Oh to be alive

  Browsing through the pages of history, it seemed like we had finally arrived. But, every single day from the slumber of the patriarchal warp , a disaster is espied. Through the centuries, everything against women connived.   From feticide to infanticide, to  ‘on a whim being just cast aside’. At every step she had to make her presence felt or prove her might and was always victim of remarks, often snide. She tried to fly, she tried to soar, across the firmament or the vast blue sea-shore; she managed too, only to be told:  “you are not good enough,  you know!” She struggled, she persevered, she trounced another score. She made a niche, a place in His tory but there’s rarely an encore. Sometimes she merged into the background accepting her plight. The tide turned and from  victim to perpetrator with  complete ease,  some amongst her creed did slide. They looked down upon the one who had some spunk, ...

It was a hot and humid day. He had slogged since early morning and looked forward to the much-needed break around noon  with the same degree of enthusiasm every day.  Wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, as his palms were heavily callused, he leaned against the hillock and sighed. This was a dicey job, as a part of the hill was being culled a little, to create an artificial overhang: a kind of cliff projecting out to accommodate a restaurant below it. This had been a routine for the past one year, ever since he had taken on the job of a labourer at an upcoming tourist complex site on an island. His days of dressing for work seemed to be embedded in a long-lost past. A past he had let go of: or had he? His fellow workers were not aware that he was an educated, highly placed engineer and that  till about six years ago he was in a plum job; it was indeed hard to guess as he did the same amount of work as anyone else around there, ate the same frug...