her back ramrod straight, chest out, neck stretched, face relaxed yet ready to get into just about anybody’s face? Is this her normal life-condition*? I slouch, always have. That’s my normal life-condition. I have a weak core. My back is sick & tired of being sick & tired.

When I was 12 there were two Chihuahuas that would accost us on the way to our school bus stop. I remember being terrified in anticipation before I stepped out of my house. I’d pray they wouldn’t be let loose on the street that morning. If I saw them scurrying to get at our ankles, I would panic and slouch-run across the road. Maybe if I’d known, like Saffiyah does, that Chihuahuas live in handbags, I wouldn’t have been so afraid.

By her own account, when the image was taken, Saffiyah Khan was protecting another woman who’d been surrounded “360” by the same yelping thugs. Reports have interpreted Khan’s demeanour as ‘unfazed’. That’s bullshit if you ask me. She had to have been fazed, most fazed. You don’t get to stand like that if you haven’t been similarly fazed time & time & time again. You get to a point where the fucking Chihuahua has barked at you one too many times and you’re like fuck it, if it even bares its toothpicky teeth in the direction of your ankles, you'll swoop down, scoop it up and lob it into the stratosphere before its keepers realise that their dildo-themed pet has gone missing.

One might ask, why didn’t you swoop & scoop before? Why did you endure years of intimidation at the hands of these canine hobbits? Can’t speak for Saffiyah but when I was 12 they seemed bigger. Everyone at our bus stop was afraid of them, even the 16 year olds. Over years, they’d acquired mythic status and the stories had been handed down from seniors to juniors. ‘Did you know they bit so-and-so and they had to amputate his foot?’ ‘Their owner is a tantric yogi. His dogs have secret powers.’ (Ok that one I made up, such was the terror unleashed by these unleashed beasts.)

Obviously I don’t know what Saffiyah Khan is really thinking in these images but to me she has become the Monalisa of pussy power. She has run out of fucks to give and this fuck-deficit has allowed her insight into the Chihuahua’s handbag world. Sure it’s Vuitton (and that’s nothing to scoff at) but it is, at the end of the day, a dank handbag, made even danker by dwarf-dog sweat. Does Saffiyah Khan find this realisation amusing? Or did the Chihuahua pee in the bag just a little, its stench reaching everyone’s nostrils? Is that why Saffiyah is smiling? 

I’m no longer haunted by the Chihuahua twins from my school days but I have new challenges. The apartment where I live comes with neighbours, whom I would term ‘distinctly asshole-ish’. I realized this the day I moved, when the movers decided to use the elevator to transport a heavy sofa up two floors. My neighbour stood at the entrance of the elevator and threatened to let loose Jack – her 350 kilo vicious-looking dog. She knew the men were terrified of Jack, they’d asked her to keep him leashed. But she didn’t like ‘those men’ using ‘her lift’ and she let Jack loose. I slouch-stepped in and blocked Jack in a friendly embrace. Jack was confused. The men laughed. He jumped again. I slouched towards him again. This time Jack’s tail went insane, whiplashing his human-shaped asshole. She yelled “JACK! No!!”. I held out my hand. Jack held out his paw. We shook like adults who had no beef with each other. As we retreated to our corners, the men grinned and I thanked god that Jack didn’t live in a handbag.

Check out this beautiful Twitter thread:

Just a wee thread of women who truly don't have any time for your shit.

1) Tess Asplund, Borlänge, Sweden - 2016 (Photo - David Lagerlöf) pic.twitter.com/xjRmHfc3h5

— Xas (@_Xas_) April 10, 2017

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* Incidentally, her stance has been described as an “improbably calm stance – smiling, slumped shoulders, hands in pockets” – I view the image very differently.

No This Is Not Rape (Trigger Warning: Sensitive Material)

The Mahmood Farooqi rape case has been immensely triggering for me.
Not just because the facts are so similar to what happened to me about a decade ago but because of the unfortunate discourse that's followed Farooqi's sentencing to a minimum 7 yrs in prison.
"Why didn't she resist?"
"Why didn't she go to the police immediately?"
"Is it rape if he goes down on her?"
"Is it rape if it's less than 4 minutes long?"
"Is it rape if she's white?"
"Is it rape if he's bi-polar?"
"Is it rape if he apologises?"
"Is it rape if his politics is widely acknowledged as progressive?"

