Saturday mornings, I usually wake up a misanthrope and remain steadfastly so till midday Saturday, only to slightly be able to tolerate a little human company during the weekend. Yesterday however has been an antisocial Saturday. Today a less so but it did take some effort on my part to socialize as life required me to do. Hope the mood won't last right throughout the week :/
Was sitting at a dinner party yesterday and was observing people,listening to what they had to say about everything from toothpaste to their kids' teachers to tap water to their families' eating patterns. I wondered if I could ever make that kind of small talk when my time comes to fill up all the awkward silences at dinner parties - discuss allergy causes for their children and fret about their pooping patterns, woe over the details of morning sickness (what they throw up, when they throw up, what makes them throw up, what made their sisters/mothers/sisters-in-law throw up, etc), which minister is sleeping with whom (other than their own wives of course), best remedies for wrinkles, solar power lamps and etc. I just can't imagine myself there. It was with some effort that I managed to politely nod my head at everything that they said without offending anyone. But then again, I had already zoned out and had that spaced out smile on my face that anyone who knew me would have understood.
Speaking of weekends, most weekends I just don't feel like being the 21st century civilized human being. Being civilized includes wearing cloths, combing hair, getting out of bed, conversing with people other than in unintelligible grunts, being in a good mood, smiling etc. After an entire week of being formal, civilized and prim and proper, the bonds need to loosen allowing room for the primal being inside to jump out and wreck some serious havoc. Unusual you say? Well, I'm not exactly the portrait of normalcy as it were.
Was at the neighborhood Avrudu Uthsawaya briefly when I realized quite suddenly that I want to be 10 years old again. There were a few little girls there around that age, roaming about so very carefree and I wanted to join in, grow a few feet shorter and a few years younger, wearing one of those cute little cotton frocks with a ribbon tied at the back, tugging at the hair carefully combed back into a ponytail, wearing brightly coloured flipflops and flicking my head all around, quite unaware of the tired looking grown up observing the scenario with wistful nostalgia. It was 'un moment eclaircissant' as it were, a sudden yearning that became so very clear, crystal clear, as clear as day as one would say.
But then again, I don't think I was a very happy 10 year old. That period of life was divided between two countries and two cultures, both of which were not very pleasant. I had a class teacher who made life an everyday torture chamber, a woman who obviously had issues of her own and liked to take it out on children that she taught. I for one was a child who never did my homework. I was a shy child who only opened up to those who really cared and who was otherwise a silent kid who liked dreaming away as much as she likes it even now. While other children in the class hastened to please the easily angered woman by waiting for her by the gate, carrying her bags, wishing her good morning etc, I just preferred to remain lost in a world of my own, not giving a shoelace about anything else. I suppose my silence scared and puzzled the woman and maybe I struck her as obnoxious.
The other half of that period was spent in Pakistan where I was an outsider and a woman. I don't think I was an attractive child being very much darker than them and a tad bit overweight and neither was I old enough to be considered a 'woman' to reap whatever little benefit that came with being one. But nevertheless I belonged to the female gender which entitled me to all the discrimination, the public harassment that came along with the curse of being a woman in such a country. I was groped twice at public places which utterly disgusted me although I did not know what it meant. At school, my class teacher, a Pakistani woman told me to cover my head (there was no law in school that requested me to do so as I was not a Muslim and it was an international school which supposedly supported freedom in thought, dress and etc) which I vehemently refused for which I was penalized. I was penalized for thinking freely for my school report says that I am too imaginative for my own good and that it would do well as a girl, to curb that imagination and enthusiasm a little bit in order to thrive well in the society as a respectable woman. In the school van, an older boy, a Pakistani, bullied me saying that I should be riding in the backseat because I am a girl and not be sitting in the front seat as I wanted to. I told him to go take a hike. But then my boldness cost me my social life. And once again I was a different child, silent, dreamy-eyed and preferred the company of soft rustling pages to living breathing human beings whose sole purpose in life seemed to be was to judge.
I guess what I really wanted was to live another 10 year old's life, not go back 15-16 years and live those years all over again. Oh well.........I'll always imagine what its like to be that, a cotton dress-clad girl child, lively and carefree, starring at the world full in the face, quite unaware of what's waiting in store for all that innocence, all that joy.
