There are days these days when I am sad. Or angry. Or sometimes both.
It’s easy to identify my state of mind on one of these days. I don’t talk much. Even the slightest act of stupidity finds me losing my temper. I have a perpetual frown crowned on my forehead and the resting bitch face becomes a 24*7 phenomenon. Friends and acquaintances, concerned and worried, ask me to share with them what’s troubling me. The very question ‘Are you okay?’ is enough to send me into a mad frenzy. But I don’t let it show; don’t let my loved ones know how crazy that question drives me in my head. I want to scream from rooftops and yell on the top of my voice, ‘No, not all is okay. In fact, everything is messed up. People are messed up. The world is crumbling. Humanity is losing the battle. Nothing is okay’.
Don’t worry, I don’t actually say all of this out loud. In fact I do not utter a word. I tell them not to worry, blame an already completed school assignment for the frown on my face and assure them that everything indeed is okay. They don’t give in easily but I am persuasive. I make them believe that it’s only general tiredness, nothing more, that’s bothering me. It takes a little time and effort but they let go, and then I go back to sulking with everything still messed up with the world and people around me.
Amidst all of this, one fine day, an insane thought hit my head. If I, as a woman, in the future chose to have a child, would it be worth it? Would it be worth all the trouble, the pain, the joy, the expenses, the expectations and the happiness? Would it be any different because it was me, or because it was my child? Or would my child end up as just another human who the bad people of this world could target and demolish and kill to spread terror and register wins against humanity? Or would my upbringing fail me and my child end up with the bad people of the world, killing and terrorising and blaming and bringing an end to peace and love. And if neither was to happen to my child, was I to rejoice or feel sad for him/her for the constant sad, fearful and inhumane time he/she would be growing up in? Can I choose to not have a child because I can’t calculate the probability of him/her ending up killed or becoming a killer? Could not bringing another human into this world be a noble idea? Was I saving another innocent soul from being brutally torn apart or was I being selfish in denying the world a soldier of peace and love or was I saving the world from a wrecked soul?