“i wish i wasn't my father's daughter.
i wish i came from someone other than him.
if i think of giving him an universe
he would point faults in my stars.
for him everything is defected
may it be galaxies or my heart.
i would ask him to riddle me this,
how can i be the kindest person in the room
but an utter disappointment in his eyes?
how can i ever look better to myself,
when he has stitched his lens as my eyes.
how can i feel better about myself
when in my head, his words nudge me forward
to die die die?
i am brave for everyone
for you i will always be the harbinger of misfortune.
if only the fates altered her course
and they provided me with a jewel that would
mutilate my navel.
if only i could survive with this reservoir of guilt.”
— a silly poem i wrote back in 2018
babai, if there ever comes a day, you look back in life, you would realise that you could have been loved. if only you deemed yourself worthy for it. babai, i don't know how you do this: keeping up for years with people you knew you were going to hate. and i hate you — there's no doubt in that — but is it kind enough to admit that i, perhaps, behold the mind to understand you? these words become like heaps of salt on my tongue when i am with mummum and namnam, it tastes like betrayal, something awfully criminal deep inside my lungs, to mildly admit that i somewhat share your sentiments about life. babai, why is it that it feels so awful to understand you; to try to love you?
i act like it doesn't matter. your understanding of the world is far more cruel than what i have right now. life is unfair, i know and as your daughter, i would never get over this realisation that i have contributed fairly to your awful experience to life. i was always a troubled child, headstrong and pretentious; and despite your visible dislike to me, you try everyday to neutralise the hatred and bring civility to our exchange. i obstruct your advances.
there's no point in trying to make you understand my actions because i am beyond cent percent sure that you'll never hear any words of protest from me. there's no point in justifying your tongue, they've always been merciless and incredibly shallow. there's no point in painting you as a tragic hero no matter how much i try to understand your circumstances — yet i try. i try to find your reasoning on every word you say. they said you were the one with a brain— and, you were, perhaps, in terms of acidic and basic, inorganic and organic elements, but never on the institution of love.
but what do i know of love? the nearest synonyms i have known about love is resentment, which your fatherly ship harboured the first in my port since as early as five. resentment of a daughter of a father who never tried to love. i questioned a lot: "why couldn't he love me?" and the answer echoed the same every time "he wanted a boy". i was five, babai, and being five does things to you like making you believe that you're inherently incapable of being loved because your father wanted something different — genetically, biologically, innately different. i never thought i would start to mourn for what i couldn't be at such a young age. i think i deserved to be eighteen first and then sad. i was ten years too early to question my worth.
i didn't know about worth and i never questioned. we had good memories: you taking pictures of me during holi or just randomly when my badminton racket doubled as a guitar; the fake strumming, warm flush of sunlight on our face and my giggles. even the very first conscious memory i have of my life is me riding the front of your bike, moist air brushing my feverish face. i remember rushing to open the gate for you. i remember loving you without demanding anything; what went wrong? did i grow up too fast? did i grow out of your tiny cave of a heart because, at the end of the day, i still lacked something essential that made a worthless woman? did being a woman mean less deserving of love to you?
it started very slowly to me, the realisation. the more i watched your brutal words bouncing around the four walls, the more i realised the first man to love me, would never truly love me. i am still afraid of loud voices, you know, the difference, however, is that my limbs have grown up too much to be accommodated under the beds. i remember the first conclusion i drew about you — "a man whose voice alone demanded the world to hide inside a bin." it started as an inside joke between us three but now i seriously start to find how utterly horrifying the analogy is. a man possessing the infamous power to demand the world to conceal. the more i ponder, the more the realisation hits that perhaps the entire population who should be afraid of you, is entrapped in my being, afraid of coming out — afraid to be.
you have permanently sealed me. the lives inside me are utterly drained out of their lives and now i am nothing but a walking shadow of your perception of me — a "do as you're told", "up to no good", a wannabe deranged woman. no matter what i did, the initiatives i have taken, the decision, my creations, all lacked the basic life force you demanded — a manly life force. you made me believe that being a woman with anything other than a working womb was derogatory. you made me believe that there is no greater disability than being born with a "lack".
and oh, how i have lacked! in academics, in arts and culture, in being a decent human — just fail, fail, fail. i remember you, you know, teaching me maths in third grade. perhaps the numbers infuriated you. the numbers in your bank balance, she said. perhaps, you were frustrated at the continuous drain of wealth because it was beyond a seven year old's understanding how my inability to multiply fictional sums bothered you to the point you raised your voice at me, your hand too, perhaps, — two things that haven't come down for me even now. the words, though, were plain poison.
