~ Its a Scarlett Deja Vu ~

It was another September; bygone

That led to the fateful December,

One that I dread to Remember

The blames & accusations

The tarnished soul

The never healing wounds

My Eliminated Identity

Total Loss of Existence

A Failure - A Broken Home. . .

The Zero that i was made

Turned my life around

Led me to this September,

And December is Due very Soon!

Dear September Please Be Perfect,

& December, if its not too much to ask,

Just Make My Dreams Come True !

-- Scarlett

The Sins Of Originality

It starts even before when one is in the crib. The incumbent is expected to give a knee jerk to the human incubator when someone from the outside cajoles it. And if it doesn’t do so, out of it’s own sweet nonchalant will, the incubator is thought to be imperfect. Such patterns chase us all through our life.

A wayward child is made to sit silent and behave like a grown up. To be seated properly is a sign of a civilized upbringing and congrats to the parents for bringing up such a well-behaved child. Is a child supposed to act like a child? Or a grown up? Is it not denying the child the right to be true to his impish impulsive childish cravings?? And what is being proved by succumbing a child’s will to the “right & proper” will of his parents? A thumbs up celebration for the grownups for doing the job right, who have no other accolades under their belts except the conquering of the child’s mannerisms?

It is nothing except our fear of originality.

There is no greater tolerance, then to accept and embrace originality of the other without trying to tame it or mould it or conform it or amend it or correct it or alter it in any other form then it actually is. Because that is the denial of that person’s being. But that desired level of tolerance comes from the ability to accept, which in turn is derived by the strength of mind and character and hence rarely found?

Why is it so hard for us to accept the eccentricities of any person? Why do we have to evaluate a person’s originality? Why do we have to question the sanity of any man who tries to question the set patterns of beliefs? Isn’t this originality, the very essence of that person’s being, something that defines that person and makes him stand apart from others?

Isn’t the diversity of life forms the very beauty of mankind?

From the very tender ages we tame our little ones to become conformists. We cage their thoughts and provide limits to their minds. We teach them to walk; but not to run. We teach them to talk; but not to listen. We teach them to think, but never to imagine.

This adamant adherence to the status quo has become maddeningly suffocating for some selected few, those who have risen above the surface of conventionality, broken the boundaries and defied the limits. They are the ones who have chosen to think and imagine outside the box. They have dared to step outside the boundary, and looked inwards and thought, “What if”? They are the ones who have conceived the notion of, “Why Not”?

And what are the rewards for them, for those who have dared.
Social ostracism.
Character assassination.
Evaluations of moral standards.
Consistent “sincere” advices to return to the voice and reason of orthodoxy, insane though it might seem to the “Original” being.

ye kahaan ki dostee hai ke bane hain dost naaseh
koee chaarasaaz hota, koee ghamgusaar hota

[What kind of friendship is this, that friends are now advisers
Someone should ease my pain, someone sympathize with me]

And what is that original thinker forced to bear in a society full of traditionalists? He has to live a life analogous to the struggle and pain of a mountain climber. He is forced to appease the outer world and deny his own inner self the right to exhibit itself in its truest form. He is reduced to a pretension of respect for the bylaws and standards that he neither understands nor does he agree with.


He has to fight, and convince, and argue, and debate, and justify himself for being the way he is.
He has to ultimately apologize for acting the only way he knows how.
He ends up being sorry for not being anything other than what he truly is; an Original.

Such individuals live a life of continuous confrontation, starting from their personal lives at home, from their parents, to siblings, extending eventually to their spouse and kids (if they ever have one).

Socially, people either indulge them for the sake of little amusement and entertainment at the cost of their time and energy. Or people simply find them a social nuisance, they snub them and try and tame them.

People find it their moral obligation to probe into the individual’s life style and mind and question it and judge its propriety according to their own standards which by virtue of being widely accepted automatically are sanctioned as standard and approved as the higher, better and the correct way to act and speak and think.

The originals remain misinterpreted and misunderstood and ultimately live in an insulated isolation within themselves. Even those who claim to love the originals, are not much happy deep down so much so that they are actually ashamed of being associated with a social outcast. They fall in love with an illusion, an image, an ideal. To them the eccentricities are part of the charm that allures them to the Original. They temporarily become a pseudo-original whilst in valence of the Original. For them the Original is what they had always aspired to be (the rule-breaker), but could never be materialized. Secretly, they themselves yearn to be an Original, and it is this fascination that pulls them to the Original. That some way, somehow, some of the originality streak may brush off on to them. They long to draw some of the Original’s charismatic energy into their own worn out hearts and win some battles of their own.