There have been a string of rape apologies I've read under the guise of 'widening the debate' and 'inviting nuance', some by people I call friends.
Each piece twists my insides because they take me back to a time when rape-apologies weren't things others said to me but things I said to myself.
No, this is not rape because he's not inside me, I told myself as he pinned me to the bed. No, this is not rape because I've smoked a joint, I thought as I screamed stop for the nth time. No this is not rape because he's having a bipolar episode. No, this is not rape because I'm his houseguest. No, this is not rape because look! someone's broken through the door within minutes and lifted him off me. No, this is not rape because everyone in that house is pretending nothing happened. No this is not rape because he is widely loved and I must not destroy him.

I told myself this isn't rape as I ran home and then stayed there, unable to come out for the next 7 days. I told myself it's not rape as I quit my job and sank into a confused state. It wasn't rape for the next two years that I went underground, receding from the world. It wasn't rape when I finally went to therapy and it wasn't rape that made me spontaneously start crying every time my boyfriend & I got intimate. It definitely wasn't rape that stirred it all up again eleven years later when the Farooqi case came up.
Eleven years.

All this time and for me, it wasn't rape at all. Until the woman Farooqi raped showed me it was. Because every forced sexual act is rape. Lack of consent is rape. Taking away a woman's agency and right to her own body, her own safety is rape. I must repeat this to myself every time doubt creeps in and I wonder if it was indeed rape. So must we all, repeatedly until we get it.

Do read this Kafila piece, which succinctly breaks down the legal and feminist aspects of the case and judgement: https://kafila.org/2016/08/14/the-mahmood-farooqui-rape-conviction-a-landmark-verdict-j-devika-nivedita-menon/ 

Make It Count

Big horror happens and we reel from the impact. Or we think we do.
We believe our hearts bleed so much for those who suffer that we can't wholly comprehend it.
We allow the terrible events unfolding outside to make us feel safe and grateful on the inside.

We tweet, blog and weep in our private corners.
Our sympathies are real, they express solidarity with an honesty of intention that eases our own anxieties just a little bit.
Nothing can help, even the tiniest thing helps.
How do we make sense of it all? What can we do?

We cling to hashtags and social media outpourings. Against our best instincts we look and re-look at photographs. We read and re-read grisly testimonies.

But how do we make it count?
Last evening, I fell asleep with the heavy knowledge of what happened in Peshawar, of what takes place every day in Syria, Iraq, Kashmir, Manipur, my own hometown of Delhi and too many other places on this planet. I wondered what I could do to make the horrific knowledge count.

The only answer I could come up with was to wake up.
To not make it about things that happened Over There but wake up to what I am complicit in Over Here.
Every moment that I am intolerant, or so wounded that I lose the ability to empathize.
Every time I see a child, a grown up or an animal in distress and do nothing.
Every time I allow injustice to happen in front of my eyes - no matter how tiny or how big.
Every time I am blind to injustice because my privilege allows me to be.
Every time I choose my comfort over doing what my heart knows is the right thing - I am complicit.

We wonder how men can look into the eyes of an innocent child and shoot point blank.
We must also wonder how we look at a shivering beggar child at a traffic stop and roll up our windows.
We wonder what makes people so ruthless they can set fire to a teacher in front of her students.
We must also then wonder what allows us to look away when we see a woman being molested in broad daylight.
These horrors are not equivalent, I know, but it is where we can begin to make them count.
Otherwise it's all empty, like a headline, a status update or a hashtag.

Dear India, sound familiar?

