exam fever!

Its that time of the year again; when we hardly notice the person walking next to us as we scurry towards the laboratories or the library… lost in our own little worlds…

Sitting on the steps (waiting for my turn to go in for viva) I looked around; couldn’t help laughing out loud at what I saw! a mad bunch we would have appeared to anyone around us!!

Everyone was agitated, you can see it in the way they carried themselves; shifting their weight from one foot to the other as they waited for their turn; self-consciously their fingers comb through their (longish unruly) hair… the way they pounce on unsuspecting individuals just as soon as they escape the claws of them people sitting inside the rooms firing questions; eager to get a whiff of questions being asked and the professors’ moods!! And there was soani, mumbling away in punjabi, in a corner… undoubtedly scolding herself for some mistake she’d made!

If this is the state we are in for a mere mock exam, wonder what we’d be doing one week from now, when the real thing begins!

His heart in her hands...

Eerie it was, to see them huddled together around the table, shadows cast around, thanks to the tube lights above. A silence filled the room, broken only by the hum of the exhaust and punctuated sniffs. They shivered as the wind swept through; it was the beginning of winter 2005. Eyes welled up with tears (formalin can do that to you when the fumes are too intense and there’s always its taste; burning, at the back of your throat) they looked at each other; wondering who would start.

Finally, the girl at the head of the table donned her gloves and uncovered the body; one final time, as they’ve done many a times… the room erupted to the sound of chatter, as discussions started on the course of nerves and arteries and insertions of muscles.

It’s the end of the basic medical sciences and they were there to probe one last time before exams… the girl at the head of the table held his heart in her hands. It is hard to believe that it is the same heart that must have skipped a beat at the sight of a loved one, the same heart which had kept the blood pumping through his body, nourishing him, giving him life.

She silently said a thank you and a prayer for the man she and her friends had learned so much from. They had exposed his body layer by layer; the skin, fats and muscles and the viscera beneath. He’d been their silent companion who had taught them all the secrets the human body contained. Now it was time to say their final good byes, for it was time for him to go to his final resting place. May god have mercy on his soul...

Thoughts...

Since I started understanding the world around me, I’ve known that Dhaththa was special. Not just because of the special care, love and affection showered on her, but because even at an early age I could make out the difference. She hadn’t been able to speak like the rest of us, but she had her own special ways of communicating and making us understand… I’d always been pampered by her, she was always ready with a big bear hug and smiles and a stern look and scolding when I was being too naughty… she was my favorite aunt…

There was a time when I thought there wasn’t much of an age difference between us, we’d gone to the same classes to learn quran and we’d study the alphabet together… and before long we were the same height, only, in a year or two I’d grown taller… I remember that she’d been taken out of the country for medical check ups quite often… that’s how I learned she had Down’s syndrome which is a medical condition which arises due to a genetic mutation; for which sadly, proper care is still not available in the Maldives…

There are many individuals with different levels of handicaps in our society; children with cerebral palsy, autism and many suffer from thalassaemias and haemoglobinopathies among others… talking to a Maldivian doctor not so long ago, I was told about a family in the islands with three of their only living children in wheel chairs!! They had muscle wasting of the lower limbs; a form of muscular dystrophy. Think of the agony such families will have to live with everyday… without proper care and facilities available too… if that wasn’t enough to deal with, there’s always the rest of the society, people stare when they see someone different from themselves, usually not with a bad intentions but sometimes these children are ridiculed, and thus they refrain from going out into the society and participating.

These children are also deserving of an education and equal chances to make it in the world as any other child…

Marriage does not make it right…

A lot of women out there in the world have been subject to one form of abuse or another (rape?), be it in marriages or relationships through out there lives… sexual assault can be what leaves a person with the biggest scars ever… physical wounds can heal, but the psychological consequences are a different story and that is the reason why it should be stopped… brought to light… and the people responsible punished… but first, the victims must be aware of their right to fight back to stop the torture…

Here are some snips from an article published in Femina (September 14, 2005), where they’ve tried to shed some light on the issue…

“What exactly is marital rape?
Consent to sex is automatically assumed in a marriage, yet we all know from personal experience how our sexuality is an aspect of our consciousness and is more than just an instinctive drive. This consciousness means that consent cannot be a once-given blanket permission, and that consent between two individuals, even when married, is more complex than can be anticipated in terms of any law that sees womens’s sexuality as the property of men. Yet women are expected to be sexually available to their men irrespective of their personal desires, and people at large do not think of sex by coercion in marriage as rape.”

“In reality, women’s experiences in marriage of nonconsensual and coercive cover a spectrum of forms wherein the use of verbal threats, physical violence and injury and even the use of weapons is made by their own husbands in the privacy and legitimacy afforded by marriage…”

“The effects of sexual violence in marriage can be as severe as the effects of being raped by a stranger."

“The psychological toll on the married women manifests itself in terms of low self-esteem, depression, general fatigue, eating disorders, sleep problems and sexual dysfunction. The situation can be so extreme that women may attempt suicide for the seeming lack of a solution to their problems.”

Never a bed of roses...

A musky damp room,
Odor of moist ash hung in the air,
I stooped down; there was my koala bear,
Memories tossed about…
All lost, all burnt.

The angry storm lashed outside,
Harsh winds whipped through the sides,
Ashes rose in tides,
Uncovering more mementos I couldn’t recognize.

There was the family portrait,
Taken when I was just seven days
Burnt beyond recognition…
From the frame I could tell…

Eyes glistening with tears,
I dropped on my knees,
And cried out my eyes…
This was my life!
As the storm passed,
I looked up with puffy eyes.

A ray of light filtered though;
On a heap of ashes it fell…
Where lay a rose…
Shimmering with dew;
Bringing me a smile…

With a lightened heart,
I stood up to leave
There was still hope, life would go on…
But never would it be, a bed of roses,
That I realized…

hello! i am kokaa...

I’ve been flitting around, thinking about taking up knitting or whittling (too much time one my hands!!) but, thought I’d give a shot at blogging first!

So here I am, to share a little part of my world with you; my dreams, joys and fears…

cheers
kokaa