Failure!

Betrayal from someone, ambitions from someone, likes of someone, love for someone …and she was never what she was years before.

She stood there on the platform wearing a white kurti and a chuddidaar with a red dupatta. She looked enervated and slender than ever. Her heart was beating faster and her eyes searched around for someone. Someone who would have remembered her, someone who could come and hug her. Someone who would tell her that he/she had still not forgotten her. The mind knew it was impractical, it was just a dream but the heart never understood.

She carried a suitcase and a bag, She was sure she had kept enough for a living, and even if it wasn’t, the gaps could be filled. She was talented, had done her M-Tech sometime back and was serving a top international bank .There was nothing which could make anyone believe that there could be a reason for her being unhappy. She was a benchmark for her colleagues. She earned handsome amount of money which she had saved more than spent in the last six years. She was an exemplary for all the people around.

There were people around her who liked her for her work, there were others who were envious of the position she stood at. But there was no one who could love her, love her for what she was.

Her parents wanted her to top the world; they wanted to decide things this time too. They were worried that the girl had turned 31, and if she goes to swimming she might get darker, and lower her prospect for the high class IIT graduate they had searched for.

They wanted to decide everything, right from the school she had to go, to the college she should have opted, to making sure she was the topper wherever she went. They wanted her to learn French and not opt for drawing, because they found it not worth any purpose.

He had said that she didn’t understand, she couldn’t think of anyone other than her own self, she was obsessed about him. She wanted to start her day with him and end with. But neither was it practical nor demanded .There was work and everyone had to make his ends meet themselves, so he was doing his and she was an interruption.

Friends said she had changed, she didn’t want to talk. She wanted to live alone. Everyone was making his own ways. Having found their better halves they didn’t need a girl “friend” anymore, the other half was enough for a company, enough for a friend. They had brought love in her life and one fine day they asked her to choose between them and him. And that was the day; she saw them for the last time.

Yes, she was a failure. She couldn’t win the world for them. She failed;

She failed each day when he didn’t want to hear from her. She failed when she couldn’t hold them together. She failed when she couldn’t fulfill their requests. She failed when she couldn’t stand up to their expectations...

She was a failure at relationships.

She didn’t speak today, she was leaving and she would move silently without anyone knowing what had changed in their lives.

The "moment"

At times we get so selfish or actually blind when we aren’t able to see through fogs, and mist…when we aren’t able to identify who is ours and who’s not. And the day we realize that the people who were actually ours we rush towards them just to find that they are leaving or have just left. So that nothing can be done now, nothing can be done except feeling the guilt of not acknowledging them when they were around. Now either they are so far that they can’t be reached or all of us are to busy making our ends meets that getting those moments back again is impossible…..

Didn’t want to do the mistake again so just thought of telling him how much I have loved him, from the day he came in my life.

I was getting ready when papa told; I’ll be seeing him today!

I kept questioning myself,

How would he be like?

Would he be like me?

Would he become my best friend?

Would he help me out with whatever I do?

Would he be a party to all my mischiefs?

Wanted to see him right at the moment but papa did not agree, he wanted me to do my day’s work (my school), finish off with it before I could finally see him.

I went to school somehow making the day passby, and when I came out of the school gate papa was right there on our scooter (can’t recall the name, have always been bad at this……..but what if there were better renaming plans!)

We went to “maya pathak nursing home”, where I could actually meet him.

I was asked to wait there and after sometime a lady appeared in white sari, the same color my dress was came from a door, she had something in her hands tightly wrapped. it would be him, to meet whom I had waited for a long day…as she handed over the thing to me, I saw him for the first time, he was paler then I had ever seen anyone, his eyes tightly closed…I made an attempt to wake him up, but he closed them with even more force, as if they were glued. Before I could see him properly and ask him, all those questions I have been asking myself the whole day. I felt something wet on my white skirt…

And I burst into tears.

“I don’t want this Bhai, I want him to be changed!” this was me, and I left my hands right at the moment and let him go free...

(thanks to the aunty in white sari who didn’t trust a 3 year old child and she had him safe in his hands. later I was explained that every child does this, even I did so he was good except that he would do this at times, but when he grows, he’ll be my best friend, someone who’ll remain with me always)

And he did, for the first few years he was dependent on me, I helped him when mom wasn’t around. Taught him when mom went to office, and to make him teach I had to bribe him. Bribe him with 5star, dairy milk, through the purpose changed with time.

Have been doing this since last seventeen years, and it has all been so beautiful.

Be it making him forcefully drink a tumbler of water when he was just six months old, when I didn’t understand that I disturbed his sleep, and when couldn’t help out the situation, couldn’t stop him from crying started crying with him coz that was the last resort when a 3 yr old and a 6 months baby, don’t know what to do when alone..

But he grew up, he grew up faster than I could understand…he developed his own vocabulary, and we were all made to learn with him. So the scooter the brand I never remembered was coz it was better named “bhaaaaye scooter”(it made a hell lot of noise)

The other vehicle was named “kanikkonda” (kinetic Honda) and his favorite line was “blabloo khol do”(blabloo was door for him and it became for each of us).

