I am a heterosexual 31 year old woman with opinions on everything but not much to say. I’ve been bought up in a very mediocre environment but am surrounded by extraordinary people. I’ve travelled a bit but never alone. I’ve had juices that lifted my spirits and crystals that made me love. I’ve dated two men and married the second. I read the news with no political leanings. In the past 4 years I’ve never spent a night alone in my (any) house. I love animals but not enough to pick up strays and help them. I’m a good friend but I never call first. I love clothes but I’m not fashionable. My biggest insecurity is the mole under my left nostril and it’s also what makes me unique. I love my family and blame them for all that I’m not. I’m motivated to do things as long as I don’t talk myself out of it. I’m a feminist who relies heavily on approval. I love books and I do skip pages. I can drive but my husband / father still drive me most places. I love the spotlight but I merge well into the background. I’m so incredibly average that if I had to pick a number between one and ten I would pick seven. Mediocrity runs so deep in me that at this point I have no other identity. You may see me and recognize me and maybe you won’t but I am a small part of all of you.
I’ve always felt beautiful. I’ve always felt incredibly empowered with my bite sized breasts and hairy stomach. I mean, I’ve always had great role models who pitched the right kind of beauty to me. I would dream of sitting in a vat of fairness cream making snow angels - incidentally, snow white and delicate winged angels were few of the empowered role models of my childhood. Growing up in the 90’s In a small town I had a whole bunch of veiled women telling me how great I had it! And it’s true, I did! I could show my waxed calf and knee. I could travel on public transport with my arms crossed over my breasts (it’s our very own traveling arm-our). Becoming a young adult, I realized this was why the Hindu religion had Kali as a strong female lead in a largely male dominated god cast. It’s those extra sets of hands. While she was casually decapitating men she needed those extra arms to keep wandering hands from her fun zones and this was the perfect lesson to learn at 18. While protecting my breasts I had my pussy grabbed. Well, not grabbed as much as cupped. It was actually very gently violating; so gentle was his dominance that confusion was the only real result of that interaction. Oh, and I wanted my vagina to burn and fall off. Since, I’ve added a great deal to my thick book of unsolicited life lessons. Like now, if I don’t get visually raped while walking down the street I know it’s time to start tweaking my diet or adding more ways to blend-in. My domesticated anxieties teach me blending-in well, because I feed, love and protect them. They snuggle next to me at social gatherings, they bark at well-founded strangers, they whine when I attempt to leave for unchartered shores and they need to be fed regularly.
My body has never truly felt mine. At 13 it belonged to my exploding ovaries, at 16 to my rice belly, at 18 to phoney talent , at 19 to a duplicitous man, at 22 to cellulite, at 25 to wanton abandon, at 27 to wild panic , at 31…
If I could marry a dog I would. I’ve thought several times about how it would feel like to kiss that furry germ-filled mouth, not in a gross French-that-Cocker’s-mouth kind of way - or maybe exactly that way. Even though bestiality isn’t my thing, I’ve had my dog’s tongue stray into my mouth. Besides the immediate revulsion, I felt close to them in a way which is second only to my husband. It wasn’t hard compromising my sanitary standards even though a canine’s tongue is friends with all things ripe with rot. Neil deGrasse Tyson says interspecies bacteria swapping is healthy for the body (paraphrasing is convenient) But I do have boundaries - under no circumstance can my husband do things to me unbrushed. Who needs a cocktail of morning breaths? The only morning stink I can handle Is my own poo and various combinations of stink on my dogs - the foul smelling padded paws that collect all the things that you would step over, the old mop smelling forever damp ear ends, the anal sacks that can singe your nostril hair or that delicious wet dog smell that just never leaves a dog home. The smells, the wallet draining care, the clouds of fur, the accidental poop on hands, the chewed out shoes - the trouble’s worth it. My mornings would be deeply sad without the 6 a.m butt wiggle and surprise nose licks. The shedding of my uterine wall is easier with them curled up next to me. They lick my salty tears when I’m inconsolable. Its impossible to list how loved they make me feel.
My beasts are my anti- depressants and my yardstick for what’s right with the world - my beasts are Sir Stikki and Lady Peanut Wigglebutt.
I rule this land like a king, or should I say a queen? The feminist in me gets confused sometimes. I want to be able to speak the English of old and not have to change it to fit the current feminist narrative. It chokes creative expression and makes language feel like a prison.
But I digress - my land has a beautiful husband whose moral structure is the founding stone of our relationship, and two fluff-buckets whose lives I’m unhealthily involved in. I love and protect them with the devoted ferocity of a female otter (don’t be fooled at how soft we look, we’re incredibly dangerous - especially in dark sunglasses). I keep them safe in my castle that lives and breathes with us in quiet contemplation of our secrets. The silence is punctuated with people, parties and prejudice. I factor in my insecurities in my sporadic social interactions; being a house wife will do that you. While cleaning and drying and washing and scrubbing and cooking and caring, I’ve become the antifeminist. The cliche that millennials abhor and run from. I’m intensely embarrassed and increasingly creative with my answers to ‘what I do’. I don’t have a burgeoning career and an active social life but I do have my home. Sometimes it’s a cocoon and sometimes it’s a cocoon. It protects me but also throws up walls and leaves just the four of us enfolded - a tiny dot in this melee.
