Day 284: Escape

Remember this post? Well round two of said assignment saw me perched here this past weekend. 

It was just what I needed considering the horrific news that began Thursday and just didn’t stop all weekend. I usually tune out of social media for a large part of the weekends but I got completely wired with the local news of a murder that hit too close home for me. And then there was the leaked Trump video that gave me such a instant physical reaction. I had to immediately shut it down and walk away and breathe heavily so the rage subsided. But only long enough till the urge to check updates hit again. And so I spent an inordinate amount of time online, getting increasingly devastated by the news, but worse, the reactions of people around me. In their gleeful rehashing if the sordid details of someones untimely death, the gross and insensitive conclusions that are drawn, the inevitable judgement that follows when it’s the story of a bold independent woman, and the inescapable instances of a few that lack the sheer brains to know that rape is not something to joke about. 

Of late, I’ve been consumed with thoughts of what it means to survive as a woman in a world hell bent on snuffing us out physically emotionally and in every way other possible. I’m growing tired of the “better safe than sorry” story that I find myself resorting to only too often. This past weekend has only made those feelings bubble over. And so I wrote them out. It’s the only way I know how to restore peace in my head anymore. 

I’ve gotten a bad rap for wanting to escape the harshness of reality, many times over. Someone wrote a whole op ed criticising this very urge of mine, to”escape”, that brought me to Goa. I’ve begun to shy away from the word a bit, embarrassed and hurt by the criticism. But this past weekend I realised that to escape is to find temporarily respite from the madness. It is to retreat into a personal safe space, whether physically or mentally. And it’s sometimes al we have got when the shrill opinions and  criticism come at you, and your kind.

In a world so utterly undeserving of women, I am reclaiming my escape because sometimes it’s all we, and our collective allies, have got. 

I said it then and I will say it again. I’m glad for so many opportunities to escape. This weekend, I needed it more than I have in a while. 


6 thoughts on “Day 284: Escape

  1. Pingback: Day 284: September

  2. Pingback: What coming home feels like: Revisiting old haunts II – hAAthi Time

  3. Pingback: Day 307: October | hAAthi Time

  4. Pingback: 292: Love, loss and what we ate | hAAthi Time

  5. I almost wanted to say lucky you when I saw the picture but then I read your post and I felt that knot in my stomach. Believe me, every day I think whether this is the world I want to live in and is this the world I am leaving behind for my daughter. You are right when you say people are insensitive and I don’t know what went wrong and where. We seemed to be a generation that had it all right till some time ago. How did it all go so horribly wrong? The more we progress, I feel the more we step into regression. But let me not leave here on a morose note. I hope for a better tomorrow and I think it will start when women stand up for and not against women. Hang in there.


Pour your thoughts over mine


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s