Just few years and don’t know when did the small kid became my elder brother, he was the one who held my hand tight when mom- dad came late from office ,and we stood waiting right outside the jhullaghar waiting for them, consoling me “didi,maa abhi aajayegii”…to making me drink the cashew tea he tried(was awful),to always keeping his eyes on me, sensing any discomfort I was in, sensing if I needed anything, to making me eat in exams, helping me out with everything I was confused about, to being a silent spectator when he knew I didn’t want to speak.

The moments have been endless, since the day he came,my life has been fun. More than fun, making my life complete.

I realized this when I had completed an interview of mine, I thought of calling all important people then mom, dad, seniors, close friends(many of whom were actually not bothered, of me having actually given a call) when I suddenly realized I had actually forgotten the little prince of my life.

I called him to tell “mera ho gaya”

And he was like

“dekhaa,dekha maine bolla tha naa tera ho jayegga,ab tu mujhe ek icecream dillayeggi!”

I explained to him I had been talking about having completed my interview, not having got through the institute. And that day I realized after whom all I kept running, to whom I wasn’t actually important anyday, and even if I was it couldn’t have been more than the place he had given me in his life, it was just me who failed.

My friend, my brother, someone who was always with me, who never asked more than a 5star,a dairy milk, or an ice-cream to me, what could I offer him. He wasn’t the first person to have clicked me at the moment just because he was younger, or he didn’t show me my career path?

He had, he always tried to, may be in his own ways…when he didn’t know things and wanted to still advice. I may have been irritated by him then but may be I couldn’t realize what he was, until we would have fought this much. or until this moment came to me

I can go on talking at length about him, but may be if I do that you’ll never dare to visit my blog again. Even if u do not, my job is done.

I love you dear, love you for making this life beautiful.

So I pen down here, but a piece of advice if you people can bear a line more…do not be late in identifying people to whom you are important, rather than giving your share to those to whom you are just nobody.

So wait for that special “moment” to come in your lives and feel lucky if it already did.

Waiting for your valuable comments, to contradict me, to helping me identify life better!

Just happened to read “temporary mater” by “Jhumpa Lehree”,

Left many questions unanswered.

The characters are Shobha and Shukumar,

Who are passionately in love,after some meetings ……… end up marrying each other..

Shobha n Shukumar who longed to be together,

But suddenly something changes the nexus between them…

Shobha and Shukumar who shared a conjugal harmony between them, A pregnancy which left broken cords and a dead child,

She couldn’t even see!

They were never like this before,

Now they had to struggle to say something to each other,

He struggled to make her look up from her plate and look a him once..

Shukumar noticed that her beauty,

That seemed to overwhelm him, seemed to fade.

The cosmetics that had seemed superfluous, were necessary now,

Not to improve, but to define her somehow…

He couldn’t recall last time they were together or got a photograph..

There had been created a long void..

And then suddenly a notice informed it was a “temporary matter”,

For 5 days their electricity would be cut off daily for an hour..

5 days,

Leaving 5 dark hours together…

Five days to it all…

These 5 days actually opened up some unfolded cards on both sides...

After six months, she finally spoke.

When he was preparing meals day in and out,

” you were not even there in hospital when I needed you the most”

Next day he told her about his inclination to a prettier woman, when she was going out of shape.

Next day about his drinking in the bar,

3^rd day he informed her, his selling away the sweater she had gifted him…

And the 4^th day she confessed that she never liked the only poem he had published ever..

4^th day there hands finally met after long..

How much had he been longing for the warmth,

They carefully walked over to the bed.

Feeling together for the final moment

She wept silently today when he was close.

Morning of the 5^th night, the lines had been prepared…

At dawn he returned happier then ever,

Shobha wanted to talk something important…he attempted closing the lights…

But today she wanted her to see him, when she spoke

She had used the same words while telling about her pregnancy

Somewhere deep inside a fear surmounted him…

She clasped her hands and after gaining all her strength, finally said.

“She wanted to move out!”

Shukumar never knew she had spent the past evening’s planning a life without him.

When he thought she was returning back.

He was relieved now, as well as sicker.

Now may be it was his turn to speak.

He said he never wanted to tell her this,

But her baby was a boy.

His skin was more red than brown,

He had black hair,

He weighed five pounds,

His fingers curled slowly, like yours in night…

Shobha looked at him now,

His face contorted with sorrow.

Yes he had cheated her.

Ripped a picture of a woman in magazine,

Returned a sweater,

Got drunk in day,

These were the things he had told her.

He had held “his” son, who had known life only within “her”,

Against the darkened room in the hospital,

Till the nurse took him away forever..

And he promised himself he would never tell this to Shobha till he lived with her,

He stood up picked up the dishes,

Washed his hands and then joined her again...

They wept together for things they did not know!