Humiliation

This is something that I hear from many co-workers... that I interact with.. humiliation from that one soul who thirsts for power.. in one's own ignorance..

people who have been working have given up their self respect and any option for any speaking up for justice.. and all for what the money and the perks,, the fear that they will not get work anywhere..

I observe to see how long the elastic limit will endure for people..
I am glad to say many have gone after seeing that the limit was broken.

The soul that inflicts this has issues of his own, i am so sure.. and I think he is not aware that he does it or maybe he does it knowingly..

I for one have been having a really tough time handling this nonsense...
and I was thinking that its time to get out..
Why was I hanging on for such a long time..

Well because the answer is not to run away everytime you face something difficult..
I have tried to endure with bad managers, standing up to them, fighting for justice and truth and assumptions for my people.. and the team...

This time round, I am tired and I dont have the will to fight anymore..
I need to get out of this space.. talking will not solve anything.
I am not responsible for this soul's illogical behaivor and I think I do respect myself a lot to NOT endure insults and humiliation in front of a team and when its obvious he does not know what he is talking about..

The organization is great but its the people... some people who leave a really bad aftertaste...

And the lesson maybe this time is to not judge... to not be in a space where my very existence is enslaved to some wrongful assumptions..

The very fact that I will NOT run has made me endure for sometime... and I believe that I know when things will not change and only worsen for me... if I stay in this space..

worsen my health, my positivity, my hope, my life...

Is it worth it to stay in such a space...
I so know its not...

I think I have done my duty to my people here, professional as well as spiritual..
I need to be out...  ASAP...

Guides, are you listening... ? I am practicing detachment, non judgemental attitude but I need OUT...
I am not angry just frustrated that I have to BE in this situation... and I am STUCK with no options.. and endure moment after moment of humiliation... I WILL NOT...

Angels, guides, do give me a sign that I have a better option than this..

If its still my karma to suffer, I will in silence..... I will go totally passive.  Yeah, i think thats a good strategy... 

The root of it all

I think I have them..
I mean dont get me wrong... I love my Dad and have always been the apple of his eye but today when I am faced with questioning a lesson in dominance... how to counteract dominance of a male, it takes me back to my childhood and my family.. and I had to put this down.. It actually was an epiphany for me.
 We lived in a town but our ancestral home is in the village.. and well it housed a joint family with uncles and aunts and many cousins.

 The women in the house were busy with the kitchen and the males in the household were busy outside the house managing the farms and the land and the blah workings.. .
 Come winter... my Dad always had this ritual of taking me to the villages and have me familiarize with the workings of our society.. I was a single child and was being brought up in the town.. with so called modern facilities of the eighties and well, my dad always thought maybe that I might stray from my roots and always made sure I knew how to grind rice the natural way using Dekhi, how to puff smoke and make sure the embers were always burning to help my granny cook her food.

I had to know the ways of the our lives...
how the women lived, served, and managed the household...
I have to tell you I was the only girl child among many cousins who were only boys..  So all the more reason that I was brought up with the right set of values..

Yours truly was a very inquisitive and naughty kid who loved experiencing new things be in natural, be it in the kitchen, observing the fish in our own pond.. and yes running off now and then to play on her own... and a child with a mind of her own... a very big NO NO...

I remember I had a yellow helicopter which would fly and just because my cousin liked it in one of his visits, my father just gave it to him... without even considering my feelings..

So while I watched, I remember women being totally made to do what they had to, inside the household.. Women were not be seen outside the house, unless it was for a social occasion like visiting neighbors in groups of cousins and relatives... the ways of the village had its reasons I guess.

So when I broke through puberty in one of my vacations, the whole scenario changed, I was looked at with new eyes and there were new rules...

I was given a whole list of dos and donts... and the whole society had to know that I was a woman..
It shamed me and embarrassed me to no limits, I tried hiding behind the beetlenut trees to avoid being called at but the family was not having it. I had to face everyone, and the men said so.. it had to be formalized.

My inner rebellion started from then I think... I wanted my space my privacy and the men who comprised of the family wanted it otherwise.. it had to be an occasion.. And the women just had to follow that rule... my inner self totally abhorred that practice... why ?? I asked everyone...  no one cared to answer... Granny had a private moment with me and with her womanly wisdom explained whys and the hows of the society and I was calm...

All I needed was a logical answer and the task no matter how hard it is, was easy to accomplish.. but I was always rapped very sternly for even asking... by Dad... as he believed in the rules... he still does... he is great upholder of the rules... :) and that beats me.. :)

When there was an event corresponding to my ambitions for going out of Shillong and studying, I was stopped by the men in the family saying its not good for girls. One esteemed elderly lady relative also suggested I should be done with my 10th and given in marriage to a village boy.. and my dad could help others in the family...

I was shocked to hear that... and Boom Yet another nail for rebellion !!!!  Mostly because at one point my dad was actually considering this...
My mom stood up and said nothing doing... I am going to go for my studies and building a career and thats that...

So I struggle to convince my Dad to let me go to Delhi and study architecture... and BANG, it was a direct refusal... he wanted what his brothers thought was best.. I should become a doctor... and off came a group of male relatives to convince me and at the same time pressure me to get into the medical world..
BOOM, another nail....  Nope I wouldn't have that... and I was amazed how the male members would just flock together to shape my future.. what they thought was best.. and a win win.. for all..
Living in the hostel, I had to be kept under surveillance, I could not talk to guys, The fact that I was in a co-ed college was immaterial, I was also labelled a loose woman because one of the male relative saw me talking to my college classmate.. on the road...

I could not take swimming classed because my uncle thought that my father would have a heart attack.. if  i did... ( go figure)
I actually did many things successfully without the male population knowing and all encouraged by my women relatives.. my mom specially to fly as high as I could..