I've finally gotten around to reading The Millenium Trilogy, which is shockingly not fluff (goes to show what an illiterate I am). 
The passage below quotes a character, who visited Germany in 1941 and describes the ethos of that time. 
For anyone who's ever asked in a judgy tone (me): "But why didn't the Germans stop Hitler? Couldn't they tell he was a sociopath?", here, Tinker Bell, is a possible response. 
And colour me paranoid, but it sounds & feels a lot like what's going on in India right now:

"I won't tire you with the details but when I went there, Hitler and Stalin were still good friends and there wasn't yet an Eastern Front. Everyone still believed Hitler was invincible. There was a feeling of...both optimism and desperation. I think those are the words. More than half a century later, it's still difficult to put words to mood. Don't get me wrong - I was not a Nazi, and in my eyes Hitler seemed like an absurd character in an operatta. But it would have been almost impossible not to be infected by the optimism about the future, which was rife in the ordinary people in Hamburg. Despite the fact that the war was getting closer, and several bombing raids were carried out against Hamburg during the time I was there, the people seemed to think it was mostly a temporary annoyance - that soon there would be peace and Hitler would establish his Neuropa. People wanted to believe that Hitler was God. That's what it sounded like in the propaganda."


(I don't wish to compare any one person to Hitler but I do find it fascinating to read about that precarious moment in history right before Hitler became so obviously and famously 'Evil'...coinciding with the moment of brainwashing/ disastrous lapse in individual judgement/ herd mentality that the public suffered.)

 

I wake up with a shortness of breath and tightness of chest, the kind of panic some 20th century philosopher or analyst must have described in great detail, and it occurs to me more and more each day that the island of peace and calm I live on is growing smaller and smaller and that too many of my fellow inhabitants on this planet are living lives, where everything they thought was 'normal' is routinely destroyed. As the panic rises, I keep clicking 'Add To Cart' until I feel hopeful again but, of course, I don't. I wonder if this concern for my fellow inhabitants might have something to do with the fact that each day I find something 'normal' inside me getting routinely destroyed and no matter how many times I click 'Add To Wishlist' to feel hopeful, of course, I don't.


 

Breaking

This afternoon, from 1:00 pm to 1:12 pm, the news anchor read out 7 pieces of breaking news.
Each one of them was about a horrific act of violence against women - most of them, gangrapes.
One after the other after the other after the other after the other.
Take a breath.
One after the other after the other after the other.

One of the news items creating the most buzz is of two Swiss tourists biking through Madhya Pradesh, in the heart of India. They decided to camp out near in a forested area, when they were attacked by 7 men. Allegedly, they were robbed and the woman was gangraped. At the time of this post, no one has been arrested. There is chatter now, of travel advisories being issued for the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Travel advisories for countries where these things happen and modesty is outraged by boys will be boys.

Breaking. Very breaking.

And don't tell me "At least the rapes are being reported & taken seriously."  I'm not in the mood.

 **********

Let India be internationally shamed for being a rampantly criminal country.
Not safe for children, women or men. I don't care about national pride anymore. Enough is fucking enough.

There Will Be A Revolution

She takes a walk along her favourite road. It rises and falls with the dying swells of hill now replaced with asphalt and half-built shopping malls. She likes that even from kilometres away and despite the fog, she can still see her destination; growing taller in encouragement as she gains ground.
 

Today is different in a sense. For the first time in a long while, she’s aware of how quickly this road can turn. Four years ago, a young journalist was murdered here; on account of being female, some conjectured. Then two weeks ago, it was this road that carried a busload of criminals and two hapless victims to their dastardly fate – an outcome most attributed to one of them being female. 

The volume is turned up on her music player but she can still spy the de rigueur obscenities hurled from rolled-down windows as cars speed away - so quickly that only she will benefit from the enraged middle finger she launches into the fog. In spite of the refreshing cold, she’s just not in the mood today.

A few yards ahead, a white taxi stops. Windows tinted (always illegal, even more so today), exhaust pipe vomiting black fumes. Two men stumble out. Not being pedestrian friendly, this road is often the next best thing to a urinal. Men Only, of course.

One of them doesn’t even bother walking into the bushes. He simply steps out of the vehicle and begins to unbutton, right in her path. Oh for fuck’s sake, she mutters, not today. He fumbles with his zip, whipping out his penis as she approaches him. He hasn’t even noticed there’s a person standing next to him. 

“Kya kare rahe ho?” she yells, hoping to shame him into complying with the rules of decency.

He doesn’t move an inch. His eyes are fixed on his crotch. He still can’t seem to find his grip.

