Broken Bangles: Travel, Stories, Thoughts

Image: Zauther, deviantart.com The women around me whom I first met as girls. They were brave and full of positivity. They were so much into beauty and the future. I even envied them. My parents had strong ideologies and limited aspirations. These girls seemed to be free from such overpowering paradigms. All these women, except a few, excelled in education. They got jobs and married. Their education and jobs ranked high in the marriage choices they were offered. During the first few years, the star-eyed couples went on vacations, built houses and had kids filling their homes with laughter.  Then they settled down like coffee shreds in a pot. The clear coffee poured from the pot but they did not.  The light went drab in their eyes. Their shoulders sagged and their gait changed.  Somewhere on the road they took, they entered a contract to serve the dystopia, family.     I see them withering away. They became obese, eating all the leftovers from the meals...

photo source: publicdomainpictures.net Daughter A young woman living with her parents was quite fond of dogs. She had seven. One night, they began barking in a thunderous clamour. The young woman looked out of the window to see what was happening. She heard her aged father opening the window to the courtyard and scolding the dogs for the noise. She could still hear the song her mother was listening to on her smartphone. It was a birthday gift that Mother got on her 70th birthday. "How long will I have the company of my ageing parents?", she wondered. God forbid, if they die soon, she would leave the house, she thought; then altogether regretting that thought, she tried to forget the sensation of loneliness that the thought evoked. The dogs were barking, all seven of them. The three puppies were mildly bored and lowered the pandemonium a little. She knew them distinctly from their barks. The older bitch, the leader of the pack, had a fierce bark that resonated across the court...