The Waiting Game

Expectation, they say, is the root of suffering…

And if you ask me, they’re not wrong! But then, am I the right person to decide? My opinion could be biased because my expectations have almost always led me to pain. But then, there are those in the world too, who know the recipe to make Happiness, with just the correct amount of Expectation and the accurate amount of Commitment. (If you happen to be one of them, please do share the recipe for the benefit of those who are hopelessly starved)

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Before M painted my world red, I had actually never expected anything like that to happen in my life. I never thought it was possible, given my circumstances. And yet, when he came, I surprised myself with the realization that I had waited for it all along. There he was – an impossible dream that became my reality; but even before I could get a hang of the new wings my life had given me, he had turned back into a dream, more impossible than ever before. I had expected too much, asked for too much, and life had shown me where I belonged.

Night after day after night after day, I used to wait to treasure each syllable uttered by him for me, wait to capture each glance he would be kind enough to throw my way, wait to cherish every little touch of his on my skin. Yes, I was hopeless, I was helpless. I had completely lost myself in that waiting game, so much so, that I didn’t even realize that soon, I was the only one playing the game. The waits had slowly become longer, and eventually, turned endless.

A little part of me, perhaps, still plays that game, and I wish I could, but I just don’t have the heart to kill that part. I heard this somewhere… and I know how true it is:

“The most difficult to do in the world is not killing a man, but killing your dream”

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VS was not a dream. Nothing after M was. Whether anything or anybody could ever be, remains to be seen.

VS was a fantasy though. A passionate fantasy. When I look back at it today, I can remember almost nothing. It has all turned smoky, almost as if it had happened in a faraway place to somebody I don’t know. In fact, I might even be able to make myself believe that it had never happened at all, were it not for the potholes it has left for me on the road to Trust. I do often find myself analyzing those potholes and waiting for answers to pop out of them, even though I know that those answers will change nothing.

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Waiting is a game. It comes packed with excitement, frustration, anticipation, joy, sorrow – every damn thing you look forward to in a sport. And hence, there have to be rules for the Waiting Game.

But I don’t know what they are, or whatever I do know are the wrong ones, for I have certainly always found myself at the losing end of the game… I seem to always start as the one who is waited for, and end as the one who waits. It makes me edgy if I know that someone I care for is WAITING for me. I almost look at it as a punishment to them, and can’t relax until I have ended it for them. And yet, season after season, I find myself serving the very punishment I hate.

There is something certainly wrong somewhere. Is it that I expect too much? Can you be happy if you don’t expect? Can you be human if you don’t expect? If expectation is the root of pain, is it not the source of happiness too? Must I know the rules of this game, to stop losing?

I want to stop Waiting… I’m tired of this game… And there are two ways for my being able to STOP the game… One of them is not in my hands, though… And the one that is, might be just as painful as the game. Yet… I’m sick and tired of this game.

The Blow

“Kehta tha aap sab majoori karte ho… Main service karoonga. Kehta tha main kuchh banoonga”… {“He used to say – You all may do labour work… But I’ll do a job. He used to say - I’ll become something”}

Not a trace of dampness in them, and yet so hollow were his eyes as he spoke of his son, that they sent a chill down my very bones. Hollow, just like his skeletal structure – eaten from within by the moths of poverty all his life; and now in the past few hours, every morsel of hope left in there chewed away to nothingness… This time, by the moths outside – the ones he doesn’t know, would never know. And there’s one more thing that he would perhaps never know – the answer to one simple question… Why?

As I sat eating a sumptuous lunch watching news on NDTV this afternoon, one after another, came on screen faces of people who I might have seen sometime, maybe passed by them, perhaps bought something from their shops. They had all lost some part of their existence today – a dear one had left them forever, and they had had no chance to hug them or wish them goodbye. One of the most peaceful cities in my country, the city dearest to my heart – Jaipur – has, instead, said goodbye to peace. “Friends, no more!”

7 bomb blasts… 70 dead bodies… 70 multiplied by a diverse range of number of years of LIFE multiplied by 365… days of LIFE, of memories, laughs, promises, cheers, dreams… turned to dust. Nothing left. Not a thing. The universe has a strange way of absorbing the most beautiful things about life. The things which are not things at all. Because… they don’t REMAIN when life doesn’t remain. And yet, they’re all that life is about!

The headline of today’s Punjabi newspaper Ajit reads “Pink city turned blood red”. It shakes my core everytime I read it. The pink city is the city where I spent the pink years of my life. Not once had it crossed my mind then that someone could even think of bombing this place, these people. And today when I know for sure that it has happened, I’m still trying to convince myself that someone DID after all think of bombing that place, those people.

I’m a firm believer in the Ways of God. That He knows best, and that He’ll make sure that whatever happens is for the best. On such days, though, I find my faith standing on rickety grounds. Why? Just why should an old man who doesn’t get enough water to drink have to shed it from his eyes, in the name of a son who was supposed to quench the thirst of his entire lifetime? Why can these people whom we call terrorists not see their own fathers in this man? And just why can they not see that their God, whoever He is, did not give them the right to create dead bodies? – Neither the ones they’ve left motionless, nor the ones they’ve left moving.