"i waste so much money raising you." something that my brain translated to "i wish you were never born" and "were you not born at all, things would have been wealthy." by that time, honestly, i did know what money was. i knew because i used to watch other classmates rushing to their parents for an "after-school" snack and mummum would always force me to look away. i knew money was something scarce and a bourbon biscuit was a luxury. i knew of money as the one rupees that would rattle at the bottom of the tin box on teacher's table called "poor fund." for me money was something to give but not something to spend. now, something, that's been wasted on me.
it was just a debate on my utility. i didn't know what worthy meant but i was definitely not sufficient enough to get the title of — despite the fortunes spent on me. i think, it was the very first time i understand what 50000 times 5 was — the amount you waste on your family and something you deem, despite your sheer displeasure, to be your responsibility.
when mummum would talk about you, she would say that if there's anything good about you, it was that you're responsible. i have now come to believe so too. i don't know how far stretched it is that it's the only surviving virtue in you but you embrace responsibility like a knife in your bosom — it kills you too but somehow you have decided that you would have a disgraced death if the cunning dagger ever is plunged out of you. i see the blood dripping off your chest everyday when you're doing as simple a task as cooking half edible fish. it makes you a martyr, of course, with blood and sweat and tears mixed with your saline patriarchal tears to keep standing up on the pedestal while the blood tickles down your thigh.
martyr, sure, but not a father. and i wish i knew what it would be that would make you a father but from what my defected intellect suggest, it would be the elemental love. you don't love me, babai and you don't love anyone — not even yourself. when the rustling leaves would rattle at your broom up on the roof at two past fifteen pm, i would lowly whisper to mummum's ear, "high functioning depression". you would say, "this house is full of leeches and i am the only one reliable enough." i don't think if it was even true or maybe it was. i took it upon myself to venture out my flaws, to look at my calloused hands and question "what good are you for?" i didn't realise my doubts were an echo of yours.
"what good are you for?" you yelled out one day, "just eat and sleep and walk like a fat pig" it was a random tuesday for you but for me, it was the day that my trembling, compassionate thought found its completion. it provided me with the answer i was looking for — maybe all i was good for was nothing at all. but then i met people at school telling me i was intelligent, a good listener and smart. the adjectives warred among themselves. surely, how could i be smart and utterly dumb at the same time? it made no sense.
i was conflicted. at some point, this conflict started to give rise to this deluded girl who found it hard to believe that there was good in herself — that despite the way her arms flapped by her side, something you found terribly disturbing, she had something good. perhaps people were lying and you were honest. i mean, what else can drive an individual to excellence if not criticism — and oh how wounding were your words!
and now all i seem to know is how to dwell in simple lexicons. i don't seem to know anything other than the fact that all i have are words that need to be strung together; to be sharp enough to cut. maybe i learnt it from you, to join words upon words and make sure they stab deep enough to replicate the wound on your chest. that is my responsibility and i don't seem to know any other way to feel — similar to you.
you and i are similar in so many ways, countable, uncountable ways. some days we are incredibly alike, our rage in sync, and others, unwillingly in tune with your prejudice. i hate weaknesses too, the display of it, the vulnerability of it. i received it generously from you, in pounds, kilograms, in waves. but the thing about keeping a stone in your heart is that it becomes increasingly futile to love someone later on in life. in simpler words, what's affection if not vulnerability? what is left of love if trust's foundation isn't credible? the fear you have ingrained in my heart for never willing to crumble down my walls around others to be safe, hasn't landed me anywhere remotely lovely. it made me "judgemental" , "closed off" and annoyingly "independent". you ruined love for me, all because you believed love wasn't manly and unconsciously demanded of me to outgrow my femininity and transcend to a greater good of pseudo-masculinity; a personality which ached for love yet forever reserved it as undeserving.
