If Marriage was a two years contract!

One lazy summer lunch break hour, the five of us,sitting in the dark staffroom shifted our talk from students and funny instances in the class to a serious issue-marriage! Tshewang quipped,"If only marriage was like a few years contract!" Without a seconds delay Namgay added,"say, it was two years contract and we could renew the marriage or just get another contract with another woman!"
My immediate answer was on a defensive side(being a woman and not to forget being happily married!,"Men will always find an alibi to get access to several women!" and I dragged the doma packet and started to talk about the changing rate of doma,just to steer the topic to a much cleaner one.

Today, sitting all alone during lunch I remembered the lunch hours I spent with my friends and as I sat thinking about those good old days, I remembered this particular incident. Seriously delving into it,if as wished by my male colleagues, if marriage was a two years old contract, what would the scenario be like?

No man would ever think of renewing their expired contract(I say this with full conviction of truth that dwells in our society) and they would not stay without another full term contract. So that means after every two years if a man marries new woman, given the size of our country and the total population,there is a possibility that the whole country might land up being one big extended family(this assumed based on the assumption that the man will have a child with every marriage,which is biologically possible). Just come to think of it!

A big smile spread on my forlorn face. Many a times I can have such silly thoughts stomping in my mind and I would enjoy it as if that was some major discovery. I threw the remains of my lunch in the trash can but the absurd thought of whole country being one big family couldn't be erased from my mind that easily. So this silly woman kept on smiling throughout the day instead of weeping for having missed another THRUE time with my family.

Sad but we ought to face it.

"Mama, can you put off skype now?" she pleaded. My heart tweaked a bit with a surging pain,yet I had to ask,"why?" "I want to play some online games now,"replied my daughter nonchalantly. Felt like a quiver full of arrows struck my heart at the same time. But I saw an intense need of games more than their mom who missed them like a lunatic. So I obliged, more out of understanding her need than my sadness.

After I logged out of skype I realised I have not been any different from my daughter. I never missed my own mom more than my friends and I never felt anything wrong with it.After meeting my husband and having two daughters, my parents were shoved far back in the corners of my life's priority.

Today I put my daughters above all else, eeven above my own life but sadly for now her online games counts more than my presence in skype. This is momentary, she will ask for me when she needs a new dress for her doll or maybe new games. But as she grows up her friends will occupy the place in her heart while I will be called into that space only if there is any serious adult intervention needed.

Then like any grown up girl, my li'l girl will meet the man of her dreams and I'll find no vacant corner to put up my bundled heart in her heart. With gray hair and wrinkled dreams, I shall sing of the olden days when I was young and feel all the love I felt for my li'l ones while they will snuggle in the warmth of their lives set in a different setting from mine.

Alas!that's the sad tale every mother lives.

Atlantic Ocean...My first time

"Are you serious? You never seen an ocean in your life?" she stared at me wide eyed,her false lashes curving higher up,almost touching her brows. I would have drawn the whole geographical setting of our country alongwith the political and social history if only my ears had not turned red with embarrassment.It's absurd how we humans look down on somebody merely based on what they have seen or done in life and I represented another set of the same race who baked red in embarrassment over the opportunities one has missed in life.
However, she was kind enough to take me to the beach. ATLANTIC OCEAN! I remembered the lessons in geography classes, the map with a wide span of blue and the black letters spelling Atlantic, but I found myself staring right at it.It took my breath away. I had tried my first swimming lesson in the Methidrang in my home town and have crossed many other rivers(oh!shouldn't forget the Brahmaputra experience in Guahati).But the Atlantic was a new and never imagined experience.
I stared deep and inhaled the salty breeze. "Go, take a walk." She taunted me with her slender sunscreen-smeared hands."All alone!" she added as if I would ask her to accompany me.
I took few unsure steps,"what if the waves lashed hard on me in took me in its embrace?"raced through my nervous brain. My Methidrang had not given me enough swimming lessons to keep me afloat in this huge mass of water.
However, few seconds into the wet sand and I fell into the role of all the leading ladies in Nicholas Sparks' novels. Just as in NS novels, as I walked all alone, lost in the sand and the salty air, a dog(wish I knew what brand that was,lol...but certainly was a big one) appeared from my back and licked my finger(maybe I was waving it in my sheer nervousness???).It frightened me and my surprised shriek double-frightened him. Just then a man, nah! a boy in his early twenties came running and apologized for his dog's behavior. Well! if only it had been NS' book, I would have fallen in love with that dog(or maybe the owner?blush!blush!). But this was no NS tale, so I(an old lady) smiled at the boy and he scooted away before I could finish saying,"that's ok."
The dog's episode made me stop my legs from taking any further steps. So I shifted my position and faced the ocean. As I stood looking at it,sadness enveloped me. I thought of thousands of Africans who were brought here by the waves of this same ocean burying their freedom in the sun parched homeland enslaved to work on foreign shores. I pictured thousands bodies floating in this same water, the bodies of those slaves who breathed their last in the ships which was no less than hell sailing on Earth. I felt a shudder down my spine. A big wave knocked me back to my real world as it washed away the sand I was standing on. I jumped away further and sat down. In the sitting position I thought of countless women sitting on this same shore waiting for their beloved to return from some agenda on the other side of this vast ocean.I could reckon the poets singing of lovers placing hopes in the vast ocean to bring back their love.Countless tales of sorrows floated with the empty shells on the shore I sat, with my gaze fixed on the dark green water.
"Why tears?" the same sound knocked. As she pulled me to my feet, I saw many kids giggle with buckets and shovels(perhaps with a sand castle in mind); young boys with their surfing boards and countless ladies attired in fashionable bikinis. I smiled a weak smile and the stories I silently had been listening to in my heart submerged with my first big spoon of chocolate ice cream.