A Most Pregnant Issue

A man chooses to become pregnant! A feat biologically impossible, Thomas Beatie has been aided by Mother Nature in the fulfillment of his desire. How? Well, he happened to be born female. Amidst billions of raised eyebrows, endless cries of ‘Freak!’, ‘Blasphemy!’ and much worse name-calling, protests and even attempts of physical harm to the expectant father, Thomas has chosen to do what no man (whether trans or not) would have the guts to do!

Here’s what I wrote about the matter at an online group I am a member of…

I have wanted to write on this issue for some time now, but I wanted to see the video of the much-hyped Oprah show first, and I managed to find time to do that yesterday. I watched it here

Firstly, what matters the most in this entire scenario - the baby. The most important thing in the nurturing of any child is love and care. In my experience and observation, I have seen that every child, while growing up, finds his or her own set of problems and also, along the journey, discovers the strengths within him/herself or in the world around him/herself to be able to deal with them. How much ever a parent might want to protect their child, there is no way you can shield them from sorrow completely. It's a different point altogether that dealing with problems makes one a stronger and more mature individual. So, the bottomline, according to me, is that problems WOULD come because they're meant to, but what a child really needs is a parent who is right there behindhim/her with the reassurance that Hey! If that seems too hard for you, I'm right here - ready to hold you if you fall. Thomas Beatie doesn't look like a man who wouldn't do that. In fact, he comes across as a very sensitive man to me - one of the most important traits we all look for in our fathers.

Thomas has been off hormones for some time now, which is why I guess the feminine seemed slightly stronger in him at the show; however, in the older clippings from home video, his appearance was certainly more masculine. Now, I know that all that hardly matters, but I also know that it's a fact that even a few amongst us look for 'the ideal' in atransman / transwoman. I've had to check myself doing that sometimes and have hated myself for it. After all, 'Perfect' is only a word, because it can never take a human form. It's unfortunate that our world loves to categorize people on the basis of their common imperfections, forgetting along the way, that the only way to a Perfect World is to bring all imperfections together rather than separate them.

So, Thomas is certainly not perfect. But his imperfections in my eyes may be different from the ones you see. While I felt his and Nancy's poses with an exposed belly were unnecessary, you might feel that the whole thing of coming out on Oprah itself was unnecessary.

However, I happen to see the latter as a step towards a new awakening, a new consciousness. Let's not forget that when the media had started covering homosexualand transgender cases/issues, the reactions had been as acidic and those of as much or more disgust as they are now over the 'Pregnant Man'. All the same, somewhere, at least in some small corners of the world, it HAS made a difference. If everybody chooses to not speak out (of course, it's a very personal choice and must be respected most deeply), the world would remain where it is - segregated. Don't we all want a better world? A new world? However far that dream might be today, isn't it worth trying for?

Having a biological child is Thomas' right and at the same time, being identified as male is his right too. Just because these two rights in his case bring up a situation which is unusual in the eyes of the uninitiated, does not mean his rights can be belied, or that he should be denied proper medical care by no less than 9 different doctors.

Now, there's one point that a lot of people raise which I find the hardest to believe... That THIS – what Thomas is going through - is something that a lot of people would have done quietly (and that that’s the way it should be done too). Personally, I don't think so. Yes, it's 'very easy' and whoever wants to do it, CAN apparently go and do it in Virginia, but according to me, it would take an immense will power and an uncanny ability to strike off an image of 'ideal' that almost every transperson remains stuck with. To identify as a 'man' and at the same time, be ready to carry their baby and yet convince oneself (not the world) that they are and would be the father of the child, be ready to answer or ignore endless questions for all times to come - is a Herculean task.

The question is NOT about its being easy or difficult, right or wrong. If you ask me, it's as right as right can be, because it's HIS right to choose. The question is about one's ability to break the shackles of the convention, the norm, the ideal, the Perfect. Before my Sex Reassignment Surgery, when my mother had urged me to save my sperm in a sperm bank for some time in life when I might wish to have my biological offspring, I had battled with the idea for so long. My heart ached to see a child some day who would have come out of my own self... and yet, finally, I decided against it because I remained stuck with 'what is normal'. I couldn't get myself to believe that I would be the mother of thechild, and that was that.

Thomas, apparently, has dealt with that turmoil and come out so beautifully successful. I can only feel pride and respect for him.

Coming back to what a lot of people think. Now, even if such cases were not to be that rare, I think that's all the more reason for at least somebody to speak out on behalf of all those who would be going through a similar struggle with the medical community, refusing to look after them and their baby. That makes Thomas' coming out even more meaningful.

'Advertise' is not such a bad thing, after all. Don't we see a thousand and one public service advertisements everyday? Advertising is about making aware, and projecting the goodness. Let's not use it in a derogatory sense.

I heard on the show that the transgender community itself has not been supportive of Thomas. Honestly, it disturbed me a lot... because what it really means is that we are no different from the others who tell US what is right and what is wrong. When we tell THEM - "It's my life and let the choice lie with me", we're speaking just for ourselves but then, soon enough, we're ready to segregate our own small little community (if I may call it so) on the basis of the norms of 'right' and 'wrong' borrowed from the same peoples who've segregated 'us' from 'the rest'.