But of course, it is all that they only think there is to it. Their mysticism of the Original is misconstrued for love. A vastly misplaced emotion which remains unreturned and unrewarded because the Original is too busy sorting out his own messed up life and priorities! Invariably, this high wave of so-called-Love quells down soon enough when confronted with the harsh realities of life and society which is in perpetual ailment of the incurable conformist mediocrity!

The Lover who was once enchanted by the lengthy diatribes of idealistic utopian thoughts is disappointed by the Original’s fall from grace, from the high pedestal where he had once placed his Demi-god. The irony strikes when the lover starts to mould the Original and tries to customize the Original according to his own wishes. In his own way, he is trying to “raise” the object of his affections in the worldly view; naïve as love is. Alas, the Original, doesn’t require the satisfaction of acceptance and certification of sanity from society. He is long past the need for that security! He holds a world within himself where he issues all warrants & licenses. The Original is therefore, nature bound to repeal the corrective, preventive, submissive, oppressive and regulatory advances of the good-intentioned lover.

The Original necessitates only to be heard and to be accepted as he is, not-impure; and to be loved and understood as an Original.

There is no guessing what the end to this Love-Triangle is!

The Original is forced to pay by bearing the pain of being a stranger to the one person whom he wanted to rely on without the fear of being rejected for being original. The price is to live with the loneliness while being in the arms of love which is doubly painful, as he is never understood or respected for what he actually is. He is punished to hide away his true self not only from the world, but from his own self as well. A sheer disrespect of life’s diversity!

 It’s a gross denial of existence. . ah, the sins originality. . .

--Scarlett

Eid Without Henna

Its Eid, the day of joys and celebrations. A day kids eagerly look forward to after the noisy and boisterous Shab-e-Barat. It’s a day of reward after the month long fasting.

Its especially grand for children. I remember as a child my parents used to get me new clothes and shoes, one for each day. My greatest worry used to be to get a fourth one and somehow convince my parents that a fourth day is a legitimate day as well. Unfortunately, fourth day was one of mourning, as it almost always turned out to be a school day.

But the night before Eid, that was a different story altogether.

Chand Raat, had more festivity than Eid itself. My father would take it upon himself to make the night the most memorable for us. He would take us to the well lit bazaars to get petty trinkets, rings, tops and all the gibberish in the world. Matching purses were a must, no dress is ever complete without a purse to go with it. And my dad would go all out of his way, and keep roaming with us till all the tiniest details for the next three days had been covered.

I distinctly remember one chaand raat, where I could not find the purse to my satisfaction. We went to two or three markets and finally ended up in the first market again. After reaching there, my mom refused to set foot out of the car. Apparently, I was acting all vain, and she was not having any of it. It was my dad who frowned at my mom for being a bad sport, and took me to the shops we had already searched twice! After roaming the market once again, I finally settled for the one purse I liked in some way. It was not perfect, but it was all I could do in the night.

Surprisingly, even my dad wasn’t satisfied. He offered to drop my sisters and mom back home, and take me to some other market and search for another purse of my liking. But I was tired at that time as well. And I quit the futile wish. My dad remained insistent nevertheless!

At 3:30 in the morning he dropped us sisters at some godforsaken parlor to get henna on our baby hands and dutifully picked us up henna and all an hour later.

On Day of Eid, post Eid Prayers, he would take us to a local bazaar full of local rides and we would gleefully shriek in the descents and gasp at their ascends. My father would wave from a distance and insist on taking us to all the rides available, even the camel and the horse ride. The drive back would include ice cream positively.

Finally around noon, my dad would be relieved of his fatherly chores and we kids would heap dead on our respective beds, henna, jewellery, flutes, sunglasses and whistles and all.

Eid is such an occasion for children. They look forward to it the entire year. They insist on fasting, hoping to get rewards at the month’s end.

At the eve of Shab e barat, they go out and get crackers. From that day, they start looking for that ideal dress, and matching shoes and accessories. The hair need to be cut just right to go with the outfit. Eid dresses are tried and tested till they fit just perfect. Colors and styles are discussed with friends.