and the thing about being such a mixture of unhappy bundles of a person is that you're temperate grasslands with the continuous fear of tempest. you're unreliable, uncanny, always withdrawing from the reactivity of love; it makes you ugly from within, to a point that all you become good for is a distant friend who they're bound to outgrow because they couldn't deal with her unpredictability.
there are moments, you know? moments when your words make me stand dead in my tracks, shocked or hurt, i cannot really point my finger at. the moments are just like slipping time, your anger forcefully filling up your lungs, the nerves on your throat tightening at their extremes. the moments when you're split in two: a good babai and the ugly one. and the words? utterly sonorous, lacking lustre of decency. you would say something along the lines of, "i have started developing this unnerving disgust on women: people pleasing, callous and only good for breeding" — something no man yells aloud enough for her daughters to hear. it isn't something derogatory about the comment that i am not used to hearing at all. i have had my fair share of the outside world and the men outside share the same colour as your thoughts: tarry, gooey and equally judgemental. the difference that demands it's establishment that from then on, you are no different than any outside man. you're no different than that conceited paradigm of man who yields enough charm to hide the filth inside. and you were known to be a "family man."
and, do you know where my tragedy lies? in understanding. i try to find sense in your words; to look for the remaining logic of "what", "why" and "how". i bear this heavy weight on my back for this skill of forgiveness that comes with empathy. i chant: "a rough childhood, a rough childhood" as if it keeps all ill ominous thoughts you breed inside of you, apart. as if having an unforgiving mother wounded you so deep that the blood never stopped oozing out and growing up, you found a knife in mummum which gave birth to a dagger and a sword.
and it was a free fall.
namnam kept twisting at your heart and i kept myself aligned with your neck: to kill, to sacrifice, ready to execute. you always tell me that you “will make a boy” out of me; a comment that twisted so much in me, that, from then on, i kept looking for a man inside of my heart — a possible version of me that you can love. something that isn't purposefully unworthy, something that isn't a woman. and henceforth, i envisioned, i urged and i attained — that beautiful middle that can bring me closer to love, masculine, invulnerable, prudish and closed off, hairs closest to my head, breast tightening my breath. being closer to a man never felt more of a dream until then.
i hate men, you know. partly because i cannot stand their masculinity and partly because of your fascination with petting their heads and smiling at them with a sincerity that raises seven layers of jealousy over me. you have barely ever petted my head, shared words of encouragement — let alone of affection. i don’t blame you, not particularly. like any other man in their thirties, you hoped for a life that didn’t demand you to toil under the sun in your sixties. now, look at you. look at you defeated and disappointed.
and here i intervene on your behalf to find sense in suffering — both yours and ours. this suffering is our umbilical cord, one that the heavens tied with your bosom to mine; through which poison travels. i am poison. i come from poison. i am roy and there’s no cure for that. there’s nothing i can ever do to diminish its effect. you build me a home in this flow. it's only fair the waves washes my hut out.
let me tell you one of my other vivid memory i can recall where i realised how utterly isolated i felt. it was a sunday 12 pm, humid and sunny, when you dropped me off at dd ma’am’s house for the teacher’s day celebration. we were supposed to be going to the hotel for the food, the reservation at 2:30 pm. i still shudder at the memory. it was around 4:45 pm by the time we finished. you rang me eleven times: “what’s taking so long?” you asked, “what’s this, a jalsa house? what’s there to celebrate so much?” your tone held this animosity that blamed me for this crime of enjoyment. you demanded my immediate departure. i begged you to come pick me up since none of my other friends were leaving any sooner. in response, you said something that still raises hair behind my neck: “if i go there, your madam will regret being born.” i cannot recall if it was your tone or the malice, i identified that was laced with your threat, but it made two things very clear to me. one, i had a choice between choosing my own safety or dd ma’am; and, two, i was utterly alone in the busiest place of the town. i remember disconnecting the phone and looking back at ma’am laughing and cheering and everyone was drunk in this merriment that deserved no sort of interruption.
