(......contd)

Even when he was not drunk he was too short, too impatient with me. I remember him helping me with some mathematics sums and he could not stop shouting at me for the slightest delay. For the entire time I did not focus on what I was doing. I just was bracing for when he might lurch forward and hit me. I never took my homework to him again. Because he was either at work during the day or drunk at night I rarely had any conversation with him. Most of my talks to him were one word like yes or no.

Once when I was about twelve he dragged me from the playground in front of our house where I was playing with my friends. Once inside he lurched at me. With all my might I pushed him back and he fell on the floor. That night I ran away from home. As I rode the bus to my unclesý I sat at the window seat looking out at the darkening night and worried if he would pour his wrath on Mother. When I returned after three days she made me promise never to do it again. You do not run away from problems, she said.

When Mother was in a hospital in Bombay Sir was there. Some of my uncles were also there helping out. They said that he took good care of her during her illness. I never saw that. When she died I was fourteen and for a month or so he remained sober. He came home in time, cooked food and did the chores. If the talk of his good care had softened me a bit, I never resented him more than during that month. Firstly, because I blamed him for her death and more importantly what he did upon her illness and death, he never did during her life.

Growing up without Mother was lonely. When I went to my friends houses I saw their mothers and a strange jolt of emptiness came upon me. I could not talk about her or all these things to anybody. Never. I did not even say the word ýmotherý or think about her- that was too painfulýI had missed out on her friendship, guidance and love. I read about oysý mamu in his memory lane and it just makes me feelýI called her ýmamuý too. Thanks for sharing oysýit would have been exactly the way you described. I finally saw her in a dream for the first time last year. Actually that was a hallucination.

After about a month Sir went back to drunkenness. There was no question he was profoundly sorrowful- one only realizes the worth of a friend when she is lost forever. He was a wreck more than ever. I had grown so bitter that every time he said a word I would start a fight with him. He started sleeping with a khukuri under his pillow and he turned Motherýs picture face down on the bed-stand. He blabbered about how her memories were haunting him. There was an old lady in our neighborhood whom we all called Grandma ý she was also a far-off relative. One day he went to her dead-drunk and told her that Mother was calling him and he would soon leave. And he did in two months, exactly three months after Motherýs death. As I lit the funeral pyre on the banks of Bagmati I could see his bearded face eerily calm as he lay on the firewood platform. Tradition demanded numerous rituals but I donýt remember any details other than the sense of immense freedom I felt when the fire finally cracked his skull. People say ýforget and forgiveý and I am not a hateful person but I will just be happy with forgetting.

-------
dyam...mG.

oh damn.....if all that was true....i so feel for u deeply mG....u written in such a way that i felt some pain of wat u had to go through...it touched me to the core, n well, we appreciate for bein so brave n tellin us all here of ur terrible experiences..helps some people realise how lucky they are n appreciate their stable backgrounds..n helps others to realise that they are not alone in this world goin through bad experiences..

..what we share of ourselves helps us to move on from the past n helps release our inner demons..

Thank u either way mG, true or not.. :ox

Domi

Appreciate the fact that you posted your memory...

Forget and forgive.....

i feel so sorry that you went through a lot of pain and abuse. my heart cried as i was reading your story. i felt very fortunate to a have very loving and caring parents.

i am sure you will meet someone one day and heal your pain and sorrow. time will slowly cure and erase your dreadful memories , but you have learn to forgive . best of luck buddy.

preeti

sorry for the typo
i meant who will heal and ......

and but you will have to .......

MG is it a true story??????????????? Reply garnus hai!!!

MG
Very good way of writing. I couldn't stop my tears rolling down reading it. I just say you r very brave and bold if it's a nonfiction. I know one thing for sure YOU WILL SUCCEED IN LIFE NO MATTER WHAT. I'm a great fan of your writing in which you are blessed indeed. Keep writing

MG?.your narration forced me to go back to a very unpleasant memory lane of my own; a place buried within me. Each experience is different therefore I dare not say that I grew up in the same situation. It was similar though, the only difference would be support of my older siblings. The part where you expressed crying quietly and softly as something you learnt from your mother touched me the most. My mother has passed on some such traits I live with each day. I hope you are just a good fiction writer and you did not have to go through it. But hey, that which does not kill you, make you strong, right???

Damn man that was really touchy. Is that really happened to you?

Man, brought back my own meomories about my struggle.

Take Care Bro. Its a cycle. Time will bring happiness and sadness. Instead of looking back, try to make and future better.

