Untitled- Chapter 5

The kiss was nothing but a mere show of affection & liking he had for me.

Well that is how I’d like to put it.

Had it been any other guy I am sure I would surely beat the shit out of him but this time, I couldn’t do anything but surrender to his charm. He went into the kitchen and made me coffee and to my astonishment  he made it the exact way I liked it, 2 sugar cubes, 3 table spoons of milk & a spoon full of coffee beans. The aroma it had was casting its spell on me.

Well the laziness vanished & we planned for a movie marathon again, difference being, this time his hands wrapped me, curled around my waist. I had completely lost the track of time, I looked at the watch & it was 6 am, time to water the plants & get ready for the college.

While I cleaned the wrappers which completely covered the floor, he cleaned up the bed. I start watering the plants outside and he is watching me & smiling. 

I ask “what makes you smile at this point?”

He replied “well you have this natural beauty which sets you apart from the rest of the girls who put on tons of make-up and still look ugly”

“Haha, thanks now if you don’t mind let me get ready for college, I am running late. You leave for your work”, I said.

“I am dropping you till college & will go straight to my work, and I am not asking but telling you this so let’s not argue on this please?” ,he said.

“Well well, there I can sense authority” I said to myself, making sure he didn’t listen to my play of words.

I got ready and out of the blue I see chocolates & breakfast waiting for me at the table and to my surprise there were kept a combination of red & white carnations and a red rose, my favourite flowers, how did you know?

“Flowers are love's truest language” and he planted a kiss, this time on my cheeks. 

well a little taken aback by these actions I was.

I had no idea who this guy was, what if he is a terrorist and wants to kill me? what if he rapes me & beats me to death? What if he makes me his slave?

I shouted to myself Anna, shut up and stop watching movies.

Well I wouldn’t blame the movies for such questions but here was the deal, I was living in the society were nobody is anybody’s and this stranger who has been taking care of me & not asked for anything in return. We have been living in for the past one month & yet we never talked about our past…

 

This unusual sense of belongingness & attachment with a stranger amuses me and drives me crazy… I don’t know how to react and I yet again had to pinch myself to make my self believe, its not dreaming in denial.. 

Untitled- Chapter 4

This night it was difficult for me to sleep, Charlie’s words were dancing in my head.

I was unable to decipher the meaning of his words; I couldn’t relate this emotion to the previous ones. I felt I was thinking too much, I decided to force myself to sleep. I closed my eyes and I saw his face, I was sure I am in much deeper trouble than I think I was in. The whole happening in my life had turned into nothing less than a movie in itself, the heroine was lonely & suddenly a stranger caught her attention & before anything else this guy is all what she thinks of, too much to sink in.

Well I decided to take a break from my usual routines and get back to my normal self, I skipped college and planned alone time with just me and myself. The plan included watching the movies I loved, ordering in pizza and lots of ice-creams & chocolates. While I was half way through my plan, I heard the door bell ringing, I was in my pajamas and sweatshirt, and hair roughly tied in a bun with spectacles on. I opened the door & I see Charlie, for two minutes I was blank, how did he know that I am home?

Well this guy has some telepathy going on with me, while I think he knows it already.  Left with no options I called him inside and a little too embarrassed by looking at the messy surroundings, a bed where 100s of CDs were lying, pizza, ice-creams & chocolates were all that you could find I apologized. He cutely smiled & pulled my cheeks and in a very catchy way said “You manage to look beautiful in anything that you wear Anna how?”

Blushing, I cleared the bed and made some space for him to sit, drinks I asked?

While I was busy making him a drink ignorant of the noises coming from there but when  I go back there and what i see pleases me in way,  the room is all cleaned . I thanked him and passed him his drink & sat and asked "what are you doing here at this time of the day?" Laughing at my question he said “am I a ghost who is allowed only during nights? “

A laugh filled the air. One after the other we kept on watching movies and we never realized that the clock was ticking, it was time for him to leave but as soon as we stepped out we saw the sudden change in weather and I asked him to stay over.

