“ My hemorrhoid hurts”, I sighed painfully.
“ At least for a few years you will be relaxed,” advised the doctor
“ But undergoing surgery isn’t the permanent solution. The blood vessels may rupture again, the symptoms might reoccur. It isn’t addressing the root cause. Isn’t it? “
“ What can be done! It’s genetic.“
Till my dying breath, I will have to manage the symptoms from getting worse. Had I not already been walking on a tight rope with a saddle bag of a PhD on my head, that now I have been handed a stick to balance too? Perhaps, a juggler with iron bars around her ankles making a difficult walk through life.
Unlike, the genetic malaise whose symptoms needs to be managed, the root cause of generational traumas need not be fixed with band-aid solutions but can be surgically removed with no chances of re-occurrence.
How will the next generation not suffer from haemorrhoids or any debilitating symptoms ? Perhaps, I shouldn’t have planned a child, stopping the circle of life from moving. That’s the only way of stopping the next generation from suffering what I have undergone( that is when my daughter loses the genetic lottery). The unbearable pain, the lips half - quenched of life, the isolation and loneliness- how will my daughter bear? A track of what you eat and drink is kept everyday. A sleep schedule is maintained. Days pass obsessing over bathroom schedules. With a baby to breastfeed, it gets even more difficult. Though there are other common household diseases like diabetes and all, in my limited knowledge, haemorrhoids is the most disruptive. Sadly, it’s a butt of all jokes: a poll campaign in the rural areas to determine mindful family planning. But for the literate urban crowd, its seeds are sown at a very early stage. A school girl, who was the first to mount the bus and the last to reach home. A 10-11 hour ride to school and back, sitting through competitive exams, changing two-three autos to reach college with the academic load on her shoulders, appropriation of her appetite in starving for a man and then stuffing for a baby. The mind and body has already gone through a lot until postpartum where it’s ramifications run amuck.
How should I show up for my daughter? How should I be strong for her? Shouldn’t I make sure that she doesn’t resent me for not letting her hair be grey, that she doesn’t resent me for turning out to be dusky, that she doesn’t have to answer the power of her glasses, that she doesn’t have to carry the weight of stereotypes or that she doesn’t have to fit into a gender role. The list is endless and kind of weighs on your desire to speak.
To the darkness that I carry within my heart, pursuing a goal has been the rays of a sun that cracks open through the dark clouds. It was the year 2024 when all my selves collided to form a new one too!
A desirable wife is sought for the benefit or pleasure of one’s company. A non-existent entity, a handbag is carried almost everywhere. A desirable wife must give company to another’s wife so the men can enjoy downtime. A desirable wife must be by her husband’s side at all times. What’s undesirable is her turning into a scarecrow in a black saree! Though a nasty equivalent, not everyone can be surgically removed from your life, but their presence needs to be managed. I am that farmer who has been preserving his produce from the crows entitled to his blood, sweat and time.
My HOD once advised to guard my time like money. Though, the syllabus has changed post-marriage, there is still some hope of turning my life around. After three years of amnesia, I am again in the ring. Though, the constant battle of preserving my time and peace has thrown me into the politics of likes; I sometimes wonder, in the end, will this all be worth it? The anxiety and the daily grunt of dragging my day from today to the next has an equivalent in the daily wage worker sometimes denied of the fair share of the lines to add to her thesis irrespective of the amount of time spent at it. Paradoxical, but it is this grunt that makes me alive; a chance to have some control over my life; a chance to not be my husband’s shadow, an extension of his personality.
In the race of survival of the fittest, my husband is a shining star. Maybe someday, I will speak more and write even more.