Bombay Rains

Dear mom and dad, it is just as well that you will not read this. God bless technology. This is not next on the list of letters to be written but I need to write this. I need to be furious enough to get out all the frustration of the last two months. And maybe by the end of this letter, I will let it go. Who knows. You know I love you. So I'm not wasting time saying that. I need to tell you about the amazingly vast gap between us over the last two months. I don't know how, or why, but seemingly you can't understand me anymore. Or maybe I have lost the patience to try and make you understand. Mom, I am like you; and I love the fact but I'm not someone who takes all that suffering and bottles it up and doesn't say anything. I care about everything; maybe a little too much and I need to tell you. I need to get angry; and scream and shout and I will be okay. But for those ten minutes/half hour/two days; let me be. Dad, I love you most in this world. You are my first ...

*1987* "i can't believe we're pregnant together. I can't believe we're having our babies together!" "yes! best friends forever." "that will always be a lame term nitya.""i know. can't help it. it makes me laugh every single time pooja!"         * *1991* "cake!" "hold on vaibhav! it's not going to materialize itself!" "CAKE!CAKE!CAKE!" "VAIBHAV, AHANA. Stop it both of you!" "but we waaaaant caaaake!" "why did we ever have kids pooja? our lives were so much easier." "i know. i know. don't remind me."         * *1999* "mum, could you hurry up?! I have to go!" "ahana. you're not going to paris. you're going for ice cream with vaibhav. will you relax?!" "but muuuum! He's buying me ice cream! for the first time in so many years! and we get to go without you AND aunty! it IS a big deal!" "oh ...

…And they lived happily ever after. She closed the book. Right, because fairytales exist. There is a cute boy waiting somewhere for you to let your hair down so he can climb right up and rescue you. She had tried. Oh god had she. She fell a couple of feet short. But if she sat in her room on the ground floor and let her hair out, it nicely sweeps the floor. She had long hair; that’s where the whole obsession started I think. The reading of fairytales. Watching the Disney movies. Collecting the dolls and dreaming. She could sit and dream all day long. But everyone grows up someday right? Her mother said that.   All.The.Time. It was like a tape that had got jammed in the player. Everyone has to grow up. It’s high time you did too. She’d heard that so much she wanted to give up. On the fairytales. And the dreaming. And the waiting. But why should she. Once in a while, you would think that maybe… your parents are right. Thankfully that time hasn’t arrived yet. Her mother was not right...

She ran ahead, jumping and skipping, calling out warning to approaching bicycles and people too. Too young to be manning a herd of angry buffaloes, she took pride in the fact that the job was hers. Everything about her went against it, she was 13, a girl and also of lower caste. She knew all of this and yet she was happy. Her caste did not matter at all; her father was the chief of their village, a proud indomitable man who loved her. Even though she was a girl, she was the most loved in her family. The elders called her a miracle baby, her mother was very close to death when she conceived her. Somehow, by the will of God, not only did she survive the pregnancy, but ever since has not had a single health problem. She was proud that she was so lucky for her mother. The men from town didn’t think so. They came to interview her father but used insulting words like ‘anpadh’ (illiterate); ‘andhvishwasi’ (superstitious). They made claims of telling the world their problems but had made them ...