emotional – Penfluky

Emotions of the baboon and its pat on the back

She left. I am standing there at the railway station. I feel like running behind the train like in the films, but that would be dumb, I guess. Ah! I should just shut the fuck up and move already but I’m just looking at the moving train. What am I expecting? Are these my emotions speaking? I don’t know. Do I want her to cinematically bend form the door and wave her hand? How foolish of me. But I don’t know, it would have felt good.

I started walking out but everything felt new. I don’t even know what’s missing. But again, I guess I want to be sad because she went away. Or am I really sad? Am I sad because I know that I should be, or am I naturally sad? It’s too hard to distinguish what comes naturally and what you bring on to yourself through observations. But can one manipulate emotions easily? Why am I even thinking this nonsense!

I held to this bus and hopped on it as I am going home. And everything is peaceful and calm because the bus is not crowded. And I began diverting myself as I seemed to be drifting along the lines of overthinking. I’m a human; a body. A mere body. I shouldn’t be giving myself up to the emotions. Because I should be reasonable. What good gives emotions? Can emotions exist without reason? Look at how dumb I was at the station, I almost cried. Emotions are dumb.

Something is distracting me and bringing me back to this world, from the world of my thoughts. Because of the whistle of the bus conductor. He somehow feels like a circus master, the passengers should dance along with his whistle. Isn’t it odd to have a conductor who checks the conduct of passengers in a bus? Can’t people behave themselves? Does he have to whistle and tell people to not stand at doors and behave in a civic manner? What are we, apes?

As I thought about apes, the ape arrives bold and most beautiful. It jumped onboard from the road. The bus is so fast and it is humanly impossible to do such a stunt. He does look like an ape too. Like a baboon that finds a banana, he looks proud for pulling such a brainless stunt. “Are you mad?” shouts the conductor and I see the baboon smiling. “Kickk” he replied and it blew my mind. He did that just to feel the kick of it!

How brainless! How uncivilised! Is this how people who just blindly follow their emotions appear? Like apes? I’m an ape too, we all are apes, but we moved away from being ape. You can not be looking like a human and behave like a monkey at the same time. As I was thinking about how dumb this ape is, it was wiping its nose using its shirt. I am disgusted at the very sight of this unhygienic stunt-freak baboon.

He smiles and looks at the girl sitting opposite to him. The seats are empty, but he won’t sit. He stands at the door, and smiles at the girl straight. Because of course, he does whatever he feels like doing. And he doesn’t give a thought about it. What if I was the girl’s family? What if I kicked him in the nuts as a result of his behavior? He doesn’t think about that probability. Because again, he just does what he wishes; a slave to his emotions. And he doesn’t control them.

Why should we control them, as a matter of fact? I’m lost. Is he happier than me because I don’t see him being guilty for drooling over a girl publicly. He isn’t bothered about how the girl feels about him. This two minute creeping gives him pleasure. He is obviously a creep, but a creep is happier than me. Does that mean I’m sad? Am I sad? I’m not, I have everything with me. I control myself!

I decide how my mind emotes. And I don’t let my emotions ride me and that makes me superior to this sweating baboon drooling over random girls. He doesn’t even care if he finds her pretty or not. I guess by his looks and behavior that he looks at every girl in the same way. He just drools over the entire gender regardless of their age or preference or looks. The extremely cis-baboon that wants what it wants and takes what it takes.

How do people express their emotions openly like that? I would never be the baboon. Because I have good control on myself. And I have been there; I once was a person who just did what my heart advised. No fucks given to the consequences, a slave to my emotions. I wouldn’t lie, it was exciting to live that way. But that’s not civic! If my actions destroy or harm someone else’s harmony even involuntarily, that’s something I can’t accept.

I have to worry about the consequences. I just have to because we should be self-aware, or what’s the purpose of living together as a society? The vibrating phone distracts me again. It’s her! I’m excited once again, I picked the call up. I killed my excitement. “Everything’s fine?” I asked. I’m waiting for her reply, she is silent. “Are you ok?” she asks. I don’t know why she asked that. Those words started doing something in my mind.

Am I okay? Weird! “What do you mean?” I asked. “Are you crying?” she asked. My throat suddenly feels heavy, I am unable to speak because of what I heard. There is a tremble in my voice, I’m unable to find words to speak. I don’t know what’s happening to me! “I’ll call you when I get home” I said forcefully and cut the call. The block in my throat started growing intensely. Something is happening right in the middle of my chest. It feels sharp and uncontrollable. My vision is growing blurry; my eyes watery. Fuck!

Am I crying? The water kept growing and the excess drop started coming out of the eye as there was no place left in my eye to hold them. Yeah, I’m crying. I’m trying to close my lids. I closed them hard, shut them! I put my both hands over my eyes, pushed my eyes so hard trying to stop crying. Don’t cry! Please! Are you crying for the sake of it? Do you really miss her? Or are you crying because you have to? You fucking idiot! You complicated piece of junk!

Suddenly a hand fell on my head and I looked at the man with my semi-teary eyes. It was the baboon. He is patting my head and moves to sit beside me. I closed my eyes again with my arms. The baboon didn’t ask me anything. Maybe it’s just because I’m a girl, but either way his touch didn’t feel bad. He kept patting and he never spoke a word. And as a result of it I felt good and I cried!

Night Life, Expression Of Countless Tears.

When the time passes towards the night,
It is time to set everything straight.
It is time to log in and work,
Time to put on a fake smirk.

I have to speak to clients on the phone.
Treating their problems as my own.
It feels like the night is pulling me to oblivion,
Sometimes it all feels like an illusion.