The night before the Eid, Chand Raat, kids iron their dresses with more zeal than the whole last month. Dresses are laid down, their tags are to be removed in the morning. Shoes are put near the dresses. Shined once again for the invisible dirt specks. They await the mornings heartily.

Oh, but sleep is an evasive thing on such nights. To wake up to the sight of the new things, the gifts your parents have secretly purchased for you, to be given on the day. And to wake up to the gourmet food prepared with all the love and tenderness of your mother. And the joys of receiving Eidi, a cash that is to be spent during the course of the day on more festivities.

After all, Eid is a Joyous Muslim Occasion!

Today, it is yet another Chand Raat, my dad is still taking my 28 year old self and roaming with me from market to market for yet another trivial thing that I have left outstanding deliberately to get on Chand Raat with my dad, as per ritual.

Father is one figure around which the whole Eid event revolves. But as I relive the moments of my glorious past, I am jolted to the bitter present and the quetta blasts.

The news reads thus;

“The suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside the mosque in Quetta's Police Lines area where the funeral procession of station house officer Mohibullah was being held. The bomb went off as senior officers prepared to offer prayers for their colleague. .. SHO Mohibullah was shot dead by unknown gunmen earlier this morning when he was reportedly taking his family for Eid shopping.”

As I type this draft, I see my hands, no henna this time around. It would have washed away anyway while wiping the tears off the faces of the children who will not be going to Chand Raat with their Dads to finish their last of the Eid shopping. My henna would have washed away while consoling the crying child who will not lay out his Eid dress this night, nor will he look for the invisible dirt on his new shoes. He would be sitting near a Coffin Box, listening to the grownups cursing some foreign agents he had never heard before. He is looking for the right graveyard and the right cloth for Kaffan instead of matching shoes. My henna hands would have blemished the white of the untimely widow, who will spend a lifetime looking for the right answer for her child to explain why and for what Daddy missed all his Chand Raats and Eids with his beloved child. My henna would have faded into an ugly color while washing blood stains off the streets, and mosques and the avenues of my country. The color fades so soon, and there is so much of blood to wash away, it is

pointless to put it on in the first place. . . .

Yes, henna this Eid would be unwise. So would bangles. My children are weeping. . . their Eid has been delayed indefinitely and their Chand Raat has been tainted forever!
















Its a Scarlett Afterglow
--Scarlett

Latrodectus ~ "The Black Widow"

I am not ashamed of who I am. I m still a mystery to me. Yes, I am guilty of murdering myself. So hang me for it! And you will die as the breath flies away from my body.



I am not a coward. For I say all I feel.
I am not daring. For I can’t care beyond me.
I am honest to the core. I don’t pretend to understand.
I am that sweet deceit. The con that I be to please you.
I am not what I seem to be. Yet there is nothing worth to hide.
I am sorry for all I put you through. But I am aggrieved of the misery I inflicted upon me!
I am but an enigma; the cyclone that consumes all till destruction.
I am the light that aglows, and the heat that incests the soul.

I can’t help but hurt the people who love me; and yes, there are numerous I have hurt. I can’t help but be myself. The treacherous venom that corrupts your mind till there is not a grain that is left untouched, unscathed by its essence.

And after that…

Ahh. . .  what is left after that. . .

The memory of a time that was, passionate bliss, the briefest orgasmic moment of triumph, the touch of glory till it pales in to the Scarlett Afterglow, Me . . .

--Scarlett

Baila

She was sobbing like a tormented soul on his shoulder. It was their third night together, consecutive. She could barely find her voice. And he was at an utter loss of words or actions. The sensual woman he had always loved and longed for was lying naked in his arms. In the muted glow of the night lights all he could feel of her body, were the salty tears, running from her clinched eyes to his cheeks. She was clinging onto him like a man grasping for the last life line in turbulent seas!

“Baila. . .”, he spoke as if to the air. He wasn’t so sure the name belonged to the lady. Baila, was an enigma in her own self, a woman as fiercely independent as Satan cut them out to be. A confident and witty female thriving in a man’s world. Men frequently fell in and out of love with her, the women adored her. She had a way with all around her. Seemed like her universe was at her beck and call, and a nod of her head could change the scenery around her. A loyal friend and confidant, Baila was always in control of people around her, a Czarina of her Own.

