Existential dread and the promise of happy endings

I am researching on fairy tales for a class paper. And I want to say one thing while facts and logic point me to something else. And it should be easy to revise my opinions, open my mind but I persist in holding on to something that I can't quite fathom. A feeling that niggles at the back of my mind, a certain something thats so part of me that it has never needed any explanation.

 

What I thought would be a fairly easy assignment has turned into a relentless soul searching. Where do we draw the line between childhood security and gender manipulation? Don't we modern women like to think of ourselves as empowered in comparison to our counterparts of earlier centuries? But then what is empowerment- its not a homogenous "equality", thats obvious. And its not ensuring a safe life or the elusive "freedom". Who do we want to be? More importantly, is who we want to be pre-programmed into us by culture? There is pretty much noway to find out- erasure of culture is a culture by itself.

And yet, if its all just manipulation why do some aspects tap into psyches far far more than others? What is that naive, childhood longing that still surfaces on lonely bus rides and loud parties? Some cultures prescribe a "swallowing" while others medicate a "running away"....but its there, always lurking, ready to flow in at the slightest slip of our ambitious, determined "happiness". Ash says nobody understands what the hell I'm talking about but then....

 

But then I think many can...only that these things sound unfamiliar when they are taken out of our souls and worded into sentences.

A lullaby

I suddenly had a vivid recollection of dusky chai -times and nights when my mother would talk me to sleep. She told me her stories- now they are mine, entrenched in me-and those images and impressions are branded forever in my memory.....

As I lay me down
on a lonely night
I hear her whisper,
a whisper, a soft whisper.

With a voice soaked
in our past, she
sings me a song, a
song, the sweetest song.

She washes me with
a lilting saddness as
I drown in the comfort
of darkness, a heady darkness.

She twirls a tale
as I sleep yet awaken,
she speaks of my mother,
my mother's mother's mother.

I can touch her velvet voice
as we travel away and
they fall in place- the pieces,
the pieces, the very many pieces.

I drink those words of long ago
and the walls of my mind ring
with an echo, an echo,
a poignant echo.

Cafe Unique

Anokhi means unique and unique it is, this cafe in the very heart of my city. It sits so very quietly beside a busy road, hidden behind a plethora of greens. A little pathway takes you from the parking lot to a boutique (which is frightfully expensive) and further down, to rickety garden furniture strewn amidst a cove of trees. Tall floor mounted fans spin to ward away the humid heat and a large net is hung overhead to ensure leaves don't drop into your salsa.

The menu is funny....limited, but funny. There's a bit of Italian...and you can spot Indianized Mexican, some all-time American favourites...as Lou Bega would say "a little bit of this and a little bit of that"

The service is slow....i mean real slow. There times I've had to walk up to the counter and ask for the check, after all efforts of frantic waving and calling out to the waiter hadn't worked. Its better to let them know at the start of the meal if its gonna be a "I've gotta meeting at 2.00" lunch.

What i love about the place is the calm....you can stay for hours, and people wont bother you with "Will there be anything else, ma'am?" Or "Could you shift to that dingy half-a-seater? We need a table for 24." Its one of the few places in the city, you can go sit by yourself, have a nice meal, read a book or simply stare at a tree.

And when I think back, I can recall I've sat there with almost all of my closest friends at some point of time. In large groups- laughing, chatting. And sometimes with a single person- conversing over cappuccino. So many moods. So many contexts. So many memories.

Anokhi lets you be...do your own thing. It doesn't impose, it doesn't try to make a statement...it simply is. And thats why I miss it.