A little too conscious of making a stranger stay in my house I was fiddling with things around and he broke the silence and said don’t worry I don’t believe in the concept of rape, it’s either a yes or a complete no, and we both started laughing... 

But before I could I say anything, he kissed me on the corner of my lips.. 

Untitled- Chapter 3

Tonight, I’ll meet him.

 What should I wear?

What shoe wear will suit my dress?

 What if I don’t look pretty?

"Shut up you fool, you don’t even know his name yet and you are planning all of this for a guy you don’t even know?" I questioned myself and from somewhere came this voice, "Does name matters this much like really?" Well I felt like one of those stupid hindi serial heroines who’d go all gaga after this guy and shit.

But before I could play more of question answers with myself, I heard my door bell ring. And all panicking, I finally looked at myself and smiled. Pretty you, I smirked.

When I opened the door and was just stepping outside, he took me by my hand and dragged me inside. While I was thinking weren’t we supposed to go out he said, let’s be home & know each other a bit more.  This guy had this in him; I couldn’t help but follow his commands.

I closed the door and offered him a drink, I grabbed one myself and sat right opposite to him, before I could forget and make this more awkward a conversation, I asked. "What is your name?"

He smiled and said," so the beautiful lady got the time to finally ask me my name?"

I sat embarrassed while he was enjoying his drink; he finally broke the silence and said "my name is Charlie." I was about to tell him my name but before I could, he started speaking and you are Anna, a 3^rd year law student, recently broke up and kept on going talking about me and my jaw dropped as I looked at him astonished, holy mother of god…

It was time for me to make another drink, well this night had much more in store for me, much more than i though it promised. While I returned Charlie had left, he had left this note which read:

You looked like a fresh lilly,

You looked much prettier than the pretty,

Your eyes made me wanna swim across the deepest sea

And climb the highest mountains

To get you, I shall do what it takes.

You looked prettier than anybody could and prettier than anybody should!

I guess I have fallen in love and this feeling makes me a little ticklish, nobody had ever said these words which he left unsaid yet so fully understood. 

Untitled- Chapter 2

It was early morning; the sun was not full arisen. While jogging in the park I had a shiver trickle down my spine. It was unusual to see such a sight, flowers all around as if the nature had reasons to celebrate. I was wonderstruck and while I was enjoying this sight which had engrossed all my senses, I failed to notice that someone was watching me smile; he was watching me fly like a butterfly and being carefree like a 4 year old child.

He was smiling at me when I finally noticed him clicking pictures and I demanded the roll and when my eyes met his eyes, I had this déjà vu, it was him. Yes, it was him, the same eyes, deep blue, which had a spark in them, his smile was one of its own kinds, and how could it not be him?

Yes that’s when I realized that I wasn’t dreaming. This guy had casted this magic spell on me, all day & night long he was what I used to think of. Watching myself in the mirror, combing my hair & smiling when I reached the ends, all this was new to me. I guess I had fallen in love.

This guy. Wait, what is his name?

Well I am yet to ask and tonight when I meet him I shall throw at him the questions which my heart holds… 

Untitled- Chapter 1

That night when I was high, I met this guy at the bar. From the corner of my eye I saw him staring me, top to bottom, he smiled when our eyes met. He tried to initiate the conversation and we got talking, he was capturing my attention. He complimented me a couple of times, starting from my dress coming to my eyes.

He made a few observations which he mentioned the next time we met, yes we were now friends. This guy had this charm which was not easy to let go, he had started talking much more than before. His company kept me laughing, I had started smiling. The uneasiness was going, the sad life that I once had was vanishing. This guy taught me lessons which talked about forgiveness and how a man would rescue; he hated how batman & super man had kids all fancy. His innocence & purity was visible from his eyes and they way he looked at me.