“Besharam! This is a public road!” she tries again. For someone doing the shaming, she’s beginning to feel awfully sheepish. And now scared, as he lifts his listless gaze to look at her. The man is clearly high on something.  

He sneers, “Chal hat, saali.”

She takes a step back, speechless. Her facial muscles sag as she finds herself bringing her hands together, her palms joined in offering. It’s a platter serving up all of her: 30 odd years of living, loving, doing and being. 30 odd years of hugs collected from friends & family, souvenirs collected on travels, pats on the back, letters of appreciation, tears when a loved one – or a love – died. Money earned, savings made, taxes paid. Secrets kept and books read. Theories learned, experience gained. Exemplary traits, stubborn flaws, absurd quirks and every promise still to make good. Every time she felt strong. And every single time her body was up for grabs in a crowd, in an office, in a home, on a road. All up on a platter for this man wielding his penis.

To which he draws back his full concentration. She sidles past him. Looking back she spits out a filthy word. An insult born from the belly of misogyny, which, until the world changes, will continue to feel oh-so-good as it leaves her lips. She doesn’t wait for his reaction. She’s on foot and he’s got a white taxi with tinted windows. But she doesn’t speed up either. She’s just not in the mood today.

She takes refuge in the quiet aisles of a big & bright retail shop. Behind closed eyes, she makes her movie. In it, an enormous medieval cauldron filled with water is boiling over an insensed fire, flames slapping against searing hot metal. The bubbling of water is punctuated with theatrical splashes as rows upon rows of men are flung into it, naked as they came. Their wails of anguish & torture echo through her cranium and she takes in a long drag of air. “There will be a revolution,” she mutters, “and then they will kn- - - “

“Excuse, madam. Excuse, excuse.”

A tiny shopgirl gently nudges her to the side, impatient yet restrained.

She’ll have to move; it seems she’s been blocking the dandruff shampoo.

Get A Better Argument

 

So I found this on Facebook, 'shared' nearly 44,000 times the last I checked.

Since Science is obviously a person, as is indicated by Gervais, I figure she must be weeping right now (because Science has feelings and is insecure and always needs to be one up on Religion - that pesky & incovenient cousin). She's probably distraught over how folks make such unscientific & simplistic arguments to defend her virtue (like arguments of Religion that folks use to defend the virtue of the ladies).

I can't be sure, but if Science were anything like me (and she's got to be, right?) she'd be wondering why these mullahs of Atheism forget this: the gun used to shoot the child in her head for wanting to go to school was created by Science, designed expressly for shooting at living things. In that sense, culpability - in varying degrees - lies with both parties.

Science doesn't like to be told things like this - especially when she's trying so hard to trump Religion using the platform of logic.

And because she knows there are plenty of great ones, she wishes these defenders of hers would get a better argument.

******************

Carl Sagan on Charlie Rose (at 7:45 he talks about religion): 

Imma Stop You Right There My Friend

Have a look at this very interesting PSA on women's safety sent out by the Delhi Police via the well-meaning Farhan Akhtar:

For simple folk like me who'd rather not hit 'repeat play' on videos of sexual violence committed in this country (specially since a sizable majority of us have experienced such horrors in varying degrees in our own lives), it's easier to focus on smaller matters.

Like when Farhan makes this case for us: Woman are, by virtue of being daughters, mothers, sisters and wives (but not mistresses, whores or bosses), exempt from being assaulted. 

And as daughters, mothers, sisters and wives (but not mistresses, whores or bosses) women must also take charge of their own safety. 

Because, you know, shit happens.

Watching this ad (during a welcome break from the film 'Cocktail', where the 'broken', alcohol drinking, pre-marital sex having, white-man kissing woman doesn't have a hope in hell of securing a happy ending), riled me up a bit. Well, more than just a bit. More, even, than that disgusting Guwahati video doing the rounds (it's funny how we're uncomfortable listening to a woman talk about being raped or assaulted but we'll have the video of it go viral in 2 days).

Because here's the case I'd have preferred Farhan to make: Woman are, by virtue of being human (and not inanimate objects), exempt from being assaulted.

And as human beings (and not inanimate objects) women must also take charge of their own safety. 

