(Short Story) A Chapter of Sunshine ©

My life sometimes seemed like a chapter off a ‘tear wrenching’ book or a ‘cry a bucket’ of popcorn movie. And trust me, I am not being dramatic. A badly broken family, finding out I was adopted, finding out things about my real parents I would have rather not known and then losing one of the only two friends I ever had to cancer. All of this by the time I was in my early 20s.

I sometimes felt I had lived 2-3 lifetimes already. The burden of life had already weighed me down so much that I was ready to pack up and leave without a word. I felt I needed to give up and it all really did suck. But that's what's it's about life. It is always in control, never you. You just got to live with what you got and hope it gets better when you know deep down it just could all get worse. They say there is a rock bottom? I believe there isn’t, it’s like a black hole with no bottom. You think you can’t feel worse and you do.

So I lived and hoped for a better. A better something that would be my sunshine in this full world full of darkness. And life decided to be kind to me then, and I got my something in the form of someone. When I met him and we started bonding it was actually like a ray of sunshine you get to feel in those bleary cold days, brightening up everything and just making the cold more bearable and more fun. Life was the same, nothing except him had changed but now the whole life just seemed more livable and enjoyable. Everyday tasks of getting up and going to work were brightened just because I would speak to him in the morning and would spend my journey to work reminiscing about the things we talked about and just how magical I felt. Magical, yes that is the term I can use to describe how I felt, I wanted to wake up every morning, I wanted to look good, I wanted to get free time so I could spend it with him, when I closed my eyes to sleep every night I could actually feel a tingle in my toes. I don't know why he had that effect on me. I often try to decode it but I can't perfectly. Maybe it's true that sometimes you just connect with another human being like you are two different parts of one being. Just him being there made me so happy.  Plus he was a damn neat guy. He listened to me, he protected me from a lot of things and he understood me. He loved me.

All this while I never realized how dependent I was becoming on him and he welcomed that dependence, infact he encouraged it. He would only want me to discuss my life with him. And because I loved spending time with him, hated spending time in my dysfunctional family and didn't have too many friends, I also started preferring that. Dysfunctional family messed with me, go to him. My birth parents troubled me, go to him. Got a bad appraisal at work, go to him. Fought with my only other friend, go to him. Him, him and more him. And he would always support me no matter if I was right or wrong. On one occasion, I fought with my sister (our fights were horrible and she was a typical brat so it was another level of sibling rivalry) and because I was so annoyed with her I actually acted diabolical and deleted this presentation she has been working on for a big client. He told me I did the right thing. So while everyone chose to abuse me, he was there. And I loved it. And at that time I felt he was right for doing it, because I felt only he knew how much my sister had scarred me in life. She was the one who even told me I was adopted. So when I did that thing out of "she deserves it" only he could get it.

For me it was finally like having someone on my side, I had a team and I could conquer the world. If life was a restaurant constantly giving me a bad serving and me being the customer who silently ate it and tipped the waiter I became the customer who stands up and shouts and demands for what she serves. I had teeth and I wasn't scared to bite anymore. Come life, Akansha was ready for you with Rahul by her side. Yes that was the catch, him by my side. Because with him I was everything, without him I was nothing. I used to call him my sunshine.

We dated for 3 years and I was mostly happier than I have ever been. I say mostly because no matter how much of a team we were we did have our fair share of fights and when we fought I used to completely break down.  And those break downs were bad. I could not sleep, I could not eat and I could not work. I say could because at this time I was not deliberately torturing myself. It was just a natural reaction. Plus except him I now had no one. So it was worse. And no matter how much shit life had thrown my way this was a place I had never visited. And I hated it.

When we fought and if he would just even say that it's not working out (out of pure anger), I would cry and beg him to not say such things. I would cry, howl and shatter. I think seeing all this did scare him. Who would it not? I don't think he deliberately made me so dependent on him; he was just trying to fix something that was broken not realizing that the glue he was using was him and if he went I would break once again.

I till date don't know how dependent he was one me. I never doubt his love. But he had his own life. He had a normal upbringing. Parents that adored him, a younger sister whose hero he was and a million friends who kept him on their speed dial.