But, was this sobbing girl still Baila!? 

This night was supposed to be the landmark in Dara’s life. Despite his repeated confessions and expressions of his lasting love and affections, she would not trust him or believe in the heroine called love. He had achieved this semblance of intimacy after a grueling courtship of five years. He had felt, at last, inside her outer hard shell of the strong headed persona, and definitely touched a chord deep inside her. That’s why he was seeing her in this pitiful crying fit third night in a row. 

Dara had been seeing her fold and unfold in front of him. To him she was the mistress of mysteries, there was always something unknown and distant in her. One minute she was fun and frolicking all over, the next she would totally shun him out, like an utter stranger. At times like these, Dara would be left totally confounded in a mish mash of disjointed strings trying desperately to figure out what went wrong. 

This was their third night together, and it was turning out to be was no different than any other time. Dara had failed to consummate his love even on the third night.

He could not take it anymore. He had to confront her. He was ready to know why she could not accept him in the bed and why was she not opening up to his affections.

It was in the wee hours past midnight that she finally came around. In the darkness of the hour, lying in the embrace of his arms, Baila found the strength to overcome her shame. She was sure he cannot see her face; otherwise she would never have had the courage to face even her own self. She had to reach deep down into her soul and dive into the depths of her long gone childhood to find reasons for her adult behavior. 

Baila, the child, was a typically quiet and shy one, living in a typical Sub Continent joint family setting. The family was close knit and lived amicably in the big mansion of their forefathers. Baila’s room was filled with coloring books, paints, few dolls and fear. 

She had recently turned 11. Her eldest cousin, around ten years elder to her, was her best friend. The one who treated her like a little princess and indulged her every wish. That was why fear was the last thing to be felt when he entered one night late into her room and stood near her bed. She was sure he was up to one of his surprises and soon she will be the happy recipient of some sweet shared secret. May be a midnight ice cream scoop or chocolate in bed. She was smiling broadly up to him from the bed covers. 

He moved closer to her bed and sat beside her. His hand reached below the depths of the covers and reached her arm. He began caressing her arm and moved to her chest and stomach. Soon his hand was inside her night shirt, and Baila’s smile vanished and fear took its place. She was frozen with shock and shame. The places where she felt his hands were not meant to be touched. She tried to move, but felt his other arm on her hand. He was directing her hand towards his trousers. She was too petrified to struggle or react. 

The next morning she threw up the chocolates her cousin had lovingly presented her.

He didn’t come the next night, or the night after that. But when he did come, his appetite had only increased for more. He began to explore her deeper and deeper. He enforced her to explore his body too. He would take pleasure in caressing himself by the limp hand of a mere child. 

During day time Baila's immature mind tried to forget the night escapades. But come twilight, she would cling to her mother. She begged her mother for sleeping with her. Her mother would then ask her cousin to look after Baila, since she was his pet. 

Nobody could figure out why Baila started wetting her bed occasionally especially because she had never been a bed wetter even as a toddler. This nightmare only enhanced her shame further.

It went on repeatedly. Sometimes every night. Sometimes not so often.  Usually on the nights that he was kept away due to any reason, she would sleep restlessly. The dreams would be vivid with her fright and she would wake up with a pounding heart.

On her 12th birthday, the touching game was over. It took a whole new dimension. She became fully conscious of the openings in her body. It was a new kind of pain, one that could not be seen and could never be explained in words. This pain didn’t even leave a mark on her body, just some blood on her legs.

She suffered high fever after that and was under constant watch by the hired nurse. She had been violated and soiled. She felt insecure in the confines of her own bed room. The darkness of the night frightened her. The sole male figure in her life had scarred her body with his “love” and his body. She felt dirty. The child’s brain could not analyze the happenings but knew it was not “Right”.

The ordeal came to an end only after her cousin’s family moved abroad. Baila’s father soon shifted town.

Finally, she was totally out of the sights and sounds of her tormented days.

Baila was a grown up successful lady. People were mesmerized by her looks, her well proportioned curves, and her charismatic appeal. Her smile was her most powerful tool, and few ever realized that they were being consciously put under a well rehearsed spell. Baila’s life seemed full. Baila was an envy.

The dark side of her past remained inside her perpetually over shadowing her rationalization of relationships, intimacy and her capability to love dearly. The only remnant of the past was an occasional stammer and a loss of words when she was disturbed.

