If you feel hunger, try lizard feet

If you feel hunger, try lizard feet

“Who do you think she loves the most in the world?” I questioned him.
He replied without hesitation, “You.”
“Why?” I persisted.
“Because you love her the most...”

Rejection

He had rejected her...even in his sleep. She stared at his back in bewilderment and hurt, unable to understand his animosity. Just a minute ago he had lain with an arm and leg thrown over her; possessively, with all the authority of a proprietor and yet protectively, with all the tenderness of a lover. But when she moved closer, he turned away.
Tears welled up, and she looked away, screwing her eyes tightly shut to prevent them from leaking out. One salty drop trailed its way into her ear. She turned her head sideways to dislodge it and stared at his blurred back again. She placed a hand on his back and smoothed the crinkled cloth clinging to his body. The gold ring encircling her finger glinted in the faint night-light, touching a raw nerve.
Her mind roved over the past few months. She brooded over his anger, his dissatisfaction with her. She dragged her eyes away from him and stared instead at the wall in front of her. There, pasted on the wall, she could see the days he had been happy with her, the days when joy-filled laughter and brightly colored places had dominated their lives.
She felt him stir and turned her attention back to him, or rather, to his back. He had moved to lay on his back, with an arm flung out, like an invitation to her, to lay her head on it.

******************

She sighed contentedly and snuggled closer into his side. She lay with her head on his shoulder and her hair splayed across the hard muscles of his arm. She could feel the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, as can only be induced by sleep.
He rubbed a hand across his nose to dislodge the strands of her soft hair which were tickling him. She smiled and took hold of his hand and smoothed the top of her head with it to settle the hair, and then ran it down her cheek and laid it back onto his chest. She opened her eyes and looked then, at the large hand clutching her much smaller one, making hers appear fragile.
He turned onto his side unexpectedly, catching her unawares, unconsciously cuddling her into his chest, tucking her head into his chin. And he lay there with an arm and a leg thrown over her; possessively, with all the authority of a proprietor and yet protectively, with all the tenderness of a lover.

Feminism and Me

I am not a feminist. And I am certainly not part of the bra-burning bandwagon, even though several of my actions may suggest so. I believe in the traditional roles of man as provider and woman as nurturer.
Now, before some of the lady dragons here start breathing fire at me, let me elucidate, I am not anti women’s lib. I do believe that women are capable of much more than they are given credit for. And I absolutely promote a woman’s right to dignified survival and education, her freedom to dress as she pleases or walk alone in the streets after dark without fear of repercussions. Does that make me a feminist?
I prefer equality to superiority; a partnership vis-à-vis a match; a more neutral approach. Women are, in most ways equal to, though only in certain others, better than, men.
I am, however, thoroughly contemptuous of the women who take to women’s lib with a principally vengeful (not to mention predominantly hypocritical) female chauvinism, especially while loudly complaining all through the way about male chauvinism. If we are so scornful of men and their bigoted high-handedness, how do we explain Harlequin Mills and Boons selling simpering albeit hot-tempered women ordered around by despotic alpha-male stereotypes at a staggering rate of 200 million books a year, with a jaw-dropping 6 books sold per second? And I am yet to find a man with a Mills & Boon collection, even in the gay community.
With all due deference and admiration for the women who fought against Sati and the ones who are still combating female infanticide, the dowry system, rape, prostitution and other such inexcusable crimes with the quietness and fortitude of church mice, I would certainly like to point out that a certain, and extremely vocal and visible, section of new age bra-burners have altogether missed the prime objective of Women’s Lib. These women have altered the definition of feminism to suit their own selfish agendas. And it is because of this class of women that I shirk from being associated with feminism.
This is not to say that I do not whole-heartedly support the causes of female infanticide, of the dowry problems, of girl-child education, of prostitution and the skin trade, of forced matches and marital rapes and the suppression of women in villages.
So I ask again. Does that make me a feminist?
The answer is no. I do not need to be a feminist to support the causes of women; I fight for a cause because I believe a wrong has occurred and needs to be rectified, irrespective of which sex has been victimized.

PS: I began this particular post with an altogether different intention. I failed to notice when it changed tenor to turn into a rambling of my opinion on feminism. Ah but, what the hell! This is my blog after all....

Reassurance

You follow me outside. You always follow me everywhere. Why? I turn my head to look at your familiar shape silhouetted against the shadows. You stand so still, watching me scrutinize you. You stare back at me intently, with black eyes shining even in the pitch black of the night. You have beautiful eyes, almond shaped, tipped with long golden lashes. You move closer and watch me inquiringly, as if to ask why I've come out this late at night. I turn away from your searching gaze and look at the shadows. I feel you move closer and sit down silently beside me. You lean your silken body against me reassuringly, as though sensing my distress. We sit there for the longest time. Until the dark corners aren't dark anymore. Relaxing my body against yours, I put an arm around you and murmur "I love you too baby". You wag your tail in acknowledgment.

My first blog

The firsts of everything receive our most tender, careful touch, don't they? I think it is the only time we really give our hearts without our minds interfering, truly and with abandon, without the fear of repercussions and disillusionment clouding our choices. We are ready to take a chance, to allow ourselves to become jaded all over again. The first day of school which we dreaded, that first bike that we enthusiastically cleaned till the paint wore off, the first coloring book which received all our passion, the first date for which we fretted for days about what to wear, the first time we fell in love, the first heartbreak, the first time away from home, the first car which we drove at nothing above 20 kmph for the first week, the first house whose every nook and cranny was vigilantly detailed by us, the first kid...and we let the experience with that first color our judgment forevermore. Never again does anything taste as sweet, nor remain in our memory with such clarity as that first time.