A Leaf from my life……………….

The fortune teller,sat brooding over the placement of Rahu and ketu,I could see the spiral scribblings in Malayalam on a paper,but decided to let them be illegible……my eyes galloped over them as in a sprint race,the fear had invaded unfathomable proportions of my life……… This fear started the day…..when my fingers were forced to form words that expressed my inability to continue my services with the largest private sector bank.
I still remember the eighth day of the fifth month of the year,grasped in the tweezer grip of summer,burning like hearth…when I stealthily walked towards my branch to handover the ten lines that dictated the life of a recluse for me….……..
The answer to my innumerable questions lay in the escapades of these planets?Have they reigned in my life? I thought? They must have that is why I was here to learn from a stranger,the reason behind leaving my job…..
Two years had passed since I opened any account ,made drafts, cancelled payorders, played with tufts of currency.I loved my job,I l loved to slog it out there.I loved the FDRs, I loved the smell of new currency.the clatter of the money counting machines,the jingle of coins, I loved depreciation accounts, balance sheets,the opening of lockers ,the feel of cheques ……………loved everything about the job I was in .My work was my identity, the realization that I was recognized,…………………it was my most favourable companion…..
The two years I spent tending to household and to my children….. I lost myself somewhere,I became subdued,the voice inside went into hibernation,an extrovert and vibrant girl was quashed…..instead a new woman whose routine ventures grilled her in the four walls of the house,whose whimper died down in the bubbling rice…….came into life…..
I used to have that disheveled look every day,my conscience crouched,disoriented I went on from one chore to another,unable to comprehend where my life was heading towards,when the incoherency faded sometimes…..tears would trickle down drenching my clothes……the little solace came by way of the movement of those little hands and legs…….those angelic eyes and the honey coated call that rang in my ears “mamma……..”
The sole reason that made me feel that all that conspired was worthwhile…………………….
So there was I sitting expectingly before a fortuneteller……….questioning myself.Does he have the answers to my queries or I am the one who has masqueraded herself to be a perfect puppet,capable of
any acrobatics to be performed as commanded.

I investigated and concluded…….the conviction was done…..it was me……
He raised his eyes and asked,do you write?Oh!!! I was caught unawares.I said “I do.”
Stop that he said,”Otherwise bury your dreams of being a working woman.”Your scribblings turn away the job that come your way.”
My conscience was the interrogator….Life became a jigsaw puzzle…
Words had a way with me……they played hopscotch in my mind even while I picked up tossed clothes or dusted the window sill….They were a part of me,to separate them with me were to take the soul out of the body.
Further I sank………………….
I dread that phase of my life………….when I almost lost myself……and then it took 365 more days to convince myself and immense courage and the affection of the angel in my life……..the woman whom I call “amma” to drag me back to life….
I owe two lives to her……..

Those lingering thoughts
In they tiptoed and I fought
Messing up this sparing lane of mine
Groping with enlightened thoughts divine
Far in the dead night
In to the hollows of the creeping fright
They stalked……….
And I fled…………….,
Crippled and squeezed……..
I twisted and crawled………
Pushed and gathered………….
A handful of me…………
And then I grew……
Sprouting in sunlight milieu……
Folding in out…………
Crumpled and erect………
From docile to deft
Its me as I shouted aloud…………….
To enliven my life bereft…….
Spring did set in……….
As it flew and came……..
Another monster……..it said
You have tamed………..
Those lingering thoughts…….
Zigzaged their way
…..with my bliss
An irrefutable play
Drenched as I sighed………
Life must have giggled at my plight……….
But the spring never gave in
It cuddled me in its
Effervescent grin
Borrowed wings……
To fly and win
Craddled and rocked…..
with her tender strings
those lingering thoughts……
still tiptoe and throng
a brute from a minion……
still……..a tussle…..
to assign it to oblivion…….

Written for Project 365 at We Post Daily.Today’s prompt was