TheScientificTriangle

You always need to know what you choose and based on your choices decide how you want to live.

You decide the consequences you are ready to fight which emanate out of your decisions.

You decide what you would not take from the world no matter however close they are.

You decide to convey the same to the world.

Since Shrum knew there were many ways, and one was hers.

So, she decided one evening when the Konkan coast lashed with rains.

1. No friends with benefits.

2. No boyfriends of vague sorts.

3. No friends either, more importantly men unless the man is mature enough to understand that the woman in front of him was not ready to mingle friendship with any other relation.

4. No musing around.

5. No going around even with anyone on the pretext of any damn thing.

6. The only relations she was ready to accept from a man were very thoroughly Indian by definition:

I) a brother related to her by blood or distant attributes.

II) a husband if that can be done till she saw it.

III) certain relations which spring out of others…….aunt to some, mam to others, keeping them clean.

It does not make a woman with such choices an ascetic or a monk. It is called setting your boundaries.

Sticking to your boundaries. There is no harm in choosing a path, the harm is when two or more paths are weaved into one.

A woman may choose to be a rampant on the stage, a sex worker or a friend with benefits.

But the choice should be her own, where she chooses without any stress.

The stress of living, the stress of dying, the stress of food, the stress and trauma arising from the fears which work like watchdogs for the crooked noses of society, the ones who hide in the shade of darkness and try influencing masses.

Now, it’s sad but two things are true:

1. We mustn’t call humans animal names like dog, crow, cur, wolf, sheep, fox, hyena for demeaning a person or even a tiger or lion or cow or horse to praise a person.

Humans are not worthy to be called an animal or bird. They are worse.

Have you watched each of the animals? Did you get time from your daily needs and wishes.

They are superior creatures than human mind and work from three factors…..fear, a pure conscience and three to four needs. They are far more superior since even to this day they mate in a systematic order except the primates of modern times influenced by the men perhaps, their closest ancestors.

2. Men must not treat women after animals. Women also are far more beautiful than men.

If you watch closely many in the tribe of men have successfully destroyed creatures more beautiful than them, more superior than them. Destroyed in some way and form.

Many of them in men also pay prices, heavy and bad for what other men have done to their tribes. They are good men, aware, awakened and strong. To be able to see the wrong in itself requires strength and wisdom.

Consequences: Running into shady areas and shady men who can confuse or work towards confusing relationships and some instances where her personality might be attempted a twist of kinds to prove she is shady in many which ways.

Result: Frequent efforts to straighten the truth when lies coil it down.

She grew up in towns. Rugged brown towns of Leh, Spiti, to drop by Shillong and Aizawl, Agartala then Imphal while her parent tried deciding where to make a home. Then there were relatives all around Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Kutch, Himachal Pradesh and Assam.

None of them any longer stay in those places except a few.

India is a land of towns – religious towns, old towns, not so old towns, ghost towns, hilly towns, mountains and valleys town, summer town, winter towns, many towns.

In towns, people are sleepy and dreamy. They dream to be kings and queens one day.

They dream to be good things, they obey the laws, try discipline, try mental health.

Yet there are many who are not healthy, and thus government makes funny rules like banning blue films but then men and women are interested and in towns they resort to such measures.

Those were still things she could deal with, but what she could not deal, along her way were more tangible problems….

Worrying for food,

Worrying for safety

Worrying to be fine

Worrying for compassion

Will the world give her a chance to survive, and if so, will they allow her to put her terms on the plate?

She was aware of millions who were not living at all in their own terms, millions who just were living or being puppets to survive the show, to go home alive at the end of the day, to be able to fend for the small children which have been their only masterpiece in life, something they look up to, to amend ways through this world, to create that small place for the children, even if not enough for them to dream it had to be enough to breathe, to become one of them when the children grew up at least.

Will the world not take away from her all that she had built so far?

Was this the first step, her mother’s illness towards destruction?

I am sure every single day, many of us are dealing with these issues, these worries.

In a world of men, women still tug their fears somewhere deep in their heart.

Women are not free, they are still slaves to the slavery which promises grand world tours but the promises fade and the grandeur vanishes when the terms and conditions change. People all over, live in fear.