This guy was unlike those which i had previously met, for he didn't see me as a woman who had assets he could explore.

he was simple and kind, held my hand and walked me home every night. He was one of those whom they talked about in fairy tales, a guy of Cinderella’s dreams.

I wasn't too sure if I was dreaming until I found out…

The Abuse-Incarceration Connection

“While seeing what a mess my life was, I tried, I tried to run away into a world where they’d never know me or my past or for that matter nobody would care for that type of details” .

 Studies of women sexually abused as girls find that onset of drug and alcohol abuse, self- harm, depression, suicidal ideation, relationship disturbances, running away from home and entry into prostitution are frequent negative consequences of child sexual abuse. Longer duration and severity of abuse appear to increase the risk of negative outcomes. Trauma at early stages of development may alter brain chemistry and cognitive functioning, interfering with concentration, school performance and the capacity to discern and interpret cues from the environment regarding danger and risk. Flashbacks, hyper vigilance and emotional flooding may alternate with states of psychological numbing or dissociation. The desire for relief from trauma symptoms may lead survivors to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol to invoke the numbing state; on the other hand, numbing may lead some survivors to engage in risk-taking and self-injury behaviours in order to feel alive again.

“Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.”

Mohandas Gandhi 

As correctly put by an ample number of men, a women is not a toy, she is something which cannot be put into words for the services she renders without any conditions are the ones which make this universe run. She is seen in as many roles as possible, she can be a home-maker and can be a successful business woman, she can be the mother of your child and your best friend, and she is what defines beauty, a beauty of its own kind.  

Despite of the very fact of woman being portrayed as the helpless one, there would be men who’d be courageous enough to admit that it’s the other way round but there are men who’d try to prove their esteem and superiority and hurt the female and hence the risk of taking them to a road less travelled.

Violence perpetrated against women and girls can put them at risk for incarceration by forcing abused girls and women into the criminal justice system not as victims, but as "offenders" in the eyes of the state. The processes that transform victims into offenders are the "criminalization" of women's survival strategies, "entrapment" into crime by abusers and by gender, race and class oppression, and "enforcement violence" by the state through coercive laws, immigration policies, social welfare policies and law enforcement practices.

A heart cries, for the feelings lay dead.

A victim of domestic violence for over 20 years, more often than not, Lisa Rappa turned to drugs for relief, rather than to police.

“I become comfortably numb,” says 42-year-old Rappa. “The whole idea of doing drugs is that you don’t feel. You don’t want to cry.”

Those years of abusive relationships left Rappa with one deaf ear and several scars on her face, and what’s more, a history in jail. She was arrested over 15 times, mostly due to drug-related offenses. And for the past 19 years, she was either in jail, in a drug treatment programs, or homeless in the streets.

Rappa is one of the overwhelming large numbers of female offenders in the United States reported to have been physically or sexually abused.

Woman, the guiding light behind men who have been looked up to, woman who is the sole creator of men; a woman is the one who selflessly devotes herself to her man yet faces inhumanity and cruelty, forced to run away into a land, unknown, unexplored.

Six pathways to incarceration are correlated with histories of abuse:

• Abused and runaway girls
• Street women and prostituted women
• Women with untreated addictions
• Women arrested for economic crimes, sometimes coerced by batterers
• Women arrested for harming others, either falsely or for defending themselves
• Women affected by enforcement of discriminatory and coercive welfare, immigration and corrections policies and drug laws.

Research shows that the overwhelming majority of women defendants in the criminal justice system have extensive histories of childhood and adult abuse that may result in homelessness, substance abuse and economic marginality that force them into survival by illegal means. Some women are coerced to engage in crime by battering partners or by partners' financial abuse, some are arrested for defending themselves against abuse, and others are arrested for not protecting their children from domestic violence.

