Join the Dots

This is a personal account. You could treat it as another case to pass a verdict on my articulation, or simply join me in joining the dots. I have never believed in imposing opinions on anyone. My name is Valencia Healy, and I am a terrorist. You read it right, in case I die before stopping you from reading my diary. I chose to become a terrorist. True, I have no ideology that I am fighting for, but I wanted to defy my family, who stopped me from taking up Defence Studies. This was the only way, I could learn about arms and arms carrying arms, in the veil of pursuing a Degree in Architecture. I must admit, Arch is quite fascinating too. It allowed me to understand building blocks on a varied extent. Why am I writing this down, you would be wondering. Well, I am in this make-shift camp where I am being quarantined for a period of fourteen days for having contrived chicken pox. Today is just the ninth. I am bored with cleaning and re-cleaning my pistols and sharpening my pocket knife. I also learnt about Gothic architecture from various websites. But I thought, I should be doing something instead too, rather than just learning.

I took the nearest tool, the Swiss Army Pocket Knife, and with it, and the conditioning of Gothic working in me, I started playing a game I used to play when I was young, on our Sunday newspaper editions -- joining the dots to complete a picture. I started joining one pox point to another. It was scathing, bleeding too, but it was novel and interesting. I also think the virus can come out with the oozing blood. It was fun, till the nurse-guy came up and screamed at me. As if I don't know my getting well quicker would mean much to the organization. They are using the fact that am a woman. 

Whereas my first love has been arms, I have quite taken to acting too. These terrorists masque terror. And mostly, we begin it with my slowing building of trust. The rest I must not even write. If I do, I would be vindicated for failing a promise. These nights I have questions waking me up if I done the right thing in taking up what I have, illegally, and importantly, unethically. That is when I put down my pistol and take up my pen and bleed on the pages. There are many dots to join. 

Who does what, when and why. One rarely finds a satisfying answer. Occasionally though, we live the mask and live it truly. The dots dissolve and become the image. I am Valencia Healy. And I have made it to the list of 'wanted'. The pox point bleeding is slowly swelling. The ink in the pen is fading. Join the Dots, if you can.                                                          -- Varuni Chettiar.

Goes without saying she came first in the list of Presidency College, Chennai, in the entrance exam to pursue English Literature. "What an imagination!" The Professors agreed, over their filter coffee. Little did they know she was covering up to revive the LTTE. Varuni was entranced with the bullet marks that the gate to her house faced. She grew up to be known as the 'girl from the bullet gate.' 

Now, join the dots.