So Shrum thought of trying, at the least she would lose all of it. She was not attached, she had very less to lose at that point so the fear, we guessed had dissipated slightly not finding any foothold, any strong point on which it could grow.

“What is fear? Huh….a mere parasite.” Shrum was brave and blood was young and hot. She ventured out, a girl who knew bikes, who knew Taekwondo, who desired to be on top of Chomolangma one day for reasons of her own, she shared it with only one person in her life time, the man who once pointed a finger to himself wanting her to go to him always. She shared it with him, went repeatedly, banged his doors so many time. One fine day she realised that the door won’t open for her the way she wanted, so she left trying. But, in her heart she would only go to him always, when weak, when tired to rest on his shoulders. She knew she did not need him close if he was happy away from her.

She went out, she had seen a lot of crevices and fissures, tricky traps too.

She used all her knowledge to dodge that rat faced big teeth fellow who called her sex siren 1 since there was one more such person. Initially like an ordinary man, he pretended to like her and she was apathetic, smitten by her own wounds.

But, then she knew he was scheming and plotting. Trying to be that one bright face which would not be denied the best job in the institute.

It is strange that often knowledge is not enough and you need to add more dimensions, presumably unnecessary often cynical dimensions to get anything in this world.

Shrum did not want to twist her finger to get the butter. She believed to change the bottle and not twist her finger, since she did not like twisting it. She did not believe in twists and turns, she was tired of so many imposed twists and turns of tales.

If you are even vaguely attached to a tale, any twist in it would make you feel the impact.

The training took her to coastal beaches and castles and chapels and churches.

The Konkan coasts.

She worked with another cranky person who was indirect yet the world could guess he was trying to lure a grief stricken girl who was not even noticing.

Well, she had no such intentions and stuck to herself.

One day he realised she was not bowing to him ever, he was decent enough to stop the little games and moved on.

Shrum felt later it was her training ground as the games grew big later in her life.

But, he punished her….how?

Well, the rent of last month of his stay, he gave to her and instructed her to pay it to his landlord.

She went a little shaken by what she would meet, a few precautions in mind

-don’t enter any house, room.

-be strict

-do not talk.

The place was a filthy, shabby place. There was a wine shop and a man with a thick moustache. To her relief he was shorter to her.

She looked around, peeping out of the bar were few shorter people.

The shrubs and bushes had three more men.

She was prepared for combat, if need be but then the need did not arise.

The short man took the money from a severe faced girl and stood as if stunned for a moment. Shrum knew she had won the battle, he had lost it inside.

“It’s good if he chooses you, why don’t you go with him. Your parents can have a support and you can stay in these regions forever.” A girl stricken by love, her colleague was smiling one day telling her this fact.

“Precisely since I do not love him.” I said.

“What the heck is love? We believe a woman can love anybody?” She said.

“Why don’t you marry anybody then, why wait for a man and all the drama?”

I was chagrined.

“Image Shrum, image. You have to be image conscious. The world runs on image. If I say I can sleep with anybody, well, you know the rest of the story.”

I looked at her, clapped my hands and just one thing escaped my lips.

“Wow! A jackal amidst sheep, I must say. You are so good in acting. Why don’t you try it?”

“As if you are some Sati or Savitri or whatever. If he is friends with benefits also with you, it will help you. You can also do such things.”

“Wow! You know me better than me. Good.” The Taekwondo in me rolled and glided within me to punch her on the face. I resisted punching her that day so hard that it gave me a fever in the evening.

She left after a month and called once after that, but then she knew me by then, never daring to contact again. I would say dare since she knew it’s wrong to tell a person to be something or someone, the person does not wish to be when it comes to personal, intimate choices.

Whom we choose to love?

Whom we choose to live with, whom we wish to marry?

How or what we choose to spend our lives in?

Which path we choose to live? If we cannot help a human live a life in a certain path, I think they have no rights to try manipulate minds for their selfish benefits or petty advantages or greater advantages.

Telling is fine, we all do at some point but pursuance is not, a Nono.

Precisely if that very person does not disturb your living pattern, whether they like it or not should not be of much concern to anyone.