so, i walked. in a thin half-sleeves turquoise, briskly, partially scared and partially accepting of the situation at hand. the stares were the worst; the way they looked like i was a prey at their mercy. you demanded why i walked for twenty-five minutes when i could have just taken a toto here and that time i remember lying with a cold face: “they didn’t take me.” and, be honest to me, would you have believed me if i told you that the man looked at me up-and-down and said, “one person, eighty rupees”? i told you that day i didn’t have money on me, but only i know how hard i clenched at my purse, noticing the look on his face.
i promised you i wouldn’t protest and even that day i found myself incoherent. perhaps, 24th of september marked the day of the first time i made an adult decision. you may deem this as whining and, honestly, i cannot care less. what i actually cared more about at that moment was my valuable choice: how choosing ma’am didn’t feel selfish, how not choosing myself didn’t feel like a martyr — something you feel on a regular basis. i am telling you this today. it feels astronomical to put myself through dangers knowing that someone i love is safe.
you are a comparison. every once in a while, i find myself having coherent thoughts about you. for example, all my life, your tongue rolled to pronounce the term ‘women’ with a snarl, oddly manifesting your hidden prejudice vocally; your hatred tangible. i remember hearing you recollect that all the years of your life you have been under the impression that if there’s a power dynamic that existed in the qualms of nature, females would have had the smaller end of the rope – your views have, however, since changed. changed not in the terms of viewpoint, rather on the basis that females had better ‘opportunities’ at deceit. the biggest betrayal the laws of nature ever did was bestowing you with three women in your life — and, oh, how you die a little inside everyday — and, oh, how i enjoy it.
i never once claimed to be a good daughter — and, shamefully, i am not. were i a daughter good enough, i would have been a son — for no amount of good is good enough in a daughter. nothing is ever good enough, enough as good as a son. daughters do not reap fortunes, they rip your insides out to sate their everlasting yearning for love — and, therefore, there’s no daughter inside of me that is not at par with the begging for love.
but all i ever find myself doing is begging for a bit of understanding. you don’t understand, do you? my insides scream all the time for a bit of understanding. just a little of your sympathy; for you to look into me: for me to enter your field of periphery and grant acknowledgement and perhaps all i have ever dreamt of wanting from you are the words. ‘i see you.”
and here is, again, how i sleuth my consciousness into investigating any traces of abandonment in your blood. i find your insides shaking, always, seething in rage of an unheard child. you always say amma was malice, everything she ever stood for was pure ablution for malcontent — her constant show of flamboyant generosity finds you at loss of all words. you blame it all on your father, for not being aggressive enough to fight the promiscuity out of her — to beat her, perhaps, and be unkind to her attempts at initiating civility.
here is again how i find myself in tune with my lineage. women in my (your) lineage has always tended to be unheard, being known as ‘strong’ but never at the expense of their bravery, women in my (your) lineages will always be called as brave at the expense of their wellbeing, for having fought against their in-laws, with their husbands for freedom. women in my lineages have always had their fate at the mercy of their male counterparts and it is unfortunate that i have always thought of mummum to a fierceful woman for putting up with your shenanigans, and not because of, well, herself. can you imagine that, babai? being known to history as a tormentor despite having good intentions?
but what else? you would tell me to be beware and attentive, to mould myself like a man because mummum has her brothers to fall back on — i have no one. your definition of man is problematic. you would think a man is someone genetically rich with the power to procreate — but no! for you, a man is someone who makes no mistakes, earns, displays anger and resentment to his family, and someone who has no single ounce of blood that flows up their valve that carries any particular matter of love. for you, a man is a lifeless organ that beats and depletes into nothingness, cascading all his humanity into anger. for you, a man always grunts, stays silent to approaches of women yet complains that women has it easier and that women demands to be tied, close-mouthed and beaten, naked and even possibly raped, if she is opinionated.