From this unseen anarchy comes an appreciation for the only thing I know how to do right - love my three. Sadly, I’m unapologetic about my stationary status. Even though this passive defiance doesn’t allow me to build on these past decades - I am this and this isn’t so bad.
No uterus, no opinion. Seems too archaic an argument for explaining just how it is to live life laced with disquiet. The subtle patriarchal pressure thats woven into everyday interactions and experiences makes for a hunched living. My heteronormative life asked me for a good grade, a good body, a good man, a good job, a good home, a good uterus, a good life. Expectations were always checked and settling for the path to obscurity was met with agreeable nods. But being garden-variety at 18 suddenly wasn't desirable anymore. Sex came to me as rebellion and not a rite of passage. Linear living wasn’t good enough, now I had to be accessible and complicated. By 21, I’d learnt to reflect my environment. Deep diving into my partner’s interests, the aesthetics of my friends, my mother’s fortitude, my father’s untethered living. All the unconscious assimilating felt safe. It still does. How can people critique you if you are the dupatta covering their breasts. Modesty is highly regarded when you’re the right amount of faded. It and you can never be a fuck-off red. Who gave me this life goal without me knowing it? How do I get appreciated without being looked at? Modern India’s given me these contradictions to curate. It gave me a matriarchal household that still panders to the men of the house. It gave me alternative education with a defined end goal. It gave me the freedom to love silently. It gave me the privilege to safely use public transport till 10 pm. It gave me the shops to buy cigarettes and owners the right to refuse to give it to a girl. It gave me modish clothes and the suffocating gaze . It made me aware of the struggle of the non-binary community and told me just how illegal it was. With so much freedom I can’t help but stand very, very still.
I have a broken cabinet door in my living room. I keep pet supplies in it. I can never remember to give it the attention it needs. Every time I reach for it, my body knowingly tenses to catch the door. It’s lightweight, so it’s really no trouble catching it, but the annoyance lies in when this pretend wood clatters. It’s basically sawdust that’s impersonating teak. Anything that’s 99% fake can’t demand this kind of attention. The break in the panel is unique only to not-wood. This sneaky crack on the base has become over the years an oddly large and flaky cavity. Every time it’s opened, just a little bit of this not-wood comes flying out. Now, if I paid attention to the hole I’d try packing it in, but it’s always the panel I’m worried about. I’m busy trying to balance the door, maintaining the alignment - at any cost. You see, the panel is imperative to a clean facade even when the internal story could be messy and disjointed.
Winter is gone and now I feel a little barren. I hope for this new year to fill me up with all things good - like the promise of success, in my relationships and work. I hope to be in a constant state of spring, where I can tend to life and just watch it bloom into all shades of validation. Getting just a little taste of it last year has somehow made me more desperate for it but a little less fearful to pursue it.
I struggle every day with how perfectly passable I am. From the work I do, the books I read to the arguments I make, they all lack a defined sense of self. I’ve tried to make myself seem smarter by layering my ineptitude with adopted words and actions. I’ve been desperately trying to be someone else and now I can’t remember who I am at my core. I’ve absorbed so many peculiarities that none feel my own anymore. So now I constantly feel like an imposter, unable to take a compliment or criticism. It’s a constant battle between hating myself and trying to stand a little straighter with a little bit of self-worth.
My country wears a thin veil of democracy - beneath it lies the saffron army, ready to show the country how to be an Indian. I’m learning, my leaders, to preface my beef meal with the cries of ‘jai shri Ram’ , to not be scared in Unnao because my political leaders have the right to rape and kill, to appreciate the Balakot air strike because Gandhi taught us violence begets violence. I’m learning to be bold with pellet guns (relax ‘liberals’ they’re non -lethal) and to be blind to the constitutional rights of my fellow country-men, because finally my brothers can own Kashmiri women.
I will raise my arm and hail my leader; I will help spread the message of saurashtra so our youth can understand that our brand of patriotism is rage. I’ll witness public lynching and watch in silence as my freedom too is stoned and scratched, dying for ‘peace and prosperity’. I won’t be outraged as my country sets the stage to draw the iron curtain on the world’s largest democracy. I can’t be outraged because I gave power by not exercising my own. I didn’t vote.
What happens to love when physical intimacy becomes the missionary song you know all the words to? When the invincibility of young love gives way to the relentless pace of life? Do you fight for your orgasms or do you stay respectful of your otherwise happy life? Playing the blushing bride was easier than to scream at the growing indifference to my breasts. Accepting little kisses felt like a consolation prize, meant to keep the coming strife at bay. But when you start to seek only solitary pleasure, it’s time to open your legs and ask to be seen.
A series on owning my body, clit and all.
In my twenties I heard fantastical tales, where everyone was having the best sex , giving the best head and getting the best rub-a-lick-dub of their life. I heard in fascination of dicks so good that even a suggestion of an erection could make them cum, or of vaginas so wet they made a slip and slide on the bed. I heard these stories on loop, where no one was graceless or klutzy, with always an erect penis with the perfect dual climax.
No one talked about how uncomfortable sex can be at first and how vaginal stimulation is interwoven with intimacy and effort. So much of the twenties was spent absorbing these theoretical climaxes. I had to unlearn and re-establish my cultural and sexual identity to be able to fully embrace pleasure. It took honest coupling to get here and ‘here’ feels good.
