i) Age eight: Sitting on a sea saw, a silky straight haired girl making me loath my frizzy curls with hate. Or at least what I assumed to be hate.
Up and down, Up and down.
Envy, they go up and we ultimately feel lower than them. It was envy.
ii) Age thirteen: Standing on a piece of floor covered with pencil sharpenings, surrounded by people whom I called my friends , searching the word "sex" in the dictionary. Me staining the floor with spots of Red trickling down my skirt.
Shit shit shit
A joke of Santa Banta from Neha who sat three benches ahead failing to turn my lips into a curve, it was fear.
iii) Age fifteen : Aai spending four consecutive nights, sitting beside my hospital bed, her eyes never leaving me, and mine never leaving the needles of the clock.
Tik tok tik tok
It was love.
iv) Age seventeen: Me calming myself down. My own brother texting me at midnight, asking for my picture while bathing. My subconscious increasing my body temperature while I try to breathe.
Breathe in, breathe out, In and out
It was lust.
v) Age nineteen : waiting for my gynecologist while trying to suppress my urge to pull all my hair off the head. Knowing a monthly bleeding uterus and a pair of breasts hanging from my chest, was too much of a rent to my femininity. A woman beside waiting for a labour room while trying lamaze breathing and counting her contraction intervals.
One , two, three...
the same woman on her third interval telling me menstrual cramps will get better with age. It was kindness.
vi) Age Twenty eight : Sleeping beside a creature I made with my own blood and sweat. Wrapping my arms around her to see her eyes beaming radiantly at me. Me mouthing a song about the moon,
Chandra zopla ga bai....
and she smiling for the very first time. It was joy.

Shrutika Kahale