Hi anita

I would like to think that you are indeed in the process of becoming more and more mentally calm, organized, balanced, levelheaded. Yes, me too.

You are not weird or abnormal for needing a break!- what I mean is most of my colleagues or people around can come back fresh from a vacation. I need a long break. I am tired. A long break at a shelter to rest and refresh.

I understand where you are coming from. With the way you’ve defined it – I would be a slave. In fact, anybody in India that is middle class or lower, especially with one or more generations that was not able to sustain itself till retirement, is a slave. Had my dad managed to work until he was 60 or earn enough for retirement before that, I wouldn’t have this burden. If I am unable to work or earn enough for myself, I’ll become a burden for my children. This is the economic state of my country. My true deep resentment comes from knowing that my father knew he was incapable of taking care of us – forget financially but even emotionally, and still chose to marry so he has people to fall back on. When my mother was recovering from her surgery in a different city, with me being there with her and my sister going to work, he complained that he was being reduced to a cook, back at our home. He can’t even be a silent spectator at a hospital. No contribution whatsover. I resent that. And my mother for not leaving him and her father for ditching his daughter after her marriage and not empowering her to leave her husband. This is the situation I wish I wasn’t born into. This is the situation I want to break away from. There is nothing there – nothing emotional, financial or spiritual. If anything, it will drain you out with its audacity of calling this abuse traditional or nature and tying you down.

The 8 or 18 million people, there will definitely be more, are different. The abuse they face, again, that karma will catch up to all of us. It is not just physical violence.

Girija