Sorry son if I have borrowed your story book title! I know it is your personal literature, but the moment I read it I knew that serpent is me and the jungle is mine. I claim it totally because I need to. I cannot do without this jungle. It is a big solace for me! I can hide like a deer; I can be the lion here. The monkey inside me can swing freely in its boundaries. And that long lost hyena can for sure bare its teeth for grasping the dead meat of my being. Many unsaid animals are raring to jump out of me the moment I think of entering this dark territory. Thank you for inspiring me without knowing. As I sit by my window in the fake warmth of my cosy home, I look at the red light over the construction buildings. I wait and I wonder where has this life gone? Was this the turn we as women are supposed to take every few years? Every one of us who try to pick up the pieces of their life, what are we actually thinking? What is the real reality of our existence? And I am not talking about those who have touched their pinnacle of self-satisfaction. Kudos! you all have done it. I am conversing about those who have not. The supporters, the nurturers, the lovers – So many tags are associated with to become part or whole of our identity. The identity that perhaps many of us do not even want. Still, we chug it down our throat of acceptance and revel in the title of being a real woman! When I talk to my maid, I see her perception of life quite like mine. We both need to take it all in! She has no other choice and I have made this as my choice. Big difference! When everything is fine and When I have a freedom of my speech, still there is a continuous feeling of something being just not right. The road below my apartment slithers and run to its pre-decided destination. I am that road that has accepted that decision so smoothly and with pride, that I did not even realise when I was falling too deep in the river beside.

I am that serpent which is so smooth to touch that water slips over it and flows away. The serpent that is raring to not feel the sadness and guilt of being not able to do something that satisfies the other. This slick reptile in me desperately wants to go and hide in the hole that is further hidden in the jungle of my freedom and happiness. The morning comes but there is still that darkness in here. Its comforting yet disturbing. It calming yet brings in the feeling of eeriness. I can see the skyrise across my window, I am sitting in one!

But they seem clearer and much higher. The sun there is shining brighter today. I want to be there, don’t everyone? I try to move ahead while the darkness behind me pulls me harder. I can see the cars, trucks, pedestrians crossing the bridge at their pace longingly. I  want to do the same, cross the bridge at my pace. But I am running against time. I want to do so many things at one go, I need to do another set of things is a different matter. I can hear the hiss… come to the jungle deeper, faster! Do I listen, do I stay or for once should I stray? Move down the road, cross the barriers and reach there where I can see the light of the gem I have been thirsty for? The green grass up the hill calls out but my dark mossy patch is more comfortable. I know it. I have been here done all. It suits me. But the heart desires something riskier. Something that is far more dangerous that what I am comfortable with. There is a vast difference between what I want to hold on to and hat I should cling to. The comfort of my home is so deep that it becomes almost impossible to move away yet my heart wants more. It longs for what I feel is my due. The sense of respect that my kind deserves but never able to attain lurks like a burning fire deep down. Those around me tell and don’t tell me to go for it. I need to challenge me more then them. It is definitely about me not them but they always end up mattering more to me then myself. The love for universal acceptability it so high that it is almost like an adrenaline rush for me. I need to be them, loved by them, approved by them. Do I really need to? Is my jungle enough for me or do I need my holiday homes as well? I guess I do because it gets very claustrophobic sometimes being in my comfort zones. I need to go out more often and explore further, may be risk a little less a little more as well. Who know I just like it there despite it being a big bad world out there. I just might make it too.

This serpent and her jungle is ready to let go I guess. Slithering and dragging her damaged soul she is finally peeping out and ready to push her body and soul to carve her way ahead to better pastures with all the dangers as part of this package. So, let this serpent move in and out of her jungle at her pace while diminishing the divide on the side. The exclusivity needs to merge with the inclusivity of our mind to see the serpent as less evil and more of standing on the defence land in order to protect its identity. For that very ‘I’ is ‘We’.