but, i could be making it all up.
i could be creating my resentment towards you — i could be faking it. you know what? this is what i am always looking for; to delude myself into thinking that i am the victim. in fact, what do i know about being a father? mayhaps, it's rotten work. mayhaps, it demands to be born out of misery, to provide for something that only knows how to hate.
i remember seeing you as a human, certain times, when you'd be tearing your hair out and crying out loud in veranda at amma, your voice thundering across the house, a manly demand to be heard was suddenly a childish cry to hear : “i try everyday! can't you understand me?! i gave everything — everything away for you! just for you to acknowledge me; a little bit.” here, you stopped, your voice breaking, “just for you to call me evil.”
you looked so human that my insides carved your voice so irreparably deep. humanity never looked so manly to me.
then suddenly the moon shines as bright as the sun and it's a new tuesday and you call me “too fat” and ridicule my appearance and i find myself staring at the mirror, red-eyed, threatening not to cry because how humiliating would it be to shed tears from the same pair of eyes that look like yours... to give you that power is determination to not breathe underwater no matter how your lungs burn for air — knowing that no matter what, the weeds holding your ankle underwater is so much more gentle than the parent at home. that's what thinking of loving you is; choosing to find air when drowning because at least your lungs can inflame in water all it wants, rather than prejudiced words that are thrown to break people down.
and you're ugly. you're so ugly. you make me want to close my eyes and never look at myself again because of the resemblance my face embraces with yours. like a cusp of the moon. like a twig holding twin buds. one so similar to the other, yet so heavenly different.
it was Rabindra Jayanti and i remember getting prepared, cheerful and positive about the day, and you leaning forward to mummum saying, “girls who dress up for this day are usually beyshha-s.”. you associated me, your youngest daughter, one that you ‘aspire’ to mutilate into a son, with a woman haggling over her body. i am a woman of good upbringing, and as any woman for good upbringing, it humiliated me to look at myself and be thought of as a prostitute; but at that point, it didn't shame me as much to think of myself as one, as it did to think of the man whose thoughts were they a vocal output of. it didn't bother me, not at all. i try not to let it bother me, but it eats me alive. babai, how many fathers think of their daughter as a courtesan for dressing up? is that what it is like to be a father; looking down on your child because they've grown up? does it threaten your will, your voice, or masculine self? do you have any idea how hard it was to block out those thoughts with the words continuously reverberating in your mind? no, you don’t. you never will.
although, i did reconsider applying kajol; something i used to find myself feeling pretty in.
but what do i even want? i always seem to ask this question. compassion? i have started believing that i have no ounce of deliberation to encompass such affection. in the end, what do i have to be deserving of such kindness? sometimes i remember thinking of living like you; for, you had such a thing as precious as a gem. you have power and to think of power, i would think of you. oftentimes, i start to simply regard you as my master and to appease you, i sell my head every dawn at the doorstep of your demands. you pay for me, babai, yet all i seem to look down at is myself as a stupid slave, submitting to the fact that the only way i can repay you back is with my strict compulsory conformity. each of your rupees exhibits my silence. you don’t just pay your utility; you pay for my silence. now that i think of it, think of you in terms of a power hoarder, i rethink your position. does my compliance suggest i am the bigger person to not rebel or does it suggest subjugation? is silence not a dagger in disguise? is the compliant not the bigger mastermind? what am i plotting against, if not utter, impeding despotism? sometimes i even wonder who the true manipulator is? you with your sharp words or me with my sharp wits?