She never felt capable to love or to be loved. She felt the compelling need to be respected at all times. She had an instinctive feeling that people need her as a commodity and only come to her for their own needs. Her own needs were not meant to be catered; neither would she allow them to be. People mislabeled her inability to accept even genuine help as self respect. Whereas the reality was quite contrary. She felt she was expected to return favors by paying a high price for which she was not ready.

She had already paid her share of prices long ago.

She was determined to be successful and at the top of her career. That was the only thing she could ever trust to be lasting; and that too because she had made it herself.

She was a good friend, but her heart was fickle. Her mind in her self-defense had analyzed people to be commodities which were easily discarded no matter how dearly she cared for them. Baila was fickle, and that’s the end of it.

She had come to see sex as the dirtiest of deeds. She was deeply offended by the romantic gestures and loving caresses that Dara offered from time to time.

Dara was holding her in his arms her tears long dried up. Many of his questions were answered. And he was left with just one. Could his male ego bear a “tainted and tampered with body” all his life.

This question had suddenly become most important to him than mere love! 

--Scarlett

Scarlett Afterglow; Musings of a Heretic

The name Scarlett is usually associated with the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne famous work, The Scarlet Letter. It is the story of a woman seeking to be independent and self determinant; hence fallen in the eyes of society.

If one were to search the words “scarlet woman” in an online free dictionary, he would find the below explanations “New Testament a sinful woman described in Revelation 17, interpreted as a figure either of pagan Rome or of the Roman Catholic Church regarded as typifying vice overlaid with gaudy pageantry or any sexually promiscuous woman, especially a prostitute”.

So, Scarlett, the color of blood, paint of seduction, a signal of danger, is a woman who may be a prostitute, promiscuous (a Bitch for our chivalrous lot), and a woman who poses some dangers to the society. She deserves to wear a sign around her neck, intimating the perils associated with her acquaintance.

I have yet to come across its male counterpart implying the same.

There is another Scarlett to be found in the books. And by purpose or coincidence, she holds similar characteristics. A woman who opts to work instead of bearing children and kindling the house hold fire place.  A woman bold enough to display her brains alongside her beauty. And of course, she is no more a lady in the eyes of the old aristocratic circles very elaborately elucidated in the timeless Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

This is the genesis of my pen name, Scarlett. Because somehow, I am degenerate enough to empathize with the dignity and strength of both aforementioned Scarletts.

The Afterglow literally refers to the pleasurable feelings remaining after a gratifying or successful experience. Nevertheless the word is always misconstrued to the post- coital radiance. Despite the obvious dichotomy in its usage and enunciation; the afterglow in my writings is has been inspired by the light emitted after removal of a source of energy, especially the glow of an incandescent metal as it cools.

Too many Scarletts across a broad span of time have been sermonized, stamped upon, silenced, abused, and most of all judged and evaluated by the oh-ever-so-righteous.

It is the class of people who have taken it upon themselves to be the self appointed gods for the miscreant society which is bound to fall apart lest they impose their guard on it.

They have assumed the pedestals of morality and cloaked themselves in their own brand of prejudice. They scrutinize the not-so-conformists through their own tunneled views about appropriateness and decency. You will find them inspecting each and every one (regardless of the fact that it’s none of their business!) through their own spy glasses of norms and customs put in place to subdue the sinful.

They have demarcated the lines, and expect you to feel a certain way, and speak a specified set of words, move in society in a decided pattern and GOD FORBID if someone would be blasphemous enough to think! Oh, what a catastrophe would that be!

The afterglow of Scarlett’s observations and experiences of these every day atrocities deserves to be shaped into words.

Only because it’s getting too claustrophobic in my mind; there’s one too many heretics inside of me! And, I am be-ghairat (sic) enough not to be ashamed of it!



--Scarlett

Scarlett Afterglow - The Beginning

This blog is an afterglow of the musings of a mystic mind & heart. My thoughts and perceptions about life along with its dichotomies. And us, the elite social animal. It is a blatant expression of the sheer irony that man has tamed & captivated himself in his own, man made rules & bigotries. This blog is the voice of Scarlett, the real me, that resides inside of me, a non-conformist, who seeks to challenge the status quo, defy boundaries, and question the unquestionable.

--Scarlett