2021-8-2

Finally sitting my ass down in a cafe, by myself! Dropped both kids off in the barn. It's not like I haven't got the chance to be alone the whole summer. I did, at the beginning of the summer, some morning hours after dropping Aditi at preschool while Shiva was left at home doing homework with papa. It's just that from the end of June till now, never really got those solitary hours. These hours keep me sane.

When school starts, which is coming very soon, I would get more hours to myself. Thank god schools will get back to normal from the new semester. Not entirely gods' and goddesses' credit I mean, also thank the advancement of science and modern medicine. And after Aditi also starts grade 1, which is in 2 years, 8 to 3 every day then! Imagine how much time I will have! Hopefully, by then the world still exists, freedom and justice still haven't been taken down by dictator attempts, and I am still restless and itchy like now, keep coming up with new ideas that never have the time to be carried through. 

I guess at the end of the day, I do need my dear diary space, especially now that my self-designated responsibility on "educating" the Chinese internet had come to a sudden end. Now my name and my story, which has nothing to do with my reality by the way, have been stolen and fabricated to be propaganda materials. Why do you think my name is not 404ed in there? It has become a perfect brainwashing piece of "information" on India and highly educated fallen women. I just can't stop myself from feeling funny about it. Imagine years later, I could also claim that I had contributed to the process of brainwashing, my name had been written into the propaganda textbooks named "India: An Introduction" and "The History of Fallen Chinese Women in the 2020s".

At least by now, I have learned to overcome the fear. Be it talking to the camera for random videos or tapping on the keyboard for rumbling lines. Or maybe it's because of all that midnight drive by myself, gazing out and blank in. People like us, who had to drag themselves away from comfort and familiarity, in seeking of a teeny ray of light and a weeny bit of warmth, mature earlier. I guess my worst fear was still woken up in an odd place with strange-looking people who expressing themselves peculiarly, and I just couldn't understand a thing! But somehow I got to put myself together, stop the screaming in my head, I got to try to comprehend, try to imitate, their way of living, even try to open my mouth to make those bizarre noises, only to be laughed at and dismissed. But considering how fucked up the place we came from, considering all that rape and beating, fuck it, I will suck it up no matter what. At least nobody is smothering me with a pillow anymore, no matter how funny their faces are.

But they seem to enjoy it. Sometimes I really don't know what to say, and almost needed to set up calendar reminders of making a call. Those photos with uniform t-shirts and caps, 50, 100, 500 completely same t-shirts and caps, posing in the exact same style, standing in perfect lines. It's too red, a whole screen of redness, it's too organized, like perfect-sized bricks, it suffocates me. But I will smile and praise how amazing those photos are. It's my duty. I have never lived in that nightmare, but I read about it, I saw people talking about it, with terror and fright in their eyes. Maybe when you are really in there, all you are made to feel is - happy, numbing happiness. I have to get them out of there. 

Imagine if I didn't get out, imagine today I'm also a tiny piece of red in those photos. I would be as happy as them, having a strong sense of purpose, serving up for something and someone far greater, with that little red book waving in hand. Instead of drifting around with thousands of thoughts and feelings entangled and unanswered, whipping myself so hard just to find some purpose. 

I would be more content, won't I?