Becoming a bit of a killjoy, bearer of doom aren't I? I guess its the misanthrope speaking still. Sigh..................
Was sitting at a dinner party yesterday and was observing people,listening to what they had to say about everything from toothpaste to their kids' teachers to tap water to their families' eating patterns. I wondered if I could ever make that kind of small talk when my time comes to fill up all the awkward silences at dinner parties - discuss allergy causes for their children and fret about their pooping patterns, woe over the details of morning sickness (what they throw up, when they throw up, what makes them throw up, what made their sisters/mothers/sisters-in-law throw up, etc), which minister is sleeping with whom (other than their own wives of course), best remedies for wrinkles, solar power lamps and etc. I just can't imagine myself there. It was with some effort that I managed to politely nod my head at everything that they said without offending anyone. But then again, I had already zoned out and had that spaced out smile on my face that anyone who knew me would have understood.
Speaking of weekends, most weekends I just don't feel like being the 21st century civilized human being. Being civilized includes wearing cloths, combing hair, getting out of bed, conversing with people other than in unintelligible grunts, being in a good mood, smiling etc. After an entire week of being formal, civilized and prim and proper, the bonds need to loosen allowing room for the primal being inside to jump out and wreck some serious havoc. Unusual you say? Well, I'm not exactly the portrait of normalcy as it were.
Was at the neighborhood Avrudu Uthsawaya briefly when I realized quite suddenly that I want to be 10 years old again. There were a few little girls there around that age, roaming about so very carefree and I wanted to join in, grow a few feet shorter and a few years younger, wearing one of those cute little cotton frocks with a ribbon tied at the back, tugging at the hair carefully combed back into a ponytail, wearing brightly coloured flipflops and flicking my head all around, quite unaware of the tired looking grown up observing the scenario with wistful nostalgia. It was 'un moment eclaircissant' as it were, a sudden yearning that became so very clear, crystal clear, as clear as day as one would say.
But then again, I don't think I was a very happy 10 year old. That period of life was divided between two countries and two cultures, both of which were not very pleasant. I had a class teacher who made life an everyday torture chamber, a woman who obviously had issues of her own and liked to take it out on children that she taught. I for one was a child who never did my homework. I was a shy child who only opened up to those who really cared and who was otherwise a silent kid who liked dreaming away as much as she likes it even now. While other children in the class hastened to please the easily angered woman by waiting for her by the gate, carrying her bags, wishing her good morning etc, I just preferred to remain lost in a world of my own, not giving a shoelace about anything else. I suppose my silence scared and puzzled the woman and maybe I struck her as obnoxious.
The other half of that period was spent in Pakistan where I was an outsider and a woman. I don't think I was an attractive child being very much darker than them and a tad bit overweight and neither was I old enough to be considered a 'woman' to reap whatever little benefit that came with being one. But nevertheless I belonged to the female gender which entitled me to all the discrimination, the public harassment that came along with the curse of being a woman in such a country. I was groped twice at public places which utterly disgusted me although I did not know what it meant. At school, my class teacher, a Pakistani woman told me to cover my head (there was no law in school that requested me to do so as I was not a Muslim and it was an international school which supposedly supported freedom in thought, dress and etc) which I vehemently refused for which I was penalized. I was penalized for thinking freely for my school report says that I am too imaginative for my own good and that it would do well as a girl, to curb that imagination and enthusiasm a little bit in order to thrive well in the society as a respectable woman. In the school van, an older boy, a Pakistani, bullied me saying that I should be riding in the backseat because I am a girl and not be sitting in the front seat as I wanted to. I told him to go take a hike. But then my boldness cost me my social life. And once again I was a different child, silent, dreamy-eyed and preferred the company of soft rustling pages to living breathing human beings whose sole purpose in life seemed to be was to judge.
I guess what I really wanted was to live another 10 year old's life, not go back 15-16 years and live those years all over again. Oh well.........I'll always imagine what its like to be that, a cotton dress-clad girl child, lively and carefree, starring at the world full in the face, quite unaware of what's waiting in store for all that innocence, all that joy.
Becoming a bit of a killjoy, bearer of doom aren't I? I guess its the misanthrope speaking still. Sigh..................
1 comment:
Interesting stuff.
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