The ins and outs of me

Pink is a soft color that brightens the day, because sometimes Red is too harsh. The pink tutus that if combined with jeans looks like a fashion disaster. Pink used to surround me and enveloped me in a cloud of cotton candy. One that I had to thread through as I tried to learn the ins and out of the world and society. But I was six.
Pink was what I saw when I woke up and saw the princess doll my mother scraped through to try to get me something normal to play with.
Pink was like a thorny teddy bear that I hugged tightly.
Blue was like a fresh new breath of air. Like when you chew a minty gum and then drink water. It felt like I was soaring through the skies but with limits.
Blue wasn’t a color that my parents liked. The blue toy car that suddenly got ‘lost’ the next day after I had gotten it. And later found in the trash bin destroyed.
It wasn’t the dolls they gave me, why did I need a toy car? Not the baby dolls that sat in my room untouched.
Blue was too brash for a girl as delicate as me. Blue was too much of a violent color like a bruise that I would receive if I were to play soccer. But blue was just perfect for a girl with a boyish voice like me.
I was eight when I almost threw out all my dresses and skirts as I hated how they looked on me. My cousin's quinceanera is when things began to spiral. As I stared at my cousins and saw how beautiful and feminine they looked in their body. How confident they felt in their bodies. How they wore their clothes and took care of themselves. And how lady-like they acted.
I was eight when I thought something was wrong with me. Was something wrong with me? Was it wrong that I preferred blue over pink sometimes. How sometimes I hated being called a girl when I didn’t feel like one.

I was eight when my parents lectured me for three hours about how I was a girl and that I shouldn’t go around telling people that I didn’t want them to call me that. And I shut down for a while. Holding on to the thorny pink, silently crying as I realized I was being dressed up as something I wasn’t to every party. When my parents told me to speak in a higher pitched voice in order to be ‘cuter’.
The dreaded dresses and skirts. How I was prohibited from playing soccer with my cousins, because it wasn’t lady-like. How I couldn’t play with his video games because it wasn’t perceived as feminine.
That continued till I was in middle school. Where for a reason I started going around calling myself Alex. Not because I hated my name. But because of the duality. And neutrality.
Middle school was where blue was prevalent to my life. When I ‘accidentally’ got gum stuck my hair so that my parents would cut it. And I tried to get rid of the automatic switch my tone of voice had whenever someone other than my parents were nearby.
Blue was there when I could sit on a chair without having to cross my legs. Blue was prevalent when I wore jeans and a T-shirt instead of a skirt and shirt.

Then High school came around and Pink began to battle with Blue. Clashing every once in a while. I punched and kicked Pink each time I thought about it. My relationship with Blue was tight. And I wasn’t going to betray blue as I had fought for years to experience just a second of it.
It was a bloody battle of custody over my body, it caused many sleepless nights and late night cries as I lost myself. And I felt like a fraud. Like an imposter. . Was it wrong to like both

Pink and Blue? I had to choose one. I had to choose one. One had to be it. Just one. One. One. One. One. One. God dammit it had to be one. And how much I hated it.
As my parents forced me to be with Pink, and my heart yearned for Blue. And society forced Pink, and I just wanted a moment with Blue.
As I tried to reject Pink with all my heart because I had to choose Blue. Because I couldn’t just abandon Blue, not after they showed me freedom. A freedom I didn’t really experience with Pink, at least not until the end of my high school education.
In my mind I told myself I was with Blue while my parents thought I was with Pink. But at least the mental struggle was gone. I was with Blue. And if I was okay with Blue, that was all that mattered.
My last year of high school is when Pink came back to me. When I started to get lured in by Pink. The beautiful skirts, the dresses, and the make up. Which no longer felt like they were being forced on me, but was I betraying Blue?
There were days and nights when I hated the feminine parts on me and I wanted them gone. Where they disgusted me and where I felt like I just did not belong. I was with Blue. Then there were moments when I loved them. I loved how the skirts and dresses fit, and got excited over makeup, upsetting me for rejecting Blue.
Blue was the freedom I fought for for years, it was the freedom I fought towards with my parents as they called me unusual and weird, as they got mad at me for not wanting to be with Pink. To embrace Pink. Was I about to just reject it all?
Did I suffer for years, rejecting Pink, only to reject Blue too? It was to the point that I didn’t want to see myself in the mirror. I didn’t want to see Pink or Blue.