If you can help somebody acquire something which can be good as per them, their paths then and only then it should be done and that I think is called help.

Help cannot be defined as any action or thought which has been considered for another person or living being by not keeping his or her best interest or the path they desire to follow in view.

If that is so, it is not help. It has many names, but not help.

So, She had to set the priorities right.

1) Either marry the guy she calls her own

Or

2) not marry at all.

If not marrying at all, then every attempt had to be made to

Not become a second hand, a keep as they call people.

Not to let people abuse our integrity as women.

Not to let ourselves fall in any unnecessary trap.

To keep a head clean.

To move forward in directions decided by us and only us.

Not to be influenced in short.

Thus, movement was our only way. Journeys and eternities.

She knew one thing now….chomolangma would happen, it was close.

Chomolangma her eternal home.

Slowly, she wished to move forward.

This very thought allowed her live so long.

Alongwith other thoughts.

She had seen a monster called poverty.

She had seen all the seven sins.

She had seen every other hell in life either through her own life or through someone else, she had accidentally known or would know.

So, she had faced what all, till that point is a matter of concern for a young girl.

1) Undue attention from men not her kind. These have turned into animosity at many times.

There was one guy who would stare at her like she was cake in her masters. She would hide behind more amenable so called classmates unable to know how to tackle a man’s attention when she did not want it. She was caught sadly since she had to submit her blood analysis reports to this very Ph.D student.

He reacted by spreading rumours and dating the next best girl ending up marrying her.

She was happy at last, yet she had to suffer running to the hospital several times to manage her thesis and her project.

More men when her mother was suck, dressed as compassionate friends, ready to become boyfriends. She dodged them all.

It was her bad luck she knew which face to respond and her sin, she wanted to stick to it.

2) Pity from humans who pitied her existence. An Indian girl is helpless when her mother falls sick.

Comments received

“Ohh sad now she can no longer study, she was good in it, you know.”

“She may not get a suitable match. After all, in our society who marries such a poor girl with a sick mother and no brother.”

“If someone pitied you and marries you, do not throw tantrums go with that great man who would finally save you.”

A doctor in a well renowned hospital in this megacity she went for work, let’s say any, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Pune for that sake (not being mentioned specifically) told her mother once,

“Now, only a foreigner can marry your daughter.” A very old man almost in his sixties in a noble profession and out of the blues. No one had asked for his advise on who would be marrying me, neither was I asking him to marry me. I had gone to ask him if we could continue my mother’s and dad’s medicines for diabetes given they had reactions.

Well, instead of barking at his insanity I preferred keeping quiet. Why bark at insane people? I thought.

“She is in trouble, Ohh girl, poor girl, we pity her. God forbid she lands with wrong people landing in God knows which place.”

“What if she lands in flesh trades, after all, she is an Indian girl? How much does she understand?”

Bahbah bah bah bah…sheep all around.

3) Relatives is a relative term, it’s true. I learned. Not one, not even a single one turned up. Sisters had work, brother fought with sister while she was in bed..our fault…they had asked some money since her dad was stuck here. She wished to return it once they were back home.

The brother came twice but then played games since he had arguments with Shrum’s little sister and he wished just one thing aloud, “you guys have to come back to us. Bow down to us.”

The relatives whom her mother had forgotten helped more, remembered her more. They send their wishes even those with whom certain things were not right.

4) Money was a hard fight, always was. Principles kill money and money kills principles.

5) Her parents tried to get her married. The responses were poor and mostly aimed at making a woman some kind of slave.

They did not prefer having a bride.

A woman can cook, clean, wash, manage do everything if she finds love. Well, love is not meant for all, not on how she wished it to be, her terms.

She decided to leave this path forever when time would permit, leave all of it and time did come in her life when she could do that.

Becoming a bride,

A muse,

A slave

Nothing at all.

The crescent moon team here does not wish to offend, ostracise, criticise any single individual.

It merely attempts to inculcate right thoughts and right ways, not good ways but right ones.

It’s an attempt on thoughts heard and practiced by growing individuals, how it impacts them and how it changes humans perennially.

