Process.

When you turn to the world.
The world seeks you. Bogs you down with the shackles of expecting contact. Constant contact. You don't seem to feel the conversation over the digital.

You turn back to the real world. Books, you stare at them. They are silent. The words. You recognise the words.

You remember seeing them poured out through you.

You suddenly remember the mind. Ah the mind.

You turn your gaze and stare blankly. Your blank gaze, blinking so often as if expecting the mind to respond. Where are the words you wonder. Where are the thoughts you ponder.

As if being caught in the midst of a sudden halt om some batch processing belt, you look right, you look left.

You look at the paper. Emptiness of which makes you look back at the mind.

You stand in the middle. The only source. The sole source of ensuring the smooth processing of batches of thoughts.

You try ascertaining, is it the words not passing through the belt or is the clogging of too many thoughts to pour out.

You fear a fallout.
You fear failing.
You fear breaking the process.
You fear losing the job your mind had dutifully assigned to you.
You remember of days, you pick up crunchy papers of thoughts and thoughts.
Of the days when mind seemed to entrust you.

You pick up an old one and inhale deeply. As if asking the words to take you there.

You travel in time to the day when the Mind had chosen you. Words. Thoughts. Through me? No way. You had wondered. Pondered.

With absolute fear, complete lack of faith you had started with trembling fingers.

And once you started, you didn't stop. Like a typist in the courtroom. Tuck tuck tuck. typing as it all proceeds.

You're nothing but a mere part of the process. That little gear in any mechanical working that keeps the flow going.

That little piece in the watch that keeps the time going.

But what if the piece fails. The ticking stops. For watch, the Time halts.
For the one wearing the watch, he gets it replaced. He gets it fixed.

You are jerked back to life as you hear the batch processing restart.

And there, you see. The first words, the spurt of few words. Few thoughts. Merely coming out.

Admist all this, you stand yet in silence as your fingers tremble.

Disturbing isn't it? Well. Face it.

It begins silently. Subtlety.
When a mother is told to be good and share the joy. When she is told to let others experience the joy too.
"Here, we'll handle the child, you go enjoy yourself."
"Get your child off breastfeed for a while, for convenience, otherwise your child will simply be stuck to you."
As you grow, here, go hug this aunty. aww, go uncle is asking for a cheek kiss.
That stern gaze that falls upon a little one when pressed to sit in some uncle or aunt's lap.
That awkward moment when the mother is pressed to let her child be sent to a relative's house for joy.

It all starts there.
In ways so subtle.
There is no excuse from working mother to housewise.
From educated to uneducated. To those living in nuclear to those living in joint families.

It all starts from teaching our child to silent his/her natural birth right over his/her body.
It all starts from worshipping culture in the name of 'respect'.
It all starts from snatching the right of being respected as a child and giving it to an adult.

It all starts when we visit Bangkok, Thailand for honeymoons, in our wonders of magical time, conveniently choosing to ignore the plight of children suffering amidst that makeshift dungeons of beauty.

It all starts when we change display pictures for Army Public School victims while feeling uncomfortable about the Kasur children.

It all starts from a mother trying to protect her child being labelled as paranoid.

It all starts from an old aunt stern fully gazing at your lose shirt and jeans making you realize how ashmed you should be of your body as you are taken to change into 'kameez shalwar' for that's the culture. Lest do they know, dark truths don't care from jeans to shalwar kameez.

It all starts from within.
Outside the world is beautiful. Birds chirping and singing praises of joy, as somewhere, right now, sits perhaps a child hiding in the darkest corners wondering what it was.

It all starts from within. You and I. We welcome a child in the world and let the devils unleash. For all we care, in the name of culture, society, shame, denial and power.

For all we care, even the topic makes us uncomfortable. Bitter. Sad. Rather than making us frustrated and protective.