Fingers press ivory, soft at first,
whispers of something too big for words.
The melody sways between sorrow and longing,
between joy and the things I can’t explain—
but no one ever asks—
it’s just a song, just the keys, just a hobby.

The low notes ground me, steady and sure,
a place to rest when the world is too loud.
The high notes lift me, weightless and free,
each chord a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

They hear music, not meaning.
They hum along, never knowing
that every note is a reason, a refuge,
that the crescendo is my pulse, my purpose,
rising and falling like a heartbeat.

And when the last note lingers,
hanging in the quiet like a final exhale,
I close the lid,
not because I am finished,
but because I know—
the music will always be waiting.

Garden flowers are
colorful needless to say
with care some are grown
___

Her job always has had an inflated demand
and ironically surplus production too.

The men’s job, I wonder if
it is their hobby or job.
So, the men’s job has demand amongst themselves
and production too.

Hers is a common and a well-reputed career,
until it is achieved.

The men or at least a man
might choose not to opt
for this career.

She, however, has no choice, as always.

So, she looks at her ancestors,
Her great grandmother who was a wife.
Her grandmother who was a wife.
Her mother who was a wife.
Now, she too has chosen this job.

There is no other choice, of course.

This job has not been her job
since history began.
This job has been her job
since her-story began.

Her job does not require
travelling nations and crossing borders.

Her job requires
staying.
Confined, caged, in-home.

That’s home for him,
not home for her.

That’s her experimental laboratory,
She conducts experiments.
That’s her cricket field,
She plays.
That’s her hospital,
She cures and treats.
That’s her restaurant,
She cooks.
That’s her engineering workshop,
She creates and invents.
That’s her writing room,
She writes.

And that’s her prison too.

And in this prison,
she is her own jailer.

Her job requires only
a few tasks to be taken care of.
Tasks assigned to her sound easy and self-fulfilling.
But she must do them dutifully.
For she, is a wife now.

Nothing more,
Nothing less,
a wife.

But her husband,
is not just a husband.
He is a man.
The man.
A child.
An experimenter,
A cricketer,
A doctor,
A chef,
An engineer,
A writer,

A politician and A king.

And his kingdom,
belongs only to him.

In this highly reputed job,
this only job that she is supposed to have,
and stay loyal to,
with her body and soul,
she is expected; expected of a lot
but never supposed to expect from
and express to.

So, she is expected to not wish.
Because wish leads to worry or somehow even vanity.
Wish kills her work
and that is her tagged happiness.

Thus, she must work,
so, she is called happy.

She must be a wife,
so, she has something worth living.

Her job is the one that requires
her to reach nirvana,
before she starts living.

It is not forced upon her
to choose this job.
It is bought to her
in a jewellery box,
as a necklace,
that she continues to wear
even after it hides the tattoo of her personality,
carved on her neck;
chokes her every time she tries to speak
and eats her words before she births them.

She still, however, continues to wear this necklace
because she has been conditioned
“Beauty is pain, Pain has beauty.”

Songs like “beloved wife” and “my wife”,
make her love her job, but hate herself.
So, she listens to them over and over again.

She avoids reading the newspaper or watching the news
because she knows that if she reads them,
no husband, not even her own,
would be able to look at her in the eye.
And she will not be able to look at them without crying (or killing).

In her job, a resignation letter is the same
as being expelled.
So, it is made sure
that if she takes such a step,
she is not capable of moving anymore.

But out of all these, what makes her job the funniest
is the irony within.
Like she has freedom
but should not be free for her freedom.
Like she is protected but from others
in danger of her own self.
Like she has all the happiness
but she shouldn’t smile too much or make any noise when she laughs.
Like she is a wife
but she is not loved and has done nothing to deserve that love.

What was her mistake that she should not be loved, you ask.
Well, nothing and perhaps everything.

Sometimes, when she is tired and exhausted of her job,
and you go ahead to ask her
“what is more difficult, to be a wife or to be a mother”
She would look at you, for not more than 10 seconds,
and say,
“to be a woman”.

If there is something, she needs to be wary of,
It is people and words.
Because there are certain words,
that if used for her,
would disrobe her in a public square,
where her husband
would be a witness
or perhaps a member of the disrobers.

So, all she should be wanting
to be called
is a word or a name,
to get disrobed by just him
or disrobe herself only for him.
There is much scope in that.

In her job,
she is expected not to wish.
But she does.
She wishes too much sometimes
and on somedays,
just one thing.

She wishes not to be his wife
or ‘a wife’ at all.

But she does nothing more than to wish.
She cannot do anything more.
Because her job always has had an inflated demand
and ironically surplus production too.