Peace Out

I cant believe I have so many typos. Anyway take care.

Very touchy. wow. wow.
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"Motherhood is priced Of God, at price no man may dare To lessen or misunderstand"

Simply great! touched my soul...

How strange is it to note that it has already been more than a year since I poured my demons on this piece of writing! Incredible still to realize that it had been locked inside me, always in forms of one nightmare or another, for ten years before that fateful day last July. I say fateful not providential; I do not believe in providence. But I remember on that day I woke up with an instinctual, almost animalistic, urgency and furiously wrote "Mother & Memory." In one sitting... When I had finished three hours later I was trembling for in those three short hours I was forced to relive the tragedy of my life, and so many lives around me, in one concentrated dose. The three hours was one grim dash through the extended misery of a lifetime.

I was trembling too because I had finally cut a corner and on seeing it on paper and posted on Sajha for everyone to see I knew the ordeal was finally behind me. In the last year since then I have grown more than the first twenty-three years of my life. It is inaccurate to say that the memory is entirely behind me; life may be lived in chapters but our consciousness is an amalgam of all that we have been through. But I am less bitter now; my past, though equally troublesome at times, is less demanding. The wound of arbitrary violence, uncertainty and doubt on my psyche is finally healing. It is a curious paradox of psychological wound that unlike physical ones, exposure heals it swifter. The comments on Sajha from the compassionate readers were my bandages then. Many asked if it was actually fiction. But as they say, fact is stranger than fiction. The poking and punching of the memory became therapeutic. May be that was the unconscious motive of my writing and posting it on Sajha. I did not want easy sympathy but an acknowledgment of a tragedy that was beyond my control. And for a society where little is shared such personal communication generated affirmations, recognitions and some very painful identifications of similar violence.

I remember that when I shared Mother & Memory a friend wrote back quoting someone, "It is not what is done to us, but what we do that defines us." Although I will always carry a reminder of what was done to me, I refuse to be defined by that. My life's worth will be judged only by what I do.

---
mG.

MG;
It was during my trip to KTM that I read your piece. I had just visited my father and was visiting my mother in KTM. I recall "feeling" your pain, not through my experiences but through your raw emotions. There have been similiar instances when I have penned down episodes in my life which have left me, shaking, bereft, empty. The void was what I longed for because it meant I had emptied my agonies on to a blank sheet of paper to be quietly filed away. Yet, within emotional reach.

Thanks again.

My positive energies with you always!

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"It is not what is done to us, but what we do that defines us." Although I will always carry a reminder of what was done to me, I refuse to be defined by that. My life's worth will be judged only by what I do.

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*applause*

A very beautiful way of expressing yourself. I could feel the magic of your words and travelled with you through time and witnessed everything. My heart cried out for the boy, and it was as if your pain was my pain. Applauds to you!!
I was so touched that I could feel the tears stinging my eyes (but as I am work could not really cry!). Words have a beautiful way of expressing what we feel and yor words were so perfect that I have no words that could do justice to your writing. Keep writing, do not let a talent go to waste. :)

mg, thank you for sharing this story with so many people. it takes a lot of courage to open up and allow yourself to be vulnerable. i wasn't terribly familiar with sajha when you originally posted this last summer, so i am grateful to saajan for bringing it back. and it is quite clear to see how much you have grown and matured, both as an individual and as a writer, simply by reading your posting from yesterday. i don't write on sajha as often as i used to, but i still visit quite regularly and i am always wondering where your poems are....?! many of your poems that i have been fortunate enough to read have really moved me and i thank you for that! ajhai pani lekhnus hai!

Wonderful peice MG.
Deeply touched.

Welcome back!

B.

A very close friend of mine went thru similar circumstances, never-mind his was different in essence. It's been many years since we lost touch, your courageous act have yet again forced me to sit and just reminisces the moments; yet again.

When someone dares to bare his heart out, slit it open and face it straight up albeit the colossal suppressed emotions, from pain to desires to suffering; I simply choose to keep nod and let it sink.

It gives me a bitter sweet pleasure to see you rise above the chaos and be the man that you are MG. Bravo.

Hope you would be as good a survivor as you have proved to be until now. My good wishes mate.

Indisguise.

Dear mindGames:

I just can't help myself to comment-

one word for your penmanship "AWESOME."
And few words for your life experience- "IT IS SO SIMPLE TO BE HAPPY-BUT IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO BE SIMPLE....!!!"

RSVP

very touchy!!