Mimi Ghosh

Priya stared out of the window disconsolately, not observing, merely looking at the passing images. Her torment was tangible and I was wilting under the helplessness I felt. I stopped at the red light, turned to look at her, opened my mouth to say something but halted in the face of a don’t-even-think-about-it look. So, I squinted into the car next to me and watched as a loving couple kissed passionately.

The sentiment presented was not conducive to Priya’s current outlook but unfortunately she had already seen it. Priya was caught in a quagmire, where, no matter which bank she turned towards, she would have to face one demon or the other. One was rife with turbulence and disquietude, where nothing could be taken for granted and everything was ephemeral. The other was reeking with a decomposing outlook I attach to a life of resignation and absolute compliance. She was feeling like she was standing on the dividing yellow line of a highway with her feelings dragging her this way and that, while one pulled her off into its powerful after draft, the other sucked her flailing form into a whirlwind, stirring up dormant, relegated stretches of her mind.

Priya has been seeing her boyfriend (Gautam) for six years now and in my opinion had reached a stage where stagnation and impassivity was preferred to even mild conflicts, which might lead to questions they were paranoid about. Passion and intensity were strangers to them now and Priya found it very hard to let go of the limbo. Impassiveness is as addictive as its counterpart to most people, they mistake it for stability and readily accept it for the superficial sense of comfort it imparts.

Now, I do not want you to mistake Gautam for remotely possessing any sort of unautocratic feelings. Priya surrenders most of her paycheck into Gautam’s patronizing hands adding to the “foundation of their united future”. And Priya’s interpretation of the latest development of Gautam taking up a job in a small town and asking her to give up a reasonably promising career was, “lack of materialism”.

“Lack of materialism???” I hollered as I slammed on the accelerator, with a vengeance. I was beside myself at her feigned ignorance and reverence for the obviously narcissistic Gautam.

“Are you stupid or blind?” I spat out the words. I wanted to shake her out of her reverie, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

“For heavens sake, get a grip on yourself, look around you. How can you even think of such a scenario without shuddering with the horror of it? Do you have absolutely no sympathy for yourself? Do you not….

“Stop it Mimi!! That is enough! I am not like you and I never will be. You understand the need for freedom, maybe I do too, but I refuse to keep up the fight like you, maybe I am incapable. Do you understand that? I refuse to turn my life into one big struggle. You might not know or relate with acceptance, but I am sorry to say that acceptance is the only path I know, accept and invite. You can drop me off right here.”

I stopped, half of me wanting to listen to her and the other half blistering with disgust. She stepped out, leaned back inside and said, “You are an exception Mimi. I am not. Good bye.”

As she walked away, my journey in the quest for exceptions started. I have never considered myself as exceptional or representative of a generation. Its true that I have always followed my emotions and principles, no matter what, deliberately ignorant of societal norms and such. Eloped at 20, divorced at 21, I have thought of myself as whimsical, fearless, impulsive and irresponsible, but then again that is what the new generation is infamous for. Then, how do I fit into the picture of an exception?

If I am one, then what would Priya call my maidservant, Molina, who was the sole breadwinner of her family, providing for her handicapped husband and two children. Agreed, that she does it out of necessity but what about her dogged pursuit for her children’s education? A meager salary, a skeptical neighborhood, a disinterested husband, an antagonistic environment or a numbing conditioning has not deterred her. How dare I compare the forces against me with those against her?

Social circles are concentric, I believe, and they spill into one another. If I am encountering women who are running against time, against the wind, all the time, then why does Priya not see them? Blind she is not; in stead, she is so deeply aware of the split within her that she tries to patch it up with defiance. A defiance against women trying to make it on their own, a visible hostility towards the ones who remind of the roads she has obscured. But I am sure she harbors a sense of betrayal deep inside, because why else did the things I said agitate her so much? How could she not?

I do not have to look far to seek out women of my kind, who are maybe even stronger. Poonam, a 40-year-old divorcee, had the immense and rare courage of sacrificing motherhood (her husband has the custody of her six-year-old son) in support of her rejection of surrender. She stands up against murderous loneliness, bouts of crushing depression, taunts and condescension, murderous yearning for her child. Plucky as she is, she is not perfect, I realized, after a frantic phone call from her at two in the morning, begging me to rescue her from a suicidal depression. It is true that every day is a battle for her but the only thing she does not have to fight against her is herself.

I reckoned Priya was petrified of loneliness. An affliction that goes for the jugular of the uninitiated or those ignorant of their own company, lacking cognizance of their own worth. Priya, like scores of other women, thought herself any worth only in the eyes of her beloved. Desperate to be free from the typical tyrannical household, she viewed him, as the safety net as she took the plunge, unaware that the net one day would wrap itself irreversibly around her. Loneliness, ironically, is an issue in big cities, but then what about the myriad of young, small-town women, embarking on the one-way solitary course of self-gratification, whatever that might be. Would you call them exceptions?

My mother lives a life that doesn’t get more typical, which she resists in her own ways. On the surface, she might look like the housewife next-door, submissive, timid and unsure, but ask her what it takes to stand up against the scoffs a divorced daughter invites and to unequivocally advocate unrestrained independence, not just for me but for all. She does all that albeit furtively and I know its not easy for her.

Priya is unjustifiably content in the view that she is mainstream and accepted. Discarding conflicting and provoking opinions or lifestyles is a very basic and escapist tendency, which was Priya’s lifeline. I do not know whether I will be successful in explaining my qualms about her decision to her. Whether she will be happy and content on her chosen path, I do not know. But, dear Priya, I do know one thing. I am not an exception. I am the trend.

Copyright ©2002 Mimi Ghosh. About the author