Today is just one of those days. A day of ‘grief’.  For all that did not work out. For all that was lost. From all that I had to walk away from.  There is a sense of ‘tiredness’ from facing the consequences of ‘taking a stand’ all the time.  Its like winning and losing. Its as if we have won and lost at the same time. What has been lost to win has been huge. In the process of surviving, we have died. There is this huge need to cry, that is if tears come.

This is also perhaps a day of ‘amends’. For my freind and batchmate ‘Mamta Anand’ who was killed by a man who claimed to love her. She had come to do M.Tech and I was in the final year of my B.tech.  We became friends and she shared with me that she needed to move away from her boyfriend as he was very controlling and abusive.  Once after spending a weekend with him, she came back early morning, scared to death. She shared that he had pointed a revolver to her head and threatened that if she did not obey him and stay with him, he would kill her. I took it very lightly. I believed that ‘love’ meant not hurting the one you loved. I was wrong. Then and many times again.He did kill her. By offering  ‘laddus’ laced with arsenic on the occasion of ‘diwali’. The irony was that he had taken permission from his parents to meet her. He was the son of a sitting MP with a lot of political clout. Mamta’s father believed in ‘Gandhivaad’ and ‘non-violence’. He asked Mamta to be gentle with him even if she wanted to leave him and to give him time to get over her. That was a the biggest mistake he made. He apologized to his daughter but only after her death. And I could not even do that as I was part of the IIT system and the entire affair was hushed up. It would have been blasphemous to tarnish the name of IIT Kanpur, the most hallowed institution in the country. I was not allowed to meet her parents, attend her funeral or give testimony in court. And in all probability, her killer is now married and well settled.

I am sorry Mamta. I was myself too scared and without support at that point to take on the system. It is a flimsy excuse. But I hope to get another chance to be able to finish the unfinished task. And this time round I will not dither to take a stand.

Sandeep has nearly finished the survey and should be back soon. We have been able to pay the salaries on time this month. This is huge for us. A great milestone. The office space is decent. For once there is no immediate crisis on the horizon except in the house. Amma has become too arrogant to live with and I have to allow her to leave. The water purifier has conked off, a glass shelf in the refrigerator is broken and the gas as ususal is over. I am sure there is another endless list of pending jobs. Deep breath.

I will do just what I can today.

Back to the basics. And doing the next right thing.