Staying Alive
Updated: May 2, 2021

11/08/1996
In the few pages of books
That I had the chance to read
Whenever I went to Raddi Chacha's shop
To sell the newspapers of our chawl,
It was written that in the olden days,
People became successors of
The jobs that their fathers had -
The king's son became a king,
The cobbler's son became a cobbler,
The brahman's son became a brahman;
It hasn't changed much, to be honest,
Not for me, at least, except that in this case,
I, my mother's daughter, inherited her job,
But the story around that is for another day.
For now, I must get back to work.
19/02/1998
It's funny, or perhaps the absolute opposite
That the "another day" made its appearance
After five hundred and fifty seven days;
But let me grab this opportunity
Before it vanishes into thin air like
The remnants of an extinguished flame;
My mother was thirteen when
Her father sold her off to this whorehouse
He got fifteen thousand rupees,
And a month long supply of alcohol,
My mother, on the other hand, got bruises,
Bad memories, names, and at eighteen, me;
I have never known who my father was,
And I think I don't want to know who the scum was;
I grew up poor, and my mother grew old, and bitter;
And her parting "gift" to me as her heiress
Was to be her successor, and the best one at that.
30/12/1998
I have no reason to write about my life,
I am just another woman whose body sells
Faster than the hot malpuas
From Usman Chacha's shop;
And that's how it is going to be
Until one day I fade into oblivion;
But the reason I am still writing today
Is because last night, Akku,
The girl who was brought in last week,
Hit puberty and was ready to be a "woman",
And that catapulted me to the time
When I was pronounced a woman,
I think I was thirteen, no, fourteen,
Because I remember Surekha Tai
Calling me a "late bloomer",
It didn't take long for them to
Thrust me under a man who was
Thrice my age, and half as active
As one could ever be,
The only similarity we shared was the fact
That we both resembled new-born babies -
He slept off like one, I cried the entire night like one.
I wonder how long before Akku goes through the same.
15/05/2000
Last night was my nineteenth birthday,
Well, if I am being honest,
My mother never told me when I was born,
So I gave myself a birth date when I was six;
Surekha Tai gave me what she dubbed
As the "most prestigious gift" she had
Ever given to any of the girls -
A handsome young man unlike the others
Who visited this place that I call "home";
He left somewhere around dawn,
But the blood and bruises that covered my body
Somehow reminded me of my mother;
I wasn't ashamed of or disgusted with
The thought of my mother,
I was just...sad?
But I got paid well enough to not complain,
And I think the bruises will heal soon enough.
08/09/2003
I thought it was food poisoning from all
The stale food that Tai has been feeding us,
But turns out, I am having a baby;
How is that supposed to make me feel?
How did mother feel when she realized
That she was having a baby?
How can two lives be so eerily similar,
Yet still feel different, like the two faces of Gemini?
Will it be a boy? Then he won't have to be like me;
But what if it's a girl? Do I have it in me to protect her?
Do I have it in me to have a baby at all?
//NaPoWriMo, Day 19