I think the first time my dependency dawned on him was during a major fight we had regarding a small thing. We were to go on a weekend trip. And I had been planning for this trip and looking forward to it for a month. On Friday there was some crisis at his workplace and he had to cancel the trip because he would have to go to his Bombay location over the weekend to fix the fuck up and would be back only next weekend. Firstly I did fight with him for cancelling and cried the whole day on Friday not eating (which was by now my very normal reaction to our fights), that was still okay. What I did or more like what this possessed part of me did after that was not okay. In retrospect I think what got to me was that he will not be there for a week and in the lifetime of our relationship this was the first time he was going to be gone this long. I don't think my heart could fathom and digest that. After he sweetly apologized and got me dinner on Friday night I was okay with the cancelled trip. But then as he was leaving to go home my heart skipped like a 100 beats and I just knew I could not let him go because I felt in every core of me that I would not be able to survive if he wasn't in this city and I could not see him everyday. Trying to sleep what bothered me was the thought of him not being there. I kept thinking of how I would not see him. Then even scarier and irrational thoughts came into my brain. What if he did not come back? What if something happened to him? What if being without me for a week he realized he didn’t want me anymore? It was like my insecurities were suffocating me. I felt I could not breathe. I knew I needed to get out of this situation and save myself. He had taught me to fight back when life pushed me and I knew I had to even know. He would understand. I had to do something. I went to my loo, opened my medical kit and took out all the pills I could find in them. And then I took all of them. Put them in glass, and just swallowed them and then gulped a lot of water. I put everything back in order, went to my bed and closed my eyes. I remember when I opened my eyes in the emergency ward my gaze fell on him and even though I was drowsy like anything I could see the extend of concern in his eyes and then I saw something else in his eyes for the first time. For the first time when he looked at me, there was fear in his eyes. I felt happy, he would not go. I closed my eyes and rested peacefully.

We didn't talk about this incident or what I had done. The doctor had prescribed me psychiatric help. My family could not care much and he, well he did not know how to react. So I never went. We moved on. But that incident changed our lives together, even thought everything seemed the same there had been a shift. He was always careful about what he said to me. First I used to ignore it even when it pissed me that he wasn't being himself. Then I could not ignore it. He would never fight with me over anything even when I did something wrong. I could not take it anymore and that is when the cutting began. Self harm or solace depends on how you see it. Every time he pissed me by deliberately not fighting with me, treating me with baby gloves, I would first fight with him asking him to be normal and then I would go find solace. First few times he did not realize what I was doing, but after the 4th or 5th time he noticed those cuts. That's when I saw the ‘fear because I think you are crazy’ look for the first time in his eyes for me. He scolded me, cried and said a million sorries. Was so surprising, it wasn't his fault.

It didn’t stop. Now my break downs included all of this too. And I would break down on the smallest of the things. He would be going away for a day for work, breakdown. He would be going for his sister’s convocation, breakdown. He did not tell me his night plans which were without me in advance, breakdown. He did not call when he said he would, breakdown. Somewhere between all of this I did realize that now I was deliberately torturing myself maybe as a way to hold on to him when he was not even really doing anything to go away.

I think he realized his love was making me sink. Maybe because he loved me so much he knew things I felt before I knew I was feeling them. By actually being there for me and supporting me even when I was mean just because he wanted to fix me he had created this monster who was normal when surrounded by him but the minute he moved away the monster went down to self destruction.

One day in the evening he called me to meet him in the park near my house. This was our place, where we walked and talked and sat and laughed. We had some of our best memories here. We sat on our favorite bench. For quite a few minutes we both didn't speak. It wasn't uncommon. We found happiness in the silences often. Then he held my hand and when I looked at him he told me that he loved me more than he could ever show me. He kissed me. He took a letter in my hand and asked me to read it when I was home and not before that. And he said he had to go as he had a family dinner. I asked him where we were meeting tomorrow. He just smiled a sad smile and said he was in a hurry and walked off before I could say anything else. I had found that a bit weird. He never gave me letters. He never walked off without ensuring I had also left. I remember clutching that piece of paper in my hand and wondering what was wrong. And I knew I could not wait to go home to read this letter. I remember the urgency with which I read the letter.

I cried for what seemed like hours before I got up to walk home. He had left me and he would be leaving this city that same night itself. He was shifting tomorrow to Bangalore and would not be coming back anytime soon. He would also not be speaking to me for sometime.

I knew this was the end. And I knew he was right in ending it. His sunshine which had lighted up my world had also not begun to burn it. His letter said it all. I understood. I got my why. And I agreed with that why. He had given me closure. In one letter.

I managed to keep calm and not harm myself during this entire breakup phase. I did consider it. A lot of times to be honest. But then I remembered his letter which he had asked me to hold on to. And it gave me strength, exactly the strength I needed that time. I had to be independent to get out of this. And it was time to end the self destruction.

It's been one year as I write this. And I still hold onto his letter. I haven't spoken to him at all. I do sometimes visit his Facebook page. I m not on his friend list but I like to see his cover photo and the thumbnail version of his display picture. I don't do it to spy on him. I just like feeling connected to him in some way. I never doubted he loved me, I think he loved me a lot and did what he did. But his love was like an addiction for me and it had me spiraling out of control. And he had so much love for me that he put what I needed before what he wanted. He knew that he had to stop being my glue and let break again because the cracks showed.

I am still alone but I am independent and I realize now that's a big thing. I can never think of hurting myself to get my way or doing something mean to my family. I don't know how I could be such a person. Every now and then I know I will find the person he wanted me to find. The person with whom I will find the correct balance. And even if I don't I know I will manage alone. Someone said right, we come alone and go alone. To a hope for a better tomorrow..

