Beginning

I am Lekha. Just Lekha. I live in Kerala, God's own country.
I got a squint eye when I was 10, though looking at me now, you can't tell.
It happened like this-
My father made a kite- he was an expert kite maker too, among various other things. It was a festival season, and us kids excitedly crowded round father who finished the dainty kite and was searching for a string to tie it. I ran inside to my mother's sewing machine, pulled out a wad of thread and ran back to the terrace. I ran straight to my father's knee. Unfortunately, he was pulling back his knee from a knot in the kite and the knee jammed against my left eye with a force which was so characteristic of me. I am accident prone. My father, an ex- military man with immense physical strength, looked at me, holding a bleeding, protruded eye, dropped the kite, put me in its place and ran to the nearest ophthalmologist. It didn't hurt much when I impaled myself into my father's elbow, but it hurt like hell when the old doctor forcefully removed my arm from the eye, tut-tutted and inserted the hanging eye ball to its socket with a slap of his gloved hand. Then he put some cotton over it, tied it up and said- "no school for a week", as if it was the greatest anesthesia I needed!
Back at home and in school, I gloated for sometime with my bandaged and later, red eye, telling all and sundry about how I got it. For a long time, my left eye remained slightly smaller than my right unharmed eye. Seeing the then popular actress Zarina Wahab in Chit-chor, a famous Hindi movie, I got a big relief- she also had a similar squint, which was considered beautiful!
I don't know if it was because of this small accident or if it is in my nature, I view things happening around me with a squint eye, rather squint eyes and often come to a different point of view than others.
For instance, I do not think that Kerala is God's own country. It originated as a tourism jargon and the phrase is supposed to attract tourists like flies to a ripe mango. The land per se is beautiful- water, greenery, hills et al. People are good looking, women have sharp features, slim bodies and beautiful hair. Men of Kerala are handsomer than men anywhere else. But people generally dislike each other. They are lazy in their home land, but work hard in other states. It is a gossipy state, women are considered as either sex objects or slaves, natural resources are exploited and destroyed, do not take care of their culture and heritage, throw dirt around, treat the public systems like roads, bus and railway tations, schools, colleges and offices like their own toilet and are inflicted by germs like jealousy, hatred, intolerance and carelessness.
OK, OK, please don't consider me as unpatriotic. I am not. I love my country, India. I respect and worship Gandhiji, I am proud of being an Indian and a Keralite. That is why I continue to remain here, in Kerala though I had ample opportunities to live anywhere else. I will not leave this place too, because, despite all its ills, it is still my home.
My squint eyes tell me that Parasuraman, the sixth incarnation or Avataar of Lord Vishnu, should not have created this land. It should have been created by any one else.
Legend is that Parasuraman hated Kshatriyas (Kings and warriors) and butchered them all. He also killed his own mother as per the dictates of his father. Tired from the butchery, he wanted to rest some where, found he was on the verge of the sea, threw his axe into the sea and lo- from the waters, rose a long strip of land with plenty of coconut palms. How can a land created by a killer, that too, a killer of hs own mother be in any better shape? Here, men do not see the mother in a woman- mothers exist for a limited function only- women are wives, objects of enjoyment, cleaners and cooks. Also targets of their violent outbursts!
OK, OK, please don't think that I am a liberated woman who hates all men. No, I am not. The two persons I love most dearly are men. I also adore another man- he doesn't know it yet. I only outlined the general trend.
Look at what is happening in Kerala now. We exist because of the money flowing here from foreign countries from Mallus working abroad. Every home will be having at leasy one member on an average, working abroad. So, here, prices are 5 to 8 times higher than the adjacent states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. We don't bother. Here, there is no system of bargaining. The seller's price, however atrocious, stays. Because, we Mallus think it is a shame to bargain. After all, the poor sellers too need money. The idea is to share the State cake equally among all. Isn't this a Communist state with principles of Marx and Lenin?
My squint eyes kept telling me a lot of things from the beginning, even before I was 10. My mother told me that I shouldn't be loud, should be shy, shouldn't climb trees and walls and should go straight home from school. I resisted and did everything I wanted inspite of the pinches and slaps she lavished up on me. I was proud of the green bruises on my arms which were my permanent companions in child hood. I loved dressing up like a boy- wore pants and shirts and always donned male roles in school dances and dramas much to the chagrain of my mother. My father cared less. My siblings encouraged me and my squint eyes told me that my mother was wrong. As a big girl now- I know that squint eyes were right!
I'll tell you more about the precious squint eyes later- I love you all.
Squint eye saying of the day- A loving person lives in a loving world!