Because, you know, sexual violence is vile and absolutely unacceptable in civilized society.

********

Deepak points out (I'm guessing with regard to lines like 'Zulm karna ya sehna, dono gunah hai' line): "If I were in your shoes, I'd bring up the point of false equivalence: That perpetrating sexual assault is nowhere the same as being a victim of it."

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Also check out this fun, fun, fun anti-street harassment video: Shit Men Say To Men Who Say Shit To Women On The Streets  

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Then if you have the time, do read Natasha Badhwar's gut wrenching piece on sexual violence here. It truly struck a chord.

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And finally, if you must know, read why Cocktail pissed me off so badly. 

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After nearly a lifetime of experiencing and surviving some very unpleasant instances of sexual harassment & violence, I've come to the conclusion that I want to focus on the little things now: PSAs like the one talked about above, a seemingly innocuous mainstream film, a comment here, a grope there, the gentle banter of 'this happens, yaar' passed along like a frisbee at a picnic - it's here, in the tiny details that I find the seeds of the biggest crimes. To me, it's all connected and I can't just chill out about it. It might make me unfun for a while but you know what's really unfun? Molestation.

No Place Like Home

Last week 23 year old Nirupama Pathak died. Under mysterious circumstances, they said. Smothered, not suicide. 3 months pregnant, others said. Choosing the wrong man was her mistake, it was reported.

I believe her biggest mistake was going home. Because, as it turns out, women - girls - like her have no home.

Home is where a woman returns to replenish her soul. It's a place where she knows she will be loved no matter what choices she made out there in the real world. Home is where her wounds are soothed, where she puts her feet up and allows those who claim to love her to wipe the worry lines off her brow. Home is where mothers, fathers, siblings, partners and children rally around & promise to protect her against all odds. Home is safe.

I went home to my parents yesterday. They don't understand many of my choices. We've fought emphatically and disagreed in obscenely loud silences. We are not what Karan Johar would call strictly functional. Yet, when I enter that door I know this strange family of mine will defend me, not do me, to death. Honour for them, is having me as part of their world.

The tragedy is not that this beautiful young thing died along with her unborn child. It's that she was throttled by those who never thought of her as their own. That she had the misfortune of being born in a home where labels trumped her heart. That 23 years of living & loving meant nothing at all, in the end.

And the biggest tragedy of all: Being born to a mother who never had a home either.
That girl never stood a chance.

I'll Have Me a Helping of Gratuitous Violence, Please

A couple of days ago I did a Facebook Rorschach test that declared I was an insane psychopath.
This evening I did another Facebook quiz to determine the exact time & circumstance of my death. January 17th, 2021, 5:33 am, by lethal injection. Consistent as only Facebook quizes can be.
But not as off point as some might think...
...because I've recently got me a hankering for some blood & gore.

Was having a low moment ("why hasn't he called?") when HBO started showing the James McAvoy-Angelina Jolie action movie 'Wanted'. All my sensitive, 'The Hours'-lovin, bleeding heart, arty-farty illusions went flying out the window (like McAvoy's father towards the end of the movie..but I'm not going to spoil the film for those who haven't seen it). Everyone was kicking everyone's ass, bullets were flying in slow motion, guns were being bandied about like chocolate bars, explosives were being constructed out of peanut butter-addicted mice and even though all the make-out scenes were cut by HBO, it still got my heart racing, wondering what other destruction was up next.

Now, I have decided I want to be an assasin when I grow up.
I want to be the 'perfect weapon' (again, see the movie to know more). I want to karate chop and kung fu with the best of international secret agents. I want to not feel pain and miraculously heal my body even though I've been punched, drop-kicked, stabbed, shot at, blown up and pushed off steep cliffs. I want to curve bullets, hurl knives across kilometres of crowded city and still hit my mark, I want to launch bazooka attacks & carry tampons that double as RDX-loaded explosives.

Fuck, I wanna be BadAss.

(This is a character called Anaksha: 'A beautiful but deadly femme-fatale who embarks on a brutal, bloody-thirsty rampage through the city of Santa Lina, delivering her own brand of justice to social parasites who've avoided punishment.' http://www.anaksha.com/)