General

All around me are reminders of the past.

The children, in particular, are ever present as a memory of a past I’d rather forget especially the bits I feel ashamed about.

I’ve worked to be a good father, to be there for them, to help them whenever I could but mostly I learned to listen without judgement recognising them as individuals and people in themselves.

The adult relationships I have now I treasure.

I know it’s not easy for some parents to stop being a parent and accept their children for the adults they have become. I learned that allowing them to make mistakes and learn from them was a good thing as much as it hurts to see it happening. But the rewards have been multiple. We can sit and hold a conversation, laugh together, cry together, feel free to exchange ideas which are more often than not contrary…

she played with fire
burned her hands, you bet she did
she now plays it safe
thinks she can be saved, stupid
old fire still burns within

In response toReena’s Exploration Challenge #Week 20

This was me before I was born, a mold and its transparent material. I was viscous with the ability to change my scent, I still hold that ability but only with the help of external influences. I grew in my mother’s womb in this form but I have the potential, informed by my own experiences and countless others that aren’t immediately comprehensible to me, to be more.

As I re-member the many memories materializing with every trigger hitherto strange and unknown to me, I dive deeper into a wonderful existence, an amalgam of both imagined and real – since the imagined wouldn’t be available to me unless it had been real at some time.

This tantalizing game of hide-and-go-seek drives my need to study words – since they hold footprints from several centuries of civilizations. I prefer to view myself as this adventurer of mind – always an empty…

one
day
maybe
I’ll wake up
and realize that
it was just a dream and move on

In response toReena’s Exploration Challenge #Week 19

My life is trial and error
Even though sometimes it’s a blur
And I don’t have all the answer
Even I search them in acre
I have to survive come what may
I play, pray, avoid to be prey

The role of a wife and mother
A daughter, sister or actor
All these roles I take with ardour
Even when I don’t have armour
Not perfect but I do my best
I am grateful for I’m blessed

No grief nor regret to move on
Even though my youth is all gone
I am pleased to have found my khan
All heartaches and mistakes bygone
A sense of contentment for me
Welcome and thankful that’s the key*

(c) ladyleemanila 2017

* LaCharta

For: Reena’s Exploration Challenge #Week 18

Hosted at https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/reenas-exploration-challenge-week-18/

NO LOOKING BACK

By Neel Anil Panicker

I am Pooja. Pooja Sethi in an earlier avatar, and Pooja Matrani in an avatar before that. This is my story. The story of my life. The story of the different Poojas that I was and the slow but steady metamorphosis into the Pooja that I am today.

I began life some forty years back as Pooja Matrani. I was the second of three children. My father was a government servant employed with the Ministry of Urban Development Affairs.

We lived here, in the heart of Delhi, at RK Puram, in a comfy three room government accommodation. My parents, both Sindhis had migrated from undivided Punjab at the time of Partition.  My mother was a Matriculate, which in her time, was a big thing, considering that education was something that was a prized commodity, something which was considered of value only…