Like any other human who believes in thoughts other than the ones written in this series I would suggest

Please continue to do so and with pleasure.

This is not intended to stop or judge people on how they live, think and behave.

All characters are fictional. However, circumstances are real and bear resemblance to a particular person or place, retained anonymous to preserve the dignity of humanity.

It aims to hold up an idea which causes dis- ease (lack of ease) in many women and men many a times.

The world often talks about freedom, but woman seem to have it less.

The world is a tricky pathway when you have to extract freedom of thought from it.

Educated, qualified women in India do not think for themselves and it is a matter of pride.

I remember one such instance where a manager of mine one day commented loud enough for me to hear,

“I have my husband who does everything on my behalf, I am so proud about it.”

It’s strange then that woman are mere slaves as usual. They are told if they think they are bad women, hence women too shy away from doing so, harassing other woman who try to think.

They work, study and take up a whole lot of pain to become who they become, why?

“To be fanciful slaves. Decked up with gold, money, a crown a goat is no longer a scape but a queen only to be slaughtered later.

These thoughts crossed my mind often whenever I saw that people were placing up men at all stages for me to not think.

When I was a teenager friends tried becoming boyfriends and when I shied off, since I did not need one, they would begin advising me on things they knew I was weak. Listening to them meant I was still a slave.

When I grew up, people proposed marriage. But, then they had pros and cons…dons probably. Their terms had to be met.

Twenty lakhs,

A house.

My house in their name.

Should take care of four old people, has to be in the kitchen unless they sleep off.

Everything was a condition which meant you agree so they dominate.

They did not know one thing, a woman if finds her home would do everything willingly. Forcing her shows the fear society has towards women.

Next comes a choice. You have to choose people who choose you even if they don’t suit your prototype.

Reason: women can’t set prototypes.

What does it indicate?

Slavery.

If she chooses someone and that someone does not choose her, it is also a way to dominate stubborn, vile women who have dared to choose.

By being denied their desire to live with a man in a way she wants is a form of dominance. Do all women out there see that?

There are two circumstances which you can reach-

1) you are so frustrated by denial which is almost the last weapon society can use towards a woman. A denial breaks her down, so her self worth declines steadily.

Now, she can be targeted by anybody who is interested in her.

How?

By telling her that since she was denied by her desire, she should now fulfill the wish of someone who is interested in her. Let me tell you, that man is interested in himself and not in the woman, since even the most vile women is a target of the society. Women who have not accepted this trait of being dominated somewhere.

2) You can turn haywire into doing what pleasures many men. That way also you are a gain to this world.

Let me tell you a story.

Long back in the BC there was one woman who had become a slave to men thanks to her innocence which prohibited her from being harsh on the society, Her naïveté which prohibited her from seeing this trick the world is playing since long.

Being rejected in the hands of many men who refused to marry her, and with the declining health of her mother, she was on day offered help in the form of money for her first night.

She agreed since her self esteem and her self worth had been smashed by the repeated rejections.

Life moved and when she was forty four on the verge of her menopause, she was stricken by a headache.

The headache won’t go and all that she had saved was used by her aides to get her well.

In the story, one day a young doctor was returning to his home and on his way, he knocked her door for a glass of water.

There was none left around her, the money, the glamour was all gone. So, she herself opened the door, not sure what to do with the knocks.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“I am a young doctor, I am thirsty. I am returning home from Nalanda University”

She brought a glass of water and while handing it down to him she fainted.

He took her inside and examined her.

When she came back to senses, she was scared first time in the presence of a man who was sitting far away from her and not near her, watching, waiting for her to return.

“Why are you still here?”

“Well, I think someone is poisoning you and I can heal it.”

“I have nothing left. I have no money. All is gone or taken. My body is also gone, there is nothing more in it. I cannot give you anything.”

“You can.” He smiled down at her.

“A chance to practice what I learnt.”

“Can I ask you something? Why’d you help me?”

“You are my practice ground.”

During the course of her treatment, she shared her story to him.

“You went wrong, you should have rejected that man, it did not save your mother. Did it?”

She nodded to say no.

“It was a trick to make you get into this path, since marriage was not profitable with you.