Government surveys of state and federal prisoners estimate that 43% to 57% of women in state and federal prisons have been physically or sexually abused at some time in their lives. One-third of incarcerated women report child sexual abuse and 20% to 34% report abuse by an adult intimate partner; they have multiple abuse histories and are three to four times more likely than male prisoners to have abuse histories. While these rates may not be substantially higher than in the general population of women, these surveys probably under-report rates of abuse because they ask only a few general screening questions to determine victimization.

A woman is a creation of god who portrays selflessness, care, love; unconditional love yet some men fail to treat her with care.

She dies out of ignorance, exploitation, abuse and assault by the hands of those whose life she completes. 

Happy Birthday college :*

One year back, though not exactly the same date (for me) our college started.

This one year has been like a teacher, not that previous ones weren’t, but this year marked a new beginning for each one of us, we entered college. College which in itself is a different land, a land where you enter alone to learn and progress. This new chapter is completely different from the ones that you have already read. This chapter has more than you will expect, more than you can digest.

College  gave me a new family which I truly adore, some teachers who have been our mentors since the very beginning and some students who teach us “Dude don’t do that, otherwise you’ll be in the same shit as I am now ”. Some of us have fallen flat on our faces and got up with pride, because we learn from our mistakes, some of us travel in a ufo and never bother about what is going on.

College is a special place to everybody, a place where we get to be ourselves, a place where we don’t have to pretend (Not that everybody follows this path :P). Everybody despite of being busy in their boyfriends & girl friends (Respective or not ) they have a group of friends which they cherish & one teacher whom they just adore.

Though we all have seen lots of ups and downs in this college, starting from the “Introduction of the uniforms” that we have to wear against our wishes to fresher’s, fee hike, strict entry & exit barriers :P  and many more but this never made us regret the decision  to be a part of this family.

We have established ourselves, starting from the scratch to standing up to all the expectations; we introduced our edition of MUNs (SYM-MUN) and joined hands with Anand & Anand for the 12th Moot court competition, our teams were a part of various competitions and brought glory to our college.

We now plan to step in and surprise you all with our cultural fest, sports meet & a national level MUN all lined up.

Oh yes, we have it all stocked up.

(No college is not paying me for any of this :P)

 Proud to be a SYMBIAN.

(Yea, I love my college even if I don’t attend the classes :P) 

Another door closes with a ray of hope- eternal & divine.

This year I travelled through another land, a land where debating & diplomatic tactics were supreme. A land of MUN’s a land which was new to me.

AMI MUN 2011 was the first MUN which I participated in as a Delegate, where I formally got introduced to the rules & procedures and how it all works, with a bad start as the delegate of Maldives I was sure it’s too early to judge myself. The friends that I had made have stuck like glue, we hardly talk and share but the bonds are still going strong. *Touchwood*

SYM-MUN’1

I learnt that no matter how out of the circuit you remain people will drag you in the dirty game of politics. The first edition of the college’s MUN saw us all dressed up to face all the challenges, the finest people on the exec board waved a path for the organizing team to set their standards high, the help that our faculty provided us with was incredible. I may have forgotten to thank you guys but you all mean a lot.

TGIM

This MUN was more of a trip than an MUN, falling sick in this pretty town was the worst nightmare.

With the immense support of the Chairperson and all my friends I managed to put in an amendment which I have no clue how? :P especially after missing a day and half of the council. The city of Bangalore was more than welcoming, the bunch of friends that I made proved to be like counsellors to me, they are the best to consult. Yes Das & Zahaan I am talking about you. 

Varun & Divya : Thank you for being more than accomodating

DDUC

What an MUN it was, it gave me the best of pals ever. It made me learn as a writer, it made me see that the coin always has two sides. I met people whom I would not like to stay in touch with; I met people who I would never want to lose. UTSAV, RICHA , ARJUN, ShIRIN, DEVESH & NIKUNJ this MUN will always be special because of you guys.