I feel like a night owl that doesn’t know other sounds,
It feels like I’m lost in a gigantic abyss.
I can’t even cry about it as I need to speak,
My heart inside me always has that sad squeak.

I cannot keep these emotions no matter how much I try,
Sometimes in the night, I want to hug someone and cry.
Every night I work it makes me more depressed,
I have lost interest in things that make me excited.

Mentally, I’m dead and physically tired,
Trying to keep it together, emotionally I’m drained.

The Thread shop

The muddy smell, Rushy road, and stinky drains, it is the rainy season already! Dad and I opened the shutter of our thread shop. Nagaraj uncle didn’t come yet to open his butcher shop. Seems like it will take time for him. As soon as we open the shutter, the smell of thread touches our nose and we love it. Dad put all his bags of threads in place, some outside and some in. We have a tiny area to sit, but we still love it.

Dad takes his towel and waving it, shouts in the market, “Daaralandi, Daaralu, Anni rangula daaralu!” Whenever he sings that loudly, I giggle a lot. I put my tiny hands around his neck from behind and swing on his back. My dad gets his first customer, and I got to say he is an excellent salesman. The customer was pretty happy with my dad’s sensibility and humbleness while speaking. He gave us an order of 500 rupees which is big for us for one day. From the money he earned, he gave me some money to go and buy flowers. My dad loves it when I put flowers in my braid. He says the smell of jasmine makes him happy when I am playing around him.

“Arey Lalitha, where are you running to?” said a voice from behind. I turned to see Nagaraj uncle. “Uncle, you came! I want to eat mutton today. Can you make small pieces for me?” “Ofcourse, my darling! Go and get what you were going for and I will make you the mutton when you return,” Nagaraj uncle said.

I always love running into the flower market. The smell of different flowers in the wind and freshness of flowers reminds me of my mom. My mom was a flower seller too before she died in the floods a few years back. Wow, the view! The beautiful orange Chrysanthemum flowers with the touch of yellow in them mesmerize me. The pink and red roses, just like my mom’s charming smile. There, they are, my lilies and jasmines! Wonderfully weaved with thread. I think thread and flowers have an intense connection, they hold each other to make a pretty ornament to wear in our hair, just like my mom and dad.

“Rangamma aunty, give me flowers please!” I asked, and Rangamma aunty put some jasmine flowers into my hair. I ran back to my dad. “Na bangaru thalli! My dad kissed me on my cheek.” “Ok, bye, nanna! I am going to school,” I said. “Ok, bye!” My dad said. I started walking towards the school. My friend Sundar joined me on the way. He and I are best friends. Suddenly, it started raining. The smell of mud hits us. I love it. We both love rain a lot and started playing in the rain. Rainwater drenched our bags and dresses.

“Let’s run, we are late to school already,” Sundar said. We reached school and see that all children were sitting and we joined them. It’s been 2 hours since we came but it still raining outside. The water has already reached our rooms. Teachers were discussing among each other on if they should send us home. The rain is just increasing minute by minute. We see all school filled with water. The teachers have asked us all to fold our legs onto our benches as they see no way to go out for now. Rain won’t stop. We have no classes today, and we are happily playing on our benches. We wish it rains every day so that we don’t have any classes daily.

After massive rain for an hour, we are hungry, and the rainwater is all over the place. We wanted to go home now. We waited for another hour for the rain to stop. Thankfully, it is decreasing now. But we can’t go out that easily. We will have to wait until something can be done to let the water go out. The school is in up-town so the water was sent to downtowns so that the area can be cleared. After two more hours, the water was almost removed, and we were asked to go back home.

Sundar and I started running back home. The water level started increasing as we moved to downtown. We didn’t know what to do. We were already half-drowned in water. Then some people were going on the boat, and they took us into their boat. When we asked to take us to the Market yard where his father Nagaraj and my father had their shops, they told us that the area is completely drowned. It is highly risky in this rain to go out there. We started panicking and crying. One woman in the boat tried to console us and asked if she can take us with her. We couldn’t help but to go with her. The boat fled to somewhere safe away from my village.

For three days, the rain kept toggling and now finally ended. We stayed in a small hut where the water reach was less. The people with whom we fled took care of us. Now, Sundar and I are missing our families hugely and want to meet them. We asked others to help us reach home, and they asked us to stay calm until the water flow decreases. After two days yet again, the water flow reduced to half. So, we were taken in the boat to the village.

We see nothing but destroyed homes, fallen vehicles, dead bodies, fallen trees right from entering the village. Slowly, we moved towards the market yard. My heart is pounding fast, and I am very terrified. Reaching the market yard, the whole area was stinking, and all I could see was mayhem. Everything was utterly drowned, and water was stuck with nowhere to go. People around were saying that no one actually who worked there is alive anymore. Tears started rolling out my eyes.

I see a board hanging at the top of a wall, “Lalitha Thread Shop” it read. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. Our shop was unidentifiable. The complete market yard was gone. Sundar and I didn’t see this coming. Soon then, another boat came flowing. A woman shouted from that boat, “Lalitha, Sundar, you guys are safe? Thank god!” It was Rangamma aunty. She said that our fathers and others of the market yard in trail to save their shops, lost their lives and she got lucky, someone saved her.

After 50 years today, it is raining again, and my thread shop is at threat of drowning. My child is at school. Sundar went to pick him up from school. But this rain won’t stop at all. I will try to live and save our shop from drowning for my child. “Yes, we all shall try to save our shops,” a neighbour shop owner said.