PENNING HONOUR......

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Rishma Mariya Johnson ; Ichu, My sister,  had been stuck with me since my diagnosis which means she couldn't do things she love from 2018 especially, she wanted to do her masters degree, work with artists, do art, earn things, love, live and everything. My illness came with a lot of medicine sideffects, the slight one being tingling sensation under the feet, she would sit hours to put me into sleep by massaging my feet, would find new recipes and cook as she thought maybe new food will stop my projectile vomiting, many other instances and stories thats unexplainable in words! 

In 2016 when we were doing our degree we had discussed about doing something together like an independent store or something anywhere possible, with books, plants, handmade art and everything, out of her excitement to see it happening she started a handmade crafts home store that time (which is nothing but turning our room into a store and we would post on instagram about art/products Ichu made, some were even sold also), she bought some mini acrylic paints added a lot of water and did some tricks with it on wall and drew mandalas over it. It looked super cool and so accurate for a store back then. 

Now fast forwarding to 2018 again,  now we are poorer, jobless and ill as well and our lives have become hospital visits and meds, this time her store idea was the only savior, And not in our room anymore but an offline store where people can come and buy things. We planned on curating books of our likes, plants we propagate already, our amma's coping mechanism are plants, she gave all of her belongings, labour and love to some insensitive ppl here. All she is left with are some realisations and she says 'regrets for being too nice'.  Her parents, siblings are all dead and she is this unbelievable woman who would touch any plant and bring it into life, so we have a large plant propogation area set. 

Many who do not know us personally have asked out of curiosity and concern on how we live these days since my father lost his job, my mother is unemployed too and my sister and I had been only doing some petty jobs here and there. We had been living on debts actually. And even as  I type this the debts keep increasing every sec. I am writing this on my notes app in a tab that was gifted by someone. During our childhood, when my father had a job abroad things were different, the money comes and relatives ate the money, he would work in some place abroad send his salary home to a joint family of his:  father's brother and his two sons, grandparents. My mom is/was the one who does all the labour and thats all. My sister was the little kid who used to be bullied for being too fat in their tone. My mother who was a financially stable working woman back then became a helpless, numb, confused, 'supposed to do all the heavy labour' person. And I was this child who would hide in the old attic of the small house, hiding from my father's brother's sons would sexually harrass me. The rest of them mentally harrassed me, my sister and amma giving no space in our head to think.

All my life from my childhood I thought I was mad, coz hands would grab me from here and there all the time. I am allergic to almost everything, I dont think there is anything that's not triggering to me, especially touch, some smell, some doors, some doorknobs, some lightbulbs, there was this dim light that they used to spot my sleeping area, and everything. But the joint family thing did end and though  we had to take a lot of loan we did build a house and shifted to a safer place, my parents didnt know so much about what I had been going through so they build one next to this joint family house so that they didnt have to buy a plot for much money, so the problem of  seeing these faces is pretty much there also but atleast now I had control of my place. 

Why I was detailing about all that was to explain how we decided to make this better so that we could live better in the coming times,  now after many years the old house where we had these terrible experiences is depleting, the structure of the builiding is worn out and really old, but maybe coz I am taking a lot of meds and had been confined to my room for long; my memories of these are vivid. Though I am forgetful of things happening in recent I have a detailed memory of some things that happened in the past. DR tuberculosis is never the worst thing that has happened to me, it is only one of it. If I had the power  to delete one thing it would only be this traumatic state I am in over tuberculosis.

I gathered all of my energy to decide to stay and live head high and scream this loud to all; so that other  people associated with these predatory men can cut them out  from their lives, can protect their children from these, my distant relatives who are young parents can protect their toddlers from these, so I decided to make this a talk, loud in the family, thats when I was called crazy, 'blabbering things coz of the medicines 'and so on. My sister and I decided to take this into our hands so as to move on and we planned to start of with our store real soon since with my illness and sideffects all I can do are actions in my proximity, we decided to restart our store.   My sister volunteered at some art fests, biennale, serendipity and all and chipped in some money, bought some paint and decided to change the very old house into a store, she fell ill in the process, didnt get her period for straight 5months from stress. From January 2020 to July ;Amma and Ichu fell down, got dust and dirt in their bodies, got injured, coudnt move for days due to body aches, got insect bites etc.. in the process of cleaning and transforming the stupid house to something , we also took  pictures and videos of the same, plans, sketches and all, though there is no other record to show the detailed process of it. 

This very place where I couldnt even look  without fear and shivers, was tranformed to a place with colours and art in every corner, we hoped to fill racks in every corner and stack in books, her works and plants . We put everything we had into this, We approached the local administartion; many who do not even know us so much did help us and assured to make it happen by guiding us to getting aid in setting this up, we were also asked to submit a project report which we prepared too. We were sure this will happen. 

.Now as usual,  putting barriers in every step of this; these abusers closed every doors to access this, one thing led to another, at the end of it we are told to abort this. For years we had put this up, the space was unfit otherwise, It was a shaky little structure, and until the whole work was completed we were encouraged to do the work, now we know that was just them using us to have the area cleaned and fit for use for them. We were the idiots who put so much into this. All of the efforts have gone in vain. There is so much hatred upon us and all our energy is drained, this had invoked fear knowing how powerful some are and how diffcult its to explain or write this in words . Like I always  say to amma and Ichu, its like my heart is literally in my mouth I dont want to spit it out nor gulp it down since its not going to be placed right anyway. 

This is the gist of the so far story behind these pictures. Its a sad one though. And this is not written in expectation to seek any other outside interruptions or in hope for any who is out there to understand, this is written so that this is in my timeline and I want this here. I can never narrate things to one single person in a room, and  this  is confusing because I cannot think of words. This might look like me putting out my personal stories out there, today I felt like writing this here,  this might look silly to many, this took a lot of overthinking, I havent dared to write about this maybe that is why its getting worse everytime. To people l have shared this they have either ghosted, blocked me from continuing to talk on this. I cannot live without communicating, I cannot move on without having this too out there. Ichu is amazing and she will do things she love💜, she is already moving on.