This post was meant for something else. But something else takes precedence. I was groped by a hand today on my way back from work. Just a hand, because I do not have a face or form to give that hand. I was not walking “in the open” or on the streets, I was not in a crowded place like a Railway Station, I was not in a dark alley, I wasn’t in a pub getting drunk and being unethical or immoral nor was I wearing “revealing”, “vulgar”, low waist denims and a short T. I was as revealing as revealing could get in clothes suitable for office, huddled in a corner of a rickshaw, with a big bag and another bag of some purchases!

That’s where the groping happened! And I realized as I type, that I am avoiding the sentence “That’s where I got groped”. Passive voice comes to the rescue if I am grammatically correct! Framing the sentence with an “I” is like a slap on the face. But let me face it. “I” got groped by a pedestrian while I sat in the rickshaw.

Am I angry? No! Am I sad? No! There are no emotions… is that a problem? My rickshaw slowed down in traffic, when I was caught unawares (unaware and relaxing after a days work, listening to music, enjoying my rickshaw ride back home…is that a problem? Was I careless for doing that? Did I ASK FOR IT?). It all happened so quickly. My rickshaw was moving ahead already. I asked the driver to stop and got down without knowing what I was going to do…shout? Hit? Chase? I got down only to face the traffic and a sea of people. I do not know who did it!

What is the change? The rest of the journey, I sat with my bag closer than it was, alert to every passerby each time my rickshaw slowed! And I think this will continue for a long time now. Shock value maybe!

This slot was meant for a happy and pleasant post!

It has turned out to be something else…

My friends read this blog. Hell my family reads this blog. For me, my personal victory is that I can talk about it… with no shame! Because the shame is NOT MINE!

Point to Ponder: What can be done? Blogging and some more blogging maybe.......?

And what the hell do I title this post as?

DisiLLUsionMEnt

An American actress said she stopped believing in Santa Claus when a Santa in a mall she was visiting with her mother asked her for her autograph.

Disillusionment.

My first palpable feeling of disillusionment came at the age of 7. I had a runny nose and was taken to the doctor's, the only place back then where I could browse through film magazines (and of course in beauty parlors mom took me to because I was too young to be left home alone, or because mom felt guilty about getting a facial done while I was home alone. Either ways). That was the year of Maine Pyar Kiya, friendship caps, pigeons and corny one-liners about dostis. Disillusionment crept in when I saw Salman Khan with "another woman" (Manisha Koirala in a light pink dress with hair tied in a yellow ribbon) on the cover page of a magazine. That was my first vivid memory of holding a film magazine with glossy pages in my hands and feeling something akin to an ache in my heart. I worried myself sick, teary eyed, how Bhagyeshree was going to hold herself through THAT?

Disillusionment. (Bhagyeshree's seemed greater and more REAL than mine but disillusionment it was)

Disillusionments, I guess are many. Small and big.

Sometimes, disillusionments stop disillusioning. They become "the way of life". The norm. They do no elicit a reaction.

Disillusionments no longer remain a "let down".

Such a let down!

Disillusioned with disillusionments disillusioning.