They were just colors, but why did they have to make my heart hurt. Why did they have to stab me in the chest with the expectations of society. Why did I start to hate my short hair, why did I hate the make up.
Am I a fake?

I am nobody.
Who am I?
What was my Identity?
Am I a fraud to society?
Was I betraying my past self who fought hard to finally be with Blue?
These constant questions made me spiral to the point of depression where I couldn’t even answer my name.
What was the point? Who was I?
It wasn’t until my freshman year of college when I got tired of myself. Tired of feeling this way. Why couldn’t I be with both Pink and Blue? Sometimes I wanted to be with Blue and that was fine. Sometimes I wanted to be with Pink and that was valid.
It took months before I became comfortable with these feelings without feeling like an outsider, or like I was betraying myself. It took months before I was comfortable with wearing skirts and dresses, and wearing makeup. I got comfortable with wearing Blue.
Genderfluid. Genderfluid. Pink or Blue. It didn’t matter. It took years to comprehend that sometimes I hated the body I was born with, and sometimes I loved it. How I felt feminine sometimes, and masculine other times.

It took years to realize that it wasn’t that I hated Pink. It was just that being strictly with Pink felt suffocating. Being a female strictly was suffocating when some days I didn’t want to be that. It took years to accept that it was okay.
That it was okay to feel this way, even though sometimes it felt like it was not.
Now it doesn’t matter. Whether I am with Pink or Blue. I can be with both. Some days I may be with Pink more, and in others I may be with Blue. Or some days we are with Purple. My name no longer sends me into a spiral of depression, and I come to love dearly. But there are moments when A.C is what I prefer the most, and become more confident in.
To many they are just colors. But to me they were what caused me to question how I was to identify as.
Pink is no longer suffocating. It’s as free as Blue. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

by Anahi Cabrera

NEGATIVE SPACE

…

when you see a “weed” spiraling up between a concrete fault line, do you ask yourself a question. the same question i have while smoothing aloe vera over my overheated cheeks in the summertime: “Why are you here? You, specifically.”

if i could dig a shovel into that crack, free the roots and worms, and repave the streets with the preserved soil i would surely find my answer.

…

a thirty dollar serum infused with Jeju Island green tea used to feel like the pinnacle of indulgence and physical luxury. it cooled and smoothed my bumpy inflamed skin that i’d relentlessly pick, punishing my grease-filled pores.

it was already hard enough to look at me.

the way my grandmother would wince when she looked at her cherub-cheeked baby that was suddenly changing. the dark blemishes marked her own aging, and signified all the impurity brewing within me too. it was the way her lips would snap back into a neutral line just as quickly as they contorted in repulsion when she remembered i was still her family. this was a catalyst for my obsession with bodilessness.

…

a feeling that seemed exclusive to cinema and animation could be achieved here, if i connect my headspace, to my heartspace. my heartspace to my core, and to my womb.

sitting on the sofa, my body liquified and melted into the gaps between brown leather cushions. the sofa was a space in my home that already defied materiality, my stepdad’s hard-earned credit score and consequent Rent-A-Center purchase, etched with a permanent marker by a child who should have been allowed to make more mistakes. the wrath directed at my little sister is a prime example why i am always seeking escape. to breach systems and cycles ingrained into DNA.

this knack for disappearing is generational.

i can choose to call the butt groove in my grandfather’s itchy blue armchair a “depression”. i can choose to be welcomed by its warmth, or disturbed by the energy, still lingering. i can choose to see meaning in every frayed thread, to feel the presence of its ghosts, or i can choose to see an armchair. Granddad chooses to let everything too complicated seep into the foam filling, dozing off to The Temptations.

if the body is an avatar, if life is played like a game, damage can be transmuted into power-ups. the trauma stored in my hips can be caught within my breath and released through my lips. pain will be indestructible still, but mutable.

by Amaya Branche

“Nameless Pain”

i don't know my body,

only my body.

the way to know my mind

is to write.

after writing,

i gaze at these words,

feel pains and joy (and more),

then,

confirm that i'm alive.

but my body is more complicated

than my mind.

it changes,

contrary to my will.

sometimes it is bloody,

sometimes it is painful,

sometimes it is just a lump of meat,

sometimes it is just ripples of skin,

sometimes it is like a demon

that dwells in the details,

sometimes it is like an ugly sculpture

that no one wants to make.

i want to prove that

i'm not a woman, just a human.

i need to prove that

i don't need any gender.

i crave to prove that

i'm just an invisible smoke

that has a shape of a human.

what is freedom?

who is me?

my pain is only my pain.

the theory to solve my pain

is nowhere.

someone's theory

might be a knife

to kill me.

my theory

might be a blanket

to cocoon someone.

i don't know my body,

only my body.