“….Akansha, I know you must be crying by now. I wish I could hug you right now. I can’t believe I am the person putting you through so much pain when I have hated everyone who has hurt you. But I need to. I have not left because I can’t handle this. I can handle this. I can take care of you my entire life. But If I did that, you would no longer remain the girl I loved because you would never grow with me. You would only be a shadow of everything I knew you were and want to be. And what if something happened to me? You call me your sunshine. But sunshine is not what you need. You need someone else. And now when you search for that one person to spend your life with don't try to find someone like the sun. The sun brings light and brightens up everything but remember it shines so bright that if you look at it directly you will go blind and when it stops shining your world goes dark. Find someone who is like the Moon. Moon brings light in darkness. When you look at it directly it soothes you and when it's not there you do perfectly fine in the day light. Love should not make you so dependent that you are useless without it. Love should bring the best in you. Love that cripples is like a drug better avoided. Love that pushes your limit and makes you rise above everything you will be, giving you strength to be the best you can and silently supports you when you fall pushing you to rise, well that's just what love should be. Go find your moon. I am sure you will and incase you don’t then be your own moon darling.

Love you forever

Rahul”

The so called “Ideal Age” ©

Sitting with friends over a hookah (technically that was a couple of hookahs) the topic moved to marriage. This was a much talked about topic on many conversations with girlfriends over the last year. We had all reached that time in life when we were done with our studies, the post grads and had been working  and the next question which most people would ask us was- what plans for marriage. So inevitably this topic did shift into most of our hookah table conversations. This conversation was like the others nothing different- discussed the same thing. Arranged vs. love marriage, family adjustment, adjustment for women, living with family vs. living alone and then ofcourse the ideal age to get married. The entire ‘ideal age’ of marriage part stayed with me. Possibly because the consensus was that it was around 25 to 26 and I was already 25; soon turning 26 and definitely not getting married anytime soon. The other thing that stayed with me was the consensus that guys had no ideal age to get married and they could get married anytime.

I kept pondering on these two things even after I was home to much later in the night. Why was it that women had an ideal age and men could walk away with “when they felt like”?

Most of it does have to do with our society. In India, a woman’s life is only supposed to begin after she is married while a man must fully enjoy his life before he commits to marriage. It’s like for women marriage is supposed to be ultimate dream come true while for men it is the life they must run away from as long as they can. Then there is obviously the biological reason. A man is born with a lifetime supply of his sperm (well mostly lifetime). But a women’s stock is limited. It’s like Adam and Eve had a race where the prize was lifetime supply of the ‘get preggers’ stock and Eve lost, so now we all suffer the brunt of her failure. Imagine if this would have been reversed and men would actually be the ones with the ‘limited validity’? Would it not be so much fun? In every relationship it would be the guy who would say “Baby, I am getting old we should get married.” Or how about “Honey, let’s have a kid soon before it becomes difficult for me?” Then it would be men chasing the ‘good ripe’ women before they got hooked up so as to get settled and make babies. Just close your eyes and imagine this for 2 minutes. I bet you will be “Laughing out Loud!”

So are these the only reasons? Ofcourse apart from these there is the ‘shallow cosmetic’ reason. Every girl wants to get married when she is her youthful best looking, before the white hair and wrinkles make an onset. Now most men age like wine and they could not care less either ways. Every young male heartthrob has just become hotter as years went by. Even your college crush has just become hotter. But for us women, it’s like a downward slope as we grow older unless you are a beauty queen and constantly in the eye of the media with 100 people helping you with your fitness regime, 200 people helping you cover up what even the fitness regime can’t change and 1 very important doctor who can undo the work of even 300 years on your skin, ass, boobs and any other place you thought no one would even look at. So unless you are the rich and the famous you are bound to age in the not so “Jennifer Aniston” fashion.

So as a conclusion there are 3 main reasons that make us define our ideal age- society cum parents, ‘preggers’ stock and we ourselves. If we look at it logically, 2 out of these 3 are indirectly or directly in our control. And if we control the majority we could actually push and define this age like we wanted. And should we not? I know this is not a change that would happen so easily, but even if few of us change our thinking would it not affect our future generations and so on? Ofcourse there would always be those annoying aunties and uncle who have no better work than to ask you when you want to get married but atleast one would not feel pressurized by it since there would no so called ideal age.

People want to start big revolutions but can we also start this ‘small sa’ revolution so that one day no 25 year old girl will feel that now it is her age to get married so she should start wanting to and planning for it even if she did not feel ready for it? And that marriage even for women becomes something to be done when they are  so in love that they want to be married or maybe when they themselves want their parents to start looking for the perfect guy because they themselves want to begin the next chapter in their lives and not cause it is the ideal age to.

Revolution ‘No Ideal Age’ anyone? ;D