4- Vomit

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I never thought my life would take such an upside turn when we shifted our home from Haridwar to Dehradun. It was March 2008. I soon got admission into a school less than a mile away from our house. I was unsure about what my life had in store for me- new school, new neighborhood, new people; and yet the same old family definitely. 

My father gave me his 1988 edition of the Manorama yearbook to study, and I quickly digested the space science section of the book. He wanted to widen my knowledge in all areas of Geography, History, etc. but I was unwilling, though, in this he was not wrong to wish that for me. But, he certainly had disappointed me regarding books when earlier in Haridwar he said he had brought me books to read, and what he’d actually give me was his old books of school and college on economics, and polity, in which I had no interest. Out of those I’d pick Manorama.

Though I failed to mention this earlier, I owe my first introduction to Durga Saptashati to my father only. He had made me memorize a few paras of – Devi -Apradha-Kshampana-Stotram: na matram no yantram tadapi cha na jane stutimaho… I remember those few paras to this day. It’s intriguing for me to this day, that my father who had memorized Gita very early on, who had some knowledge of Sanskrit and was fairly read in philosophy and literature turned out to be the man he is.

He himself gives an explanation in a very narcissistic way obviously that he was a very religious person, then because he had to start earning, he got diverted to worldly affairs and when he married, his life totally got spoilt. He blames his drinking as due to his wife, who had made his life hell. Ma doesn’t say but she feels the same I know.

My father was usual with his ways, though he was not there at home most of the time thankfully, whenever he came he took the whole house on his head. He wouldn’t let me watch tv, I had to hideously grope and watch Naruto and other shows on low volume on the classic old Sony tv which was so old by now that it no more displayed colors. Basically, he was trying to be strict and I have no issues with that, for this could be one of the ways of parenting.

But what irks me, is when I am reminded that how once my sister who was then two or three years old, had playfully messed up and scratched his car’s front with a stone, and he had beaten her. To protect that young child, Ma came forward, and he beat her too with his leather Bata sandals. How much he loved his family, could be seen through his actions. Just like a young me, his child daughter could also not be spared from his wrath although, I do believe this was the last time he beat his daughter; with ma or me the case was different.

The innocent love phase for me had begun while I was in Haridwar, I was very fond of a girl. I would do everything for her, to please her; I would race down the corridor when school got over because we had to make a line before exiting, and I used to occupy that line for her, while I myself went back in the queue, and showed other such loving gestures to her. There was a girl who was fond of me. She once sang a romantic song- “Jeeya Dhadak Dhadak Jaye”, always staring at me while singing. Just like I favored the above girl, she favored me by making kind gestures, but I could not care any less.

My father took me to be too naive, but as I was understanding more about my own sexuality, I could see what he was doing too. If I remember correctly, there was once a person who was visiting her grandmother,  the old lady who lived in our neighborhood.  When she met me, she embraced me lovingly but around that time, one day, when my father and assumingly I were on the terrace, she was also roaming in hers. My father in the guise of making me a video of surroundings actually made a video of her. I do not know when did I watch that video, but I do think I found it on his phone.

I myself too had started fantasizing by this time about the opposite gender and any bump or contour in the body was attractive. Not all, but majorly all boys had started being this by this time. We obviously got attracted but sometimes I fantasized about those I shouldn’t have. If truth be told, I too fantasized about her, if I remember correctly.

I am sharing all this as well, because nobody talks about it. Children and adult alike fear being judged for any kind of sexual thought and action and often they keep it hidden as their guilty secret. Through these posts, I want to traverse the burden of these inhibitions too. 

I hope nobody in our kind community is offended by what I’m writing, and fail me as a writer. I am learning and these posts are a testament to that. If truth has to be spoken, I want to speak it in full-length. If I’m speaking about pains given by my father and his reckless deeds, I have to write about my own flaws too, in order to be truly genuine.

I believe that the pure innocence factor in a child is mostly till he or she is four or five years old. After that, between five to thirteen, children start understanding sexuality. Most. Proper sex education is necessary which majority of the Indian families have kept hush-hush up until now.  In fact, it is a necessity that parents do enlighten their children, so that so many out there, who suffered and suffer, do not think it to be a heinous crime. Communication is the key. Most importantly they should be taught, how to behave and how not to.

I know this is difficult for Indian families where our elders, change the tv channel when anything sensual like a contraceptive ad comes on tv. But in order that children do not make detrimental mistakes, for their own safety and well-being, this needs to be taught to boys and girls at this age, in this era, where media has fed them with so many ideas revolving around the same. 

Anyways, I never watched porn or had access to it as a child, in fact, I refrained from it when schoolboys talked about it or said anything dirty. I wanted to be a good kid and considered anyone who mentioned such things to be a nasty person. Once in order to explore and find some games to play, I opened my father’s new phone, which he left unlocked in a drawer before leaving. I opened the phone and saw porn videos for the first time in my life. Obviously, it didn’t leave a good impression though I do know now that adults do watch it; I am an adult myself.

I studied in that school, and by the end of the year, during exams, I got a head injury while falling from a swing. Father got to know about it and casually kept shaving while mentioning it to Ma. This was the third or fourth injury to my head or face since my childhood. One head injury was when I fell in a well, once my chin broke due to falling from a cycle onto a concrete stone, one I do not remember and the fourth was this. May it be the last also.

Soon, I changed schools and got admission to another, one of the best, and the most academically driven school in Dehradun. I cleared the entrance exam to this school by my own will, and Ma and I think that I was the one who cleared it. However father tells, in this, like every other school, he had to make special efforts to get me admitted. He thinks that without his effort I could not clear it.

That summer, for the first time in my life I got delusional. We had a trip to a hilly town in Uttrakhand, the first of its kind with my father. It was not a holiday trip; my father had to go there for official purposes and he just took us along. There we went to a dam and on the waters, I saw a dead body floating which was wrapped in white cloth. I thought it was a human body and I started crying. My father didn’t want me to be this sensitive but that was what I was and am. He never understood that whatever he did had a huge negative impact on my mind. He never understood his own child and just made assumptions.

And soon after coming back, I developed an unnatural fear of death. I remember in those summer vacations, my mind was filled with What Ifs. What if I died due to this or that? What if this or that kills me? etc. I even thought that the lead of a mechanical pencil is a threat to me. I thought it could go to my eyes or nose and it can harm me badly.

Around this time my father drank one night and fought with Ma. Same as usual, but this time he drank, beat her in the dark, and scolded me to go away. I tried my best to protect Ma but then he followed me, while I fled from him and beat me with his slippers.

I climbed the bed, and kept repeating- “Papa ap to Bhagwan ji ko mante ho na, apne to Ramayan padhi hai, Aisa Kyun Kar rahe ho? “Father you believe in God, you’ve read the Ramayan, why are you doing this?” He replied -“Ram ki aisi ki taisi (Screw Ram)”, and kept on assaulting me warning me that, I’ll be beaten more if I interrupt again. And later that night, I saw he had vomited on her head and had torn her clothes. I kept crying and crying, pleading with him with my hands folded, while tears trickled down my cheeks. I used to remember God to help Ma and me when such things happened, but God never listened.

I do not remember the chronological order, but when my Nana (maternal grandfather) visited our house around that time, my father was again drunk. He argued and then grabbed Nana’s throat while I was said to keep away in the other room, and Ma kept on screaming. Soon the next year, I was about to have the worst year of my childhood.

TO BE CONTINUED…