CBIT

Thank you & sorry Mahir for eating you head all the time. You are a very sweet person :)

We were in the city of Hyderabad, where the smell of biryani could not be ignored. This place has the wildest of memories I have had, dancing with people whom I just met and seeing various faces of whom I thought mattered. Going to cream stones & barista late in the night, walking in the rain, singing songs and just having heart to heart conversations with people who really matter.

Memories of this place never go out of my mind, no matter how hard I try.

Thank you Praveena, Shruti, Kiran, Priyaa, Varun ,Koshtub  & Ameya and many more people whom I love so much.

IHMUN has no such memories attached but it taught me how diplomacy can make you win a place on a professional level but can never make you enter somebody’s heart.

IITD and IITK were two MUNs which made me interact with a few people whom I genuinely respect.

Karan Soni, Chaitanya, Mudit & Devashish I love you guys. I love the Pagal group members Namit & Raghav too.

Supriya, Sumit & Mayank thank you for listening to all the blabbering I usually do and all those cranky periods where I wanted to kill a few people for the professionalism they showed*Pun intended*

SYM-MUN’2.

This is one of those MUNs which made me believe that if you have talent you can always cut through your way and even if people try to drag you into shit they’ll fall right there on your feet.

No I am not getting senti, people who know the story know that it’s TRUE. This MUN was more of an eye opener for me, it did not only teach me how to ignore the attention seekers, and it made me more professional in my approach. I did commit many mistakes earlier but this MUN is one I am extremely proud of.

Thank you Gugu for saying what all you said on the stage, meant alot and thank you for being such a sweetheart.

DUMUN

Wow three wonderful days & extremely happening nights :P

Yet again this MUN brought me extremely close to a few people and made me completely anti a few. I learned the lesson that it’s not worth my effort and moving on is way a better choice.

Few people that I really need to thank for treating me so nicely & with their utmost care.

Thank you Utsav, Richa, Srishti, Das, Misbah & Bharat. Thank you for having those heart to heart conversations which made me a better and a wiser person.

AHLCON & MACMUN

Were more or less family MUNs, a reunion of the sweetest people I know of.

Nishesh, Nirjhar, Soni ,Utsav & Chaitanya. Whhatey gang we are now. I have & will always respect all of you.

Now a little thank you & sorry note for people whom I have missed terribly.

Megha, Apurva, Aakash, Mohit & Anurag. You people had my back always, no matter how big a bitch I was. Never contacted you never stayed in touch. Was a bad friend, a bad person. L

I am sorry and I promise things like this will never be repeated. :D

Koshtub, Zahaan, Das, Shrisha & Kiran. Thank you for being there always, thank you for always helping me out in one way or the other, thank you for things that I don’t even remember :P

Tito & Priyaa : you two will be my date forever. :D

Sukaran : Thanks for trying to teach me guitar and clicking those ugly pictures and recording my voice and torturing me I DO HATE YOU :P

 Utsav & Richa : You two are people whom I love too much, not because we three have the same wavelength but because you guys are just adorable. You two helped me take decisions which I am so proud of now. Thank you and you know no matter how much I thank you, it is never going to be enough.

Kshitij, Mayank, Vartika, Tanaya, Anirudh,Rachel, Sheeba, Kartikey & Shubham. Thank you for making college a better place. Without you I am so sure I would have died out of boredom and the boring eco classes would have killed me (Even though I don’t attend college that much :P)

Rahul & Kunal : You two have a very special place in my life, you two are now a part of me. Thank you for everything.

If I have forgotten anybody I am sorry, I dint mean to, if you know me well you know how much you mean to me.

Thank you, guys for everything for making this year one of my favourite chapters of my life.

Thank you Abhinav, Samar & Tejinder for tolerating me when I want all the pictures to be perfect :P

Thank you Chandrashekar Rawandale sir for having faith in me, yes I did commit a few mistakes for which I apologise. Those things shall never be repeated. :)

Love.