The day a bird followed me home part 10

Then things started to change. 

As one day, coming back from the shops, carrying a few heavy bags of groceries, their plastic cutting into me frozen fingers. It was winter, and was about to snow, and I was walking home, when someone driving past, maybe coming from the grocery store, stopped, and offered to drop me near my house, and for reason, I had accepted to get in, and took the lift with this stranger. 

She had later told me, that I should never accept a lift with a stranger, though, in this case, she turned out to be a kind person, and then she also become a friend, and at her insistence, I had joined the local library, which ran classes, gave away free books, and lessons in English, in life skills. It all had started to help me pass time, and occupy my mind.  

I also learned a lot, and I discovered that I enjoyed reading. Without knowing, I had actually been reading for the past one and half years, the subtitles on the tv movies, and had already improved my language a lot.

But now, I started to read properly, devouring book after book, so much so, that one of the librarians had suggested I apply for a scholarship to go to university, and I finally did, and got it!

My husband didn't mind, as long as I looked after the house, so I had ended up doing what I had never imagined I would be able to, something, that was not even my dream, going to do a masters at a university, as I had always thought, after my graduation, I will just be a wife, looking after my husband, and my family, like my mother had taught me, was my lot. 

But that is not what happened, that I had thought, but what I had never imagined, and I started a masters degree, and that too, in English, and doing really well, I was asked to do a research degree, and I decided to do that too, and in all that, the phone call that had come a few months ago, from India, I had forgotten.  

Then, one day, coming out of my supervisor's room, I heard my name, a familiar voice, calling me, and even before I turned, I knew, who it was, it was him. 


Comments

  1. Jackie23 September 2021 at 15:32

    I know these pieces are just the first drafts but think the time sequesnce here doesn't quite work - perhaps you have cut the story in the wrong place. In No 9 you moved us forward to Australia where you were a writer or publisher and then looked back to reflect on the story. Then you start this one with the end of the reflection. I feel it needs to stay connected to No 9. Of course if it were published all in one piece it might work better. Only my humble, non professional opinion!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Being a woman

  Well, being a woman is mostly about, resistance, persistence, and existence.   This idea of being a woman, where did I get it from?   Could this be the legacy of those strong women in my life who were a bit arrogant, but generous, capable, and interesting women!   They showed me that   There is always a price for being meek, being subdued and being taken care of, as you are taken lightly, and sort of despised!   Then there is a price that you pay for being strong and independent, and yes, for  being bold and persistent, as you are taken seriously, and sort of respected!  They taught me  that  to love someone, you do not need to stop respecting yourself I learnt from them that  In this life, you make your own place, and choose your own role, and  you make the choice to take the easy or the hard way! As there will certainly be alternatives,  but no matter what you decide, there is no guarantee you will not be challenged!  So, you need to do, what you need to do! And
Read more

Contentment

  We, who are all running after contentment, do we even know what contentment actually means? Does it mean being content, satisfied, and happy, with what we have, where we are, who we are with today?  Then I'd say that we are running after a butterfly, a transient, fleeting feeling, something that we would never achieve for a longer period. As where we are happy today, with whom, and with what we have, that keeps changing. We want something today, and really want it, and we think, that is what would make us content, and yes, it does feel like we are content, after we get what we want, for a little while. But then the same thing which made us content, is not enough. It doesn't satisfy us anymore. WE want something else, something more.  So, what if being content meant, just being content, like our nature to be satisfied with whatever we have, a value that keeps us happy always with ourselves, that would be the intrinsic, an internal  contentment. Just like Milton's Happiness
Read more

The day a bird followed me home part 5

And the sadness of the day when I had met the ibis. What was that?  I was thinking.  And suddenly I realised that I had actually not thought about many such things in a while.  Being happy, sad, or afraid. No, I had been just not thinking.  Blocking off a lot, good and not that good memories.  I know, life gets so busy and is so full that there is hardly any time to indulge in reflecting about life, but people, I am sure do realise what is happening,  or what had happened in their lives.  But I, yes, I used to too. But for a while, I hadn't.    I started to reflect and remember the things, I had turned away from.  Things too hard to accept, think of and too hard to face.  So what do you do with such things?  Like woollens in summer you put them away.  But the thing about dirty woollens is they get fungus or silver fish, so you are supposed to clean them, wash them, air them, dry in the sun and then pack them for the summer, with  Phenyl  tablets, or dried leaves of neem, the bitter
Read more