Resignation: From Job of Life

Dear God,

I would hereby like to tender my resignation from my role of being Shaluu Bhucchar in your company called The Earth.

The last 34 years have been tumultous. I guess I took on the role eagerly enough - it's been so long, I may not quite remember those earliest moments clearly. But there are definitely enough that stand out in memory fairly vividly. Like my father kissing my mother a good day before leaving off to work everyday. I learnt the importance of love and connecting with people you love there.

Or the time I didn't know which schoolbus to take for back home on my first day of school. That was a fairly horrifying moment but one I remembere well. The conductor - a boy with a face pitted with craters (that's what they seemed then), an arm clutching the side of the window next to the door, his head and one shoulder bursting out of the door, leaning over the steps and attached to that dangling arm - shaking his head side to side when he read my address card attached to my uniform...And he closed the doors on me. I learnt the need to know your stuff well from there, I guess.

Or the time I was gathered into the arms of a neighbour reeking of something bad, taken into his house and thrown upon the bed as his alcohol-ridden body came closer and closer and closer...till I passed out. That's when I learned to grin and bear it - and worse, make exuses for someone else's wrong. Over and over and over again.

Like when I got elbowed in the stomach because my sibling wouldn't study. Or when my sibling and I got wrongly accused of stealing our granny's money while God knows who'd who'd done it. I guess this is when I learned to be a kleptomaniac. Might as well do it if you're getting blamed for it!

And oh, the time when I grew taller than anyone else in the class and wore a "new" haircut AND got braces on my teeth to boot. Everyone made fun of me then. Some called me Madhuri-Dixit look-alike - obviously being thin added to the trauma, some jeeringly called me a "pole, wearing clothes". That's when I developed bravado and near-perfect English. I had to look down upon them with something, after all!

Or that time when I thought someone "loved" me. And yet was ashamed to "present" me to his parents because they "weren't understanding and accepting of anyone but their own choice". That's when I first learned I wasn't good enough. There started my journey of doing things the way I wanted to do them, dressing the way I wanted to dress....THAT led to the (awful) perm which made my hair form a (what-I-thought) halo around my face!

Of course there were consequences of this transition - being labelled a rebel. Being admonished. Being the cause of my parent's misery. Transitioning from a happy, laughter-filled child to an angry, free-willed pain. Deepening the chasm between myself and the peopleI used to know as my parents. Still trying to fill THAT chasm. It's only ever deepening...

So I moved into spirituality and started searching - one guru after the other, one source of succor after the other...Some helped, some didn't. Disillusioned with the world of Godmen, I discovered God and God's peace that I was looking for. In myself. So-aham - I am that. Shivoham - I am Siva, I am that.

And the day when I overcame my kleptomania because I decided the thumping heart, the sweaty palms and the guilt afterwards were not worth it. I guess it had been my way of proving to myself that I was good. Oh yes, the fear of the karmic cycle added as a huge impetus :)

Oh, moving out of home. That brought a little relief. I could do as I pleased and somewhere, I could begin to make my mark. I did and moved back in, yet stayed in my own little world of excelling. That's what I have done for the last 15!

And now I'm tired.

Tired of the hypocriscy. Tired of the one-upmanship game. Tired of being blamed. Tired of blaming. Tired of being angry. Tired of being told I'm not good enough. Tired of trying to prove I am. Tired of covering up. Tired of a thumping heart when something doesn't go the way it "should".

I'm tired of this job. And so I'd like to resign from this life.

So I can create another.

Please accept my resignation at the earliest effect.

Pleadingly yours...