Amma,

It’s almost a year and half since you passed and it seems like the joy has been sucked out of this house. It’s been too long since anyone’s sung ‘oyeee meri gudiyaa, oyee oyee oyee!’ while simultaneously dancing in the cutest manner. You’re (were, na!) hilarious!

All my life, I was afraid I would become exactly like you and bingo! it’s here. My mother…myself, in more ways than one. Anyhow, no biggie! It’s helped me to make a decision, one’s been leaning towards, since the craziness. No kids through artificial means, no can do! Ever since you’ve passed, people have been trying to convince me to have one. This just drove the nail in the coffin. Of course these days your husband is obsessed with the idea of me, marrying the Wall ( so that he can move into the house). Eye roll! I feel like a commodity, that’s to be bartered. Forget living here, that poor soul, is always shocked out of his wits when he talks, to the love of your life.

‘Now that the boy is getting married as well, why don’t you?’ he enquires. ‘ I have you to fight with, what do I need a man for? Life’s dramatic enough without one, so no issues. He glares at me when I say that. Don’t haunt me, okay, but I think he should get married. He needs it more, men are frailer, they need people to constantly talk at. Plus, I will not have to listen to conversations about his past escapades, there will be someone else he can have these inappropriate conversations with. They trigger me, the humour is completely lost on me in any case and I’m told I should abstain from getting agitated, right now. Otherwise, we’re doing fine, we’re like two peas in a pod.

Marriage is a solution for a number of problems… that’s what people keep advocating …so it will work better for him, since he was at it for years. I told him to get on Tinder, otherwise, Second Shaadi is a good option…anyone he’s been seeing would also do. I can’t even wrap my head around a few dates, at the moment and especially due to the frame of mind, one’s been in, for the past year and half, one needs no other entanglements. Plus, I’ve been around married people the past few days and that’s made me realize I will have to make the sacrifices the men make in a marriage, not the women. I will have to inform someone about my whereabouts, about my conversations, about my aspirations. You know I answer such questions with why, silence or I’ll lie through my teeth or better still give a blank expression as if I don’t understand the question itself, if I find the line of questioning to be invasive. I’ve pulled all of this on you, my entire life. I’ll have to give up my freedom of speech, will have to shove my past under a carpet and pretend to be someone’s idea of ‘normal’. What the hell am I going to do with people? Till date they’re raking up all my skeletons because they can’t find anything new! Imagine exposing a partner to all this! I could but what’s the need?

So I think there should be a wedding in the house. Just not mine! What fun Amma! It will open up all my options. I could pack up my bags, wander around like a gypsy, six months, in one city then another. Go like that for years. Just my camera, my car, lots of books, all sorts of music. I could disappear from social media, just post on this blog, no one would know who I am, who I know, no one would be able to meddle in any way. Then I could ultimately settle, I’m suspecting somewhere down South ( unfortunately Kashmir is too volatile) where I could just find my tribe. If I don’t I could finally build the small little cabin, I always dreamt of having as a kid, somewhere in a remote place, with puppies and then eventually ( by fifty I’m thinking ) babies! If I miraculously find someone with a touch of madness and an erect spine, maybe in time I’ll stop pushing, with all my might. I’ll try.