24 hours, 365 days,

i'm always with my body

that i don't know the most.

but i can't escape

from this broken glass,

i can't change to the hazy horizon,

because

i'm writing,

by using a part of

my (cracked, crumbled, lonely) body.

by Yuu Ikeda

Legacy

A photograph of Bharti’s grandparents: portrait photo of them both in front of a blue background.

I have always heard stories of my grandfather and his enormous generosity. But even more than that I have heard stories of my grandmother's grit.

Nanu had always been a man of his words. My mother is still fresh with the memories of her father, which she reminisces on some random day and cries. She tells me, “Pita used to bring us sweets every single day. There wasn’t a time when he would simply forget to do so.”

How many people are there to actually bring home the only reminders of sweetness even after a long day at work? Nani and Nanu were married young. Their love developed over the years of silent but beautiful gestures, shyness, a little teasing and a lot of joy for being in each other’s lives. Nani often smiles and says, “Your Nanu would keep me by his side.” For us, this is just a simple sentence but for her, the entire memories of lifetime come flooding back in a moment of nostalgia. He was a proud man of seven daughters. Nanu used to live in Bilaspur, Himachal while Nani lived in Namhol, a few kilometers away from there, with the family. My mother, her sister would eventually move to this really small city, still different from a village, after they completed their school and had to pursue graduation. Years went by smoothly, with their own share of ups and downs.

Nani laughs and says, “We had a festival on the occasion of first harvest of the year. Father-in-law would live on the fields and do puja, distributing sweets in the entire village. It was a tradition then.”

But now she casually remarks, “अब कहाँ रहा वो टाइम”

I think as much as time has evolved, Nani has too. Nanu was a man of few words. Maa tells me how his eyes spoke sentences without ever uttering a word. He was a well-respected man who wouldn’t accept anything less for his daughters. So when the time came, for my mother to get married, a lot of visitors would suggest unsolicited suitors for her. It was becoming a hassle. Once, when one of those men talked to Nanu about a possible suitor for my mother, he calmly invited him in. Made food for him. Made him sit on the sofa in one corner of the little room and in a gentle but firm voice ordered, “Eat!”

As the man munched down on food hurriedly he, in a simple, silent sentence emphasized, “Don’t bring any more rishtas for my daughter I haven’t asked for.” The man never brought another one ever. Such was the charm of my Nanu. He was born with an incurable heart condition. As he aged, he suffered a severe paralysis attack, leaving him bed ridden. But nothing was to deter him from living. So, he learnt to write from his left hand. He was the only ambidextrous person in our family. But the heart condition worsened and eventually led to his death. My uncle was a little kid then. He didn’t know what death meant but the realization that Pita was not there to take him to market. How does a young kid even make sense of something which isn’t in his grasp?

As the world fell down on my Nani's shoulders, she knew she was the young bride again, who didn’t know how to wander through the world. In India, women losing their husbands are frowned upon. The lingering questions of how she would manage to handle her family when the sole breadwinner of the family passed away, becomes a sentence that never leaves people’s mouths. The so many what if's, stares, leering follows. Nani had to suffer from it too.

But what strikes me as amazing is how people who die visit their beloveds in dreams. I think this is the only way we can convince ourselves that we can still carry them in our lives. Nanu had some pending payments to make before his death, which Nani didn’t know of. Now, in a small village like this, words travel faster than sound itself. Before this, Nani didn’t know of the accounts and how to handle them. But Nanu visited in her dreams, a few days after his death, talking her through the pending payments.

I didn’t believe in the “soul stuff" before. But then Nani still says, “तेरे नाना सही थे। कुछ 20 रुपये थे देने को।”

I don’t know how to make sense of this. I don’t even know how science can make sense of this. But if science believes in energies, it also believes in how energies transform instead of being destroyed. Nanu wasn’t a tangible body then. But he was still there, traversing through space, breathing but now he was the air himself. Nani knew it. She always knew.

