Ugh

My throat's raw.
I hear a big celestial, "I told you so" in the clouds.
I'm bad at reading signs, even the ones that are blatantly visible on packs, in newspapers, social stigmas and certain bans.

I'm her complaining about not wanting him to leave. If he could only just sit by my side. I stop translating at this point. I really don't think any words in the English language can bring out the anguish in "Jaan jaati hai jab uth ke jaate ho tum"

I die a thousand deaths is equally beautiful, my mother argues.

I don't think so.

Lady Driver

"They want to overtake me because I'm a woman"

My first lesson in feminism, on the road, in a car, with my mother. The speed increases from a steady thirty, to a healthy fifty, to a look-at-me-I'm-crazy eighty. I turn around and lip read abuses. All the while I am thinking, I'd rather burn my bra.

"Sweetheart its important that you never run over someone" My father tells me rather earnestly...almost pleadingly, as my feet fumble on the clutch and accelerator. I'm offended but I go on. Thinking, this is for you mom.

But then he's back, telling me women cannot reverse as well as men as though it is scientifically proven, an empirically tested theory- one of newton's freaking laws of motion. The parking attendant smiles politely, "Main kar deta hoon Madam". On days like these, I always here my mother's voice at the back of my head, urging me on.

She blocked lanes and got speeding tickets, just so her daughter could never be overtaken like she was when she first hit the road.

I was hungry, so I ate the last burger in the world. The old man looked at me with sad old eyes that reflected his sad old heart, but I still ate it. I have always been shallow, so shallow that you can even see the goldfish swimming just below my skin, around my veins. So frozen, even when you take me out of the fridge and try to thaw me, the chips of ice remain in my hair and in between my toes.