Often, I would find myself. In places. In life. Walking through. Unseen. Invisible. Like a viewer of a soap opera walking through the programme. Like a ghost. Unseeable, unhearable, untouchable! What makes a person so insubstantial? Am I just like the wind? Vapour, rushing past people’s faces and only slightly ruffling their hair? May be, all wind is like that? Nothing to do with the pressure between hot and cold air or filling vacuums. Unless the vacuums are inside people’s lives. Perhaps the world is full of millions of invisibles rushing past, ruffling hair, floating away the odd balloon or dancing through the trees? Could hurricanes then be angry invisibles and typhoons those that are heartbroken? Lovers scorned who find their new status unbearable. What about tornados, cyclones and whirlwinds then? Is it any wonder that strong winds are given names? Is it any wonder that strong winds are usually given women’s names? May be Kabi Nazrul Islam, the great Bengali poet, was right when he said, “I am cyclone!” But, I am but a limp breeze. Not even pleasantly memorable enough to be referred to as gentle. If I was a cyclone! If only I was a cyclone! If only I was a cyclone, I could NOT be ignored!

But, when I am noticed, I am like a naked woman walking through the streets. My every goose pimple, every subtle variation in skin tone, every pubic hair, every deposit of fat, every slight bruise, every slight blemish, every wobble of my breasts, every vibration of my tummy, every spot, every pimple, every cough, every sneeze, every scratch, every itch, every movement of my mouth, or the way my fingers curl or don’t curl, and the way I walk or stand or sit or talk or eat or think. What I know and what I don’t know. What I feel and what I don’t feel. Even the very flesh that I am composed of, and the teeth embedded in my jaw. All these things. All under scrutiny! Examined! Analysed! Dissected! Ripped apart! Torn to shreds! Thrown into the air. Blown away by the wind. Invisible. Again.



---Jib, 06.13am, Mon 27 Aug 01, Hotel Chang Cheng, Qufu, China. Narrator: Shaquilla. From: ‘Shaquilla’s Papers’