but again, i find myself yearning for the said compassion; perhaps even an attentive ear. i pose this question to you: what do you truly know about me? do you know anything beyond my desperate name – the name you picked – or my surname — that we share? do you know anything beyond my date of birth? do you know each birthday is a painful reminder that i exist and henceforth bear the equal brunt of your displeasure? are you aware of my favourite colour, my hobbies? could you even wildly guess how many friends i have had? don’t you truly ever wonder what i do when i see rain or think of cold days? don’t you truly guess what goes on in my head when my eyes leak no emotion when i see you? its utterly shameful that i have to even pose this question to arouse in you any sense of curiosity that should have naturally existed within you; but, when was the last time you looked at me and truly, pellucidly witnessed another human? do i have no heart or mind of my own? do you owe no explanation to why i have had to carry this weight on my shoulder ever since i started looking for mummum to come hold me? i am not coming entirely out of my undiluted need to shame you — i am proposing this question to you — man-to-man. it is not that my voice speaks to you, it is not my flesh, it is not any tangible beating heart that wrenches at your presence — i am demanding this answer of your soul; for if the world were a barbed wire and we stand at the edge of the world, all this daughter would ever crack her voice to ask of you is, “why?”
you know what they say when the voice of reason bleeds from my throat? “that is how he is, bear it. at least he pays for you.” they say when you overuse the same thing over and over and over and over again, it loses its meaning. for example, bari. bari means house, a home, to be precise, a place you can return and retire to. bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari, bari and bari. what is bari to you? something that is yours. something that you spent over a lakh to renovate and rebuild. something that doesn’t know how to capture warmth, doesn’t understand love and procures no companionship. bari to you is something that you can boast about; an achievement, a hideous progeny. bari holds no meaning to me. i do not have a bari and this roof that shelters me is welly defined as someone else from the very moment i learned how to spell its name. “bari ta ami baniyechi” (i built this house). the doors are yours, the windows, the roof, the ground, the bathroom, the microwave, the half turning fridge that walls most of the space, the trees, the backyard, everything; even the bees and the bugs — all, all yours. all that is tangible is yours and i do not want to call any of it my home. what is mine? this shelter is mine. this solitude is mine, this repressed words that bounces on four walls, this resentment that burns mummum’s eyes is mine, this crude humanity is mine, the fleeting laughter, the dejection, the turmoil, the hollow prayers, the empty worship, this watered down civility — all mine. i am a hoarder of abstract feeling. i belong to no materials. i am immobile in terms of navigating the tangible possessions. i am all the feelings inculcated and this is not my home. it never was. it never will be.
i remember during the summers, mummum would forbid throwing away the mango seeds. in case there grows so many trees that it chokes the sunshine out of you. i have always there the mango seeds aiming at the biggest mango tree: there if something is born, it's born as an accident.
you sacrifice a lot, and i spend looking at you with wide eyes, not emitting wonder, but a docile repose at observing. here's my fallacy again. i diagnose you with a prenatal lack of acknowledgement: your mother never cared, but loved. your father, you barely talk about but when you do, you curse.
sometimes i wonder if you're your father's foil, and, i, yours. we are so distinct from one another, yet so linked: one would mistake us for twins. yet, you're my father, my fear, my agony, ruthlessness encapsulated. i see you in everyone I meet. i see you in myself and there's no greater agony than running from something that is well established within you. i wish i could say that i wake everyday in bliss but i open this eyes to take a peek at the room you're not inhabiting: i only lurk in places you're absent, and that's the only recipe for a happy household.
i rush to make tea from the water you boiled: you hate it, the way it tastes: too good, too sweetly, too wrong. my procedures, too bad, and, I am always a mistake. sometimes I wish i could just sit you down and propose this grand question of “why?” and watch you squirm under the weight of your misaligned judgment. the sunlight peeks through the window blinds and it burns your bed: my mum abandoned it a few years ago after her honour was questioned, and i know you hate the mornings, and it's not the first beginning of life you have hated.
i envision your head hanging down from the bed and an ant crawling on the tip of your nose: if i hit it and kill, i may be a little worthy, or, hit and miss, and become an accused murdered. that's where the gap forms, the ridge between you and i. that's the thing about honour, it is a reward given.
that is the reason I have belonged to no one, nor even to myself. i beg at the footsteps of every man's inventory, for a spare change of dignity and call it love. there's not a place in this world I have not searched for a father's love.
"i am poison. i come from poison" is this a bojack reference
im in awe. every word hits.