No one wants to take care of sick parents unless they know it, which would be very few people.

No one wants a bride who comes empty handed.

Now, you were exactly that, whatever your mother was offering could only give you a puller or a toddy seller, your mother wanted a soldier for you.

So, you should have used yourself in a better way.

You should have asked them to comply to your terms since you were a woman.”

He cured her, of the poison.

“You have a chance to not become one again, since you look well now.

I have a chance to not be one such man.”

Off he went on his path.

The moon rises to shine,

The wolves raise their head to whine.

I spent ten years in struggle.

Taming many tails that waggle.

I spent a lot of time knowing good from bad

I spent a lot of time knowing bad from good.

I know there were only a few who knew true respect,

I knew only a few could unfold the drama.

I know I love you,

I know I cannot reach you,

I know you do not take me

when I go, you blocked me

Everywhere, never replied,

Six months I tried. Now also

and forever I love you.

I have no falsity on you, so I tried.

I will live with your shadow

away from the monsters of my past

You alone will be a part,

as unseen as the poetry,

as unseen as the new moon.

I will want to still live with you forever.

Will you keep me with you?

If so, come now as the moon shines.

Not within the walls of your work

But away from it, if you could trust.

I love you quite late, I do not wish to suffice

But wish you could ask me to suffice.

I love you always, yet your walls are too high

for me to climb, I cannot do so.

I know the game, I left the world.

I leave you too here,

If you wish to return you could come,

Only you, rest I have smudged on the wall,

of my mind and they can bother me no more.

Soon, I would write their story,

Their true colours and their awful smells,

hidden in the fictional tale. But, you have not

ended, never will end as they moved out of my life.

For my grandma

Amidst the dance of furtive chances,

I wished just once, wished to be

with you like the day, to dance with

you in the rain.

I wished to be by your side always,

not like the night creeping quietly like a thief.

I wished to be led by you,

to live and love together.

I wished just once, wished to be.

I sit beneath you, but then my grandma

comes alive, amidst the brown mountains

and the hot soups she told me one day,

her sultry, soothing voice sang a song.

“When you grow up,

You really like someone,

Or love him more than yourself.

Be patient though, never run unto him.

I wished just once, wished to be.

If you do so, you would never know,

If he wants to love you, so wait

by the shore and let him cross the river.

You would live in an age when girls

won’t have time to wait, so they would

swim forward, but remember true love comes

only when the man comes to you.

I wished just once, wished to be.

If he does, you both will live forever together.

But if you cross the river, doubts will live

amidst you forever, doubts raised by the

world, doubts raised by a man’s head.

Who takes half as less time to mistrust a woman.

Do not cross the river even if others do..

If he is yours and he loves you, he would

cross it for you, for he knows you love him.

Let him know though that you love him.”

I wished just once, wished to be.

“If he does not come?” I asked playfully.

“Leave him live his love of life, set him free.”

I ate my soup, and nodded, for I never knew

what she said, until I met you, and as I sat,

the words wafted back and the monks chanted hymns

while the bell gonged and the prayers were sung.

While I let you know I love your medic smells and you frizzy head.

“Have you seen the letter? Marco asked me.

“I am seeing it for the past three hours.” Reasha replied.

“Great, what do you know?” He was smoking again.

“This is an eight page story.

First page is written to you.

Next two pages is written to me.

Fourth page onwards is the poetry stretching to the eighth page.

I have read my part thrice. I haven’t reached the poetry in depth frankly.”

“Great. But what do you see?”

“Ammm….nine names, nine names of countries, with cities. A para each for each place.”

“Great.”

Marco left me alone. I sipped my cold coffee which Martin brought me.

Martin and Rocky were given a nice room and they planned to sleep the whole day.

“My mobile is on. Anytime you need us, let me know. There is not much you can do with captivity which does not punish you.” He whispered into my ears before leaving.

*************. *******************. *******************

“Why don’t you read it again? To be very honest I don’t have much time.” Marco exhaled a ring of smoke.

“Who is the Boss if not you? After a smooth ride, a detour to show her a creation, she expected least of all an answer which portrays Marco as a victim.

