Brother came into my room and sat beside me on the bed. He put the mug on the corner of my study table and I pushed the hanging sheet of paper to adjust it so the mug doesn't fall off and break. I am always afraid that something like that might happen out of someone's carelessness.

He began to talk. And talked beyond the point I had already started to look away and tune myself out. It took him another few minutes to realize that and then he got up and went away to get the evening vegetables from the market.

I shifted my eyes toward the screen and then I read something I didn't care about. And then parallelly I was trying to recall what he was talking about. Some connection between men and women when he was sick. He used to have delusions and now he has tried to shove them all into thoughts with question marks and unimportant things in his head. Something like that. Hard to imagine, difficult to perceive for a woman like me.

This morning, I didn't wake up until nine am. Partially on purpose, partly because I needed some more sleep. So both. Mother had come in twice to see if everything was fine. And then finally she used a trick to get me out of my bed. She began to sweep the floor and I got up shouting, 'It was mopped yesterday itself, now why in the heavens do you need to sweep it?'. She kept on with the broom and calmly said, 'See! There is so much dirt already'.

I had tea and came back to my bed and got back up only at a quarter past eleven.

The bridegroom's family was supposed to come and see me this afternoon. Once they had approved of me, the groom would come and there would be an engagement ceremony.

I stayed in the bed. I couldn't think. My head was clogged with imaginations. Forced dreams, to get away from all this.

This is humiliation. A complete negation of my existence. And I go through it every now and then. And I belong to a middle class Indian Hindu family.

I am a female. I work. I got a degree from the USA. I can not talk to my parents. They do not speak my language and I do not speak their language. And yet, we all use the same dialect.

It is hard to be honest. With all the inventions on vocabulary. It is still hard to be saying what I exactly wanted to have said. And all because, when I have said it all, they still do not understand my stand.

I am tired now. Being the same person that I have always been. I want to make myself a new human being. I want to get up in the morning with a dreamless clear head.

Brother came back from the market and peeped from the door, 'Do you want some tea?' ...always yes! Tea is like a thought process, it runs in the background and sustains everything, while everything else is going on, you can hold on to this one string and be hopeful. A cup of tea is always welcome.

He came in with two mugs and sat again with me. He is now talking about God. He says, 'There ought to be something like God. It may not be exactly like the God everyone says He is, but I have a strong feeling that there is God'. And then he says, 'Have you ever tried on purpose to not to step over ants and insects on your way?...have you ever?...' And then he answers his own question without waiting for me, 'Well, it might take you longer to reach where you were going, but then it will cause you to feel better for sure...'. And I nodded, 'Yes, yes. That's exactly true...you're right!'

I wasn't thinking at all about ants or insects when I said that. I wasn't thinking anything at all when I said that.

The air in the house is heavy since the afternoon. Mother cried bitterly once outside in the lawn on brother's shoulder and then in the other room in her bed. I stood there and lingered for a few minutes not knowing how to console her. Then I came back to the kitchen and finished making some coffee which she refused to drink then.

Then no one praised how good the coffee was this time. And I couldn't care less.

I ran after the squirrel to get some close ups but it kept running back and forth in the branches and I gave up and came back inside.

Brother-in-law is quite a clear-headed man. I was preparing for a dialogue with him about this whole thing. I began complaining instead, and he couldn't sit there and listen any more and so he left.

I am lonely and thinking about God again. Depression and God live on the same plane for me, only probably in different directions. But nevertheless, they are somehow connected. I seek God when I am depressed. And when I am depressed you can tell when I seek God. And I don't really know who God is and how I should go about knowing God. I don't believe in any religion and I hate the brotherhood or sisterhood feeling among most of the existing ones.

I changed my my beliefs section a little bit again this evening. Just a few words here and there until I couldn't continue doing the same thing again and again and yet again.

Dinner was ready. It's an excuse to get away from myself, from everyone else in the family. No one talks, everyone stares at their plate until everything is finished. We talk too little while eating, unlike the happy sitcoms in most US television comedies.

They eventually made a lie to the bridegroom's family and said I was in a meeting and couldn't be there to meet with them this afternoon. And the family got the message perhaps. And then it all began. When you lie routinely, it is just ok. When you lie for someone you don't want to lie for, you get mad.

The truth is, they are just as much victims of this world as I am. They don't know for sure, what is honesty, what is truth or the truth if there is a final universal one. But still they try to pretend they know it. And more that they know it definitely better than I do. And when they fail to get it into my head, they get frustrated.

But even though I understand their helplessness. I can not let myself succumb to the pressures from outside, or so I have told myself. And so I find myself answerless. And I get into my bed and pretend to sleep.

Even the servant seems to have gotten a clue of what's going on in the family. He didn't show any respect to me while serving dinner tonight.

I don't know what it is to be completely honest. I don't know why it is necessary for me to be honest. I don't like it when they look hopeless. And there is no one here to give answers to me.

There is only one way I can go. Depression. And I am not saying it is the only option. Because the other side of it, where I always come back from, is God. Or what I think it is.

It is hard to be honest to them, harder still when I am not sure what honesty is.