Nani has been a strong lady ever since her husband’s death. She learnt things which were so easy for city people but for someone who spent her entire life in a village, it was nothing less than a challenge. She learnt how to take an auto, how to deposit money in a bank, how to bring राशन from a local depot. And as life entailed with its own risks, another one jumped up. Since Nanu had died, the government accommodation the entire family lived in had to be taken away. This was new. Something Nani had never thought of. People guided and misguided her. Mocked her, convinced her to leave the apartment. A woman becomes a consequence of people’s judgments, and the trials that the society puts her through for being a single mother. Some would ask her to bring some documents of Nanu from Mandi office (Himachal) while some would tell her to ask for accommodation directly from DC at that time. Nani did everything but just like most government matters, it was delayed. To my utter amazement, Nani proudly tells me, “मैं सीधा DC के पास गयी और बोला,”सर, मेरे आठ बच्चेंहैं। मेरे आदमी की डेथ हो गई है। अब मुझे बोला जा रहा कमरा खाली करने को।”

This was a woman who had never stepped out without her husband and now she was demanding, on a stage full of officials, what rightly belonged to her. And, of course, action happened. She was granted the accommodation for as long as she wanted.

Nanu's death had a ripple effect. Nani had to ask for electricity because someone always cut off the connection to her village house. She fiercely asked for it, went to the electricity department and fought for a connection, which was then granted to her. She was all alone, traversing through department after department, because she wasn’t just a wife but a mother of eight, each of who depended upon her.

My grandmother has a story of her own. This woman who would defy her father in early childhood by swinging from branches of the Peepal tree, was now standing up on her own feet, learning to walk all over again. Womanhood and tiredness always go together. She was tired. She was aware of it. But when a woman becomes more than a societal expectation of what a woman should be, it deranges society. Nothing hurts man’s ego more than a woman who becomes a mirror to him.

The day my Uncle got married, there was a subtle silence in the home. The kind that lingered, despite the heavy celebration. He was the last of her children to get married. The sisters were prepping up for their brother’s wedding. Nani was busy with arrangements. Mamu was getting ready and as सेहरा बंदी happened and baraat was ready to go, Mamu couldn’t hold his tears and neither could Nani. All the sisters knew about uncle’s eyes that flooded with tears. But he hadn't cried since Nanu’s death. Nanu had become a heartbeat and he resided in his heart forever. Mamu never cried after that. Until the marriage.

My grandfather wasn’t an ordinary man. He stood up for his daughters and their right to education. He included his elder daughters in his decisions. He sent his younger daughter to learn painting because had she always wanted to learn. He was an honest man, who did what he did, not because this is expected of a good man but because it was his strong character and empathy that might have ran through his grandchildren as well. I can only vouch for myself.

Now, as Nani sits in the verandah of this beautiful little home that she has created all by herself, she takes pride in all the plants she has in her kitchen garden. She loves gardening. After all these years, at such an old age, now she can take time to indulge in hobbies she never had the time for. Her kitchen garden houses sugarcane, guava, chillies, tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, lemon, flowers.

There are so many stories that deserve brilliantly curated words for my grandparents. If only I could be that writer. But Nanu still visits her in dreams. I think this is the simplest sentence I can write to tell the world that they both loved each other, not madly but dearly, with gentleness and kindness.

My Nani is an ordinary woman. She might not have changed the world in ways that people boast about, but she indeed changed ours. When she stood up for her daughters, she was standing up for us as well. When she took the accommodation that rightly belonged to her, she made sure we would never be homeless. When she learnt to speak up in front of that DC, she made courage a heritage.

She is an ordinary woman. But she lived in ways so extraordinary that she lived up to her name. Kalawati. She is an art. She is going to remain an artist for the rest of my little life.

The woman of my life, Nani, single handedly decided to conquer the world, from sitting at the side of chullah to making a house, negotiating with architects, workers. From holding the knives in her kitchen to becoming a voice for the women of her village who would have otherwise never dared to speak a word. The world here began at Nani’s kitchen and spread like wildfire, this desire to protect her kids and what rightfully belonged to her. Women change worlds by changing other women, motivating them, creating a path for them through their own struggles. Women help raise other women from the ashes of their hardwork in kitchens to building homes they design for themselves.

Nani makes aachar, a legacy she has passed on. She laughs remembering her own youth, her friends she lost over the years, her siblings too (I have an absolute favourite among them. He has a story that needs another book to be written upon).

She has never stopped loving. But for now, these new plants give her happiness. She deserves it. She deserves all the gardens of the world only if it means she will be happier forever.

by Bharti