Marriage and Kanyadaan. I cannot get over the fact that my father giving up this significant responsibility to his brother.. showing him respect... and not thinking how it would impact me... it still gets to me... but I overlook it.. does not matter... the men have spoken

My father trusts his brothers implicitly which is good but at the risk of alienating his daughter totally, like treating me as an outsider... he does not know that I am his greatest supporter, I am part of him and I am his person.. his brothers are ok but they have a different life and priority... he does not realise that he is my first priority and always will be... and I have given up... on having him understand that...

At very important milestones of my life, things could not materialize because Dad was advised not to let me go ahead with it...
So the nails have been adding to my coffin of rebellion and I have been fighting it all the way, to such an extent that I have removed myself from that society totally and though I wish them well, I cannot exist in that social framework with prejudice and bias against women.. who work, who achieve, who struggle, who want to make a difference in life...

Today, I am faced with an individual which embodies the very structure of thought and lifestyle that I have rejected and discarded... from my life... and I am forced to interact with this soul whether I want it or not... and that my dear blog is what I need to face and make peace with...

The fact that I have to accept this line of thinking and living and be okay with it... observe and let go without judgements... seeing the Buddha in that soul as well...
Inversely seeing the Buddha in all the male population of my Family tree and realizing that its ok... they have a way, you can still live with your way...

AND THAT is letting me break out of my coffin.... break all the nails... that enclosed my belief of being stuck... I am not stuck... I am always free to choose my way.... the right way for me... to live and to percolate it down to whoever it matters...

Porcupine Woman...

sometimes, when someone is set on taking one on you right from the beginning, it is confirmed that slowly but surely, there builds a negative or not so helpful perception in one's mind that is pretty much damaging to the inter personal dynamics..

now be that in family life where a girl gets married and there is some personality in the new family who constantly digs for ways to show her down... or expose her weakness

or be it a peer who just cannot stand that a woman is at a certain position and makes derogatory remarks whenever possible or find a means to make things really difficult for her.. .. I for one am experiencing that and well I was blissful in the fact that this personality was my peer and I could ignore... but karma rewarded me with gold points of pain and trauma when this personality had to become by boss due to some unforeseen events..

And the adage every dog has its day... became my dark reality...
now everywhere i turn, I am pinched in all ways possible to make my life as uncomfortable as possible..
so well...

Many a  times, its pushing me to the brink of quitting but I know its just a challenge I have to face.. or something i have to overcome...

The question is how...
imagine this soul in diapers... running around the unit.....hahahahah... a good one..
imagine his voice is like mickey mouse... that works...
but the 1:1 definitely puts all my bristles up... and if I were to describe myself with a super power, porcupine woman would be one... hahahaha :) with all the spines up...

Anyways, so I have to find my way out..
I am asking myself... what is the lesson i have to learn here.. ? Tolerance, see the kindness inside that soul, see the goodness... dear lord, I am praying everyday... to have myself detach myself and just move on as I do like what I am doing... despite everything...

Last time I had to stand up to a very pathetic person, the lesson was to stand up for the truth and what I believed in... for justice...

So I am thinking :

First rule, diminish the so called power over me...
if things are difficult, accept it and move on
Accept the fact that this soul's way of looking at things will always be different based on the different backgrounds we come from.
there are always souls like this who will get antagonised by the very reason that there is woman who is speaking up to him.
this soul will misuse his powers every now and then to get an edge... deal with it...
and lastly look for a new job.... sad as it sounds... but yes thats the final step... if nothing else works...

can work with many difficult souls but if your biggest stakeholder your manager does not trust you, or believe in you... then my very existence has no significance and without that, the role that I play at work becomes useless...

Trapped

in the middle of nonsensical junk
in the discussion of what could be and what should be and what must be... from souls who do not know what they are talking about
in accepting nonsense
in agreeing to nonsense....

I have a choice... to move out...
why am i not able to take it...

I pray, give me the strength to block this out, detach myself from the sense of feeling trapped and just getting out...

I need to get out ... are you listening dear universe...   ???  I cannot function like this.. with the sense of binding onself and being forced to listen to things which do not make sense... in the long run.. 

Rains

remind me

• of fresh smell of the earth
• playfulness
• soaking in the warm rain drops on my face...
• rushing from school and on the way jumping in the puddles.. 
• my umbrella being torn in the rain and me just giving up and walking enjoying getting drenched
• riding in the rain through the forests...and ghats
• shivering in the cold with a wet blanket and warming up with shots of vodka
• trekking down to a beautiful waterfall with the drizzle of rain and mist around me
• of small hot tea cups... by the highway... while it pitter patters 
• of being enclosed in a tent with the wild nature around us and just hearing the rain beat down on the tent ceiling.... just next to my ear.. 
• of monsoon rides and getting lost... inside the forest and then finally coming to a path where huts had meat and puttu balls waiting for us... 
• of surrounded by comfort food and looking out through the wooden framed windows to far away mountains.. 
• a bus leaking while journeying a long distance... 
• my basement flooded... with really dirty water
• bikes clogged... 
• really bad.. drainage management...hahaha :) 

Its hard

To be open and have a certain sense of freedom to express...
To be just me and not be judged...
To write what I want
To rant when I want
To generally be...
To be light and serious when required...
To just share... and leave it at that..
no bias, no meetings, no calling...

So here I am from an open blogger to start writing from the space of anonymity
its easy to just be when I am no one... :)

Tomalini the name of my grandma... I never met her... but I know her through the stories that she still lives on.. so I keep her alive... through this space... and also bring forth a branch that is me from her roots of existence...

Feeling At Peace...

এই শুরু করলাম একটা নতুন যাত্রা তোমার নাম নিয়ে দিদা