“Many bosses. This is far more complicated than you think. I am sorry I had to drag you into this, I had no other choice. The day you found me, from then I have only six months. My daughter is with them. She works in a facility which is owned by these people and she does not know that. If I fail she would not be found again.”

“What?” Reasha did not know what to think. It seemed again a total upsurge.

“Trust me. I can only talk to you aloud in this room. But on the outside I do not know who is who?” Marco was smoking another cigarette, he was done with the first.

“How do you know this facility is safe?” I looked around, a small room with a coffee vending machine, a table full of cookies and three chairs and a single table, all white, flaming white. Reasha sat on one, Marco sat on the other chair and one chair was left blank.

“Xi and her guy, are the only one who are aware of it’s presence. It is actually a toppled position and people store garbage below it. They think the terrace was extended to the roof for ease.” He threw the ash on the floor, he looked tensed. No longer laughing, no longer forming poetry, no longer the carefree man, but a more somber, detached individual.

Completely incomplete yet beautiful.

This is a new series spread across ten years and an office life, an Indian girl, her life changes and phases. A fictions tale.

“No fiction is untrue at some point yet not wholly true. ”

Save the author from being ravaged and killed….

Every story has many sides. When you hear each side, you feel they are right. But, no story is complete without all the sides.

No judgment should be done without hearing all.

No decisions should be taken without considering the information from all sides.

An elephant becomes one when you see it from all sides, not if you catch it’s tail or the ears, as the old fable goes.

The excerpts of each chapter will appear in my blog.

Begin the circus,

Toll the bells,

Roll the drums,

This is a hum

Weak and old come along.

Chapter 1

Shrum as she was know, strange name which meant hard work, yet a name.

India, a country dealing with democracy, secularism, conspiracies of various kind since olden days, trying to survive, the second highest population of the world standing at 1,367,578,158 as on June 2019.

Now, every Indian if you see them closely is trying to do just one thing I mentioned above- survive. Survive everything that comes their way….survives pain, poverty, disease, lack of resources, lack of help, lack of everything even proper water.

If you walk into any metro city, there are two issues….drinking water and pollution humming over your head like humming birds.

Not that anybody does anything about them except complaining and putting it over th heads of a handful of politicians- MLA (member of legislative assembly) and MPs (member of parliament).

I am sure they alone can’t change the country, if Indians don’t try.

But, Indians don’t try and that is a fact…..

Reasons are many….

1) Clashes between beliefs leading to murders and killings.

2) Why should I do? Anyways I alone can’t change the world- Sorry figures.

3) How does it even bother? I have my home in a nice hill station, who cares how the sewage runs here. I would earn and go back. If I start changing, tomorrow people popes will come and tell me that I am snatching their jobs. Fear arises, people are scared every moment they would lose life.

We all share one fear….fear that we would die unnecessarily, when all we want to do is survive.

So, her story begins when she comes to a city as many other. A mega city, name does not matter since every city has its sins.

She is torn by her life when she arrives in the city by three things- lack of money, lack of benevolence and lack of dignity in living what is lived.

Her mother suffered the disease people feared like no other in our country- breast cancer.

The only hands which stood around her without any compromises, without any conundrum and without any conditions were the doctors located somewhere fifteen thousand kilometres away down in the southern most state.

Humans who often help are always those whom you least expect.

What does a human need when totally torn? Any ideas?

Well, let me share……

A hope, a strange day of hope.

A direction.

A small amount of faith.

Some unconditional love which money cannot buy.

Indians suffered from poverty long and the zamindari system. So, ingrained in their mind is a fact that if I am paying for something, it’s bought by me, nothing extraordinary.

This thought often seeps into the medical profession.

But, doctors care and when and those who do, are very close to something greater.

Care and their warmth cannot be brought by money.

Of course, you can buy the medicine but not the care with which they infuse it onto you.

You can buy the amount used for surgeries, but you cannot buy the doctor’s acumen who removes the sickness from the patient.

You cannot buy true care no matter how much you pay.

So, those few hands nurtured her into believing that

This was not the end.

This disease is curable.

Above all, go, try to live again.