Freedom To Love Freedom ??

Dear Nita,

This is me the other woman in your life. Did you know I existed? I was there, always there. I want to see you, is it deep remorse that I have, no before we know each other, you had left the scene and I barged into that darkness ...with a heart bleeding light and love. For I always love him and still do or I don't...I think I don't. 

I loved you Nita, and I still do and I know the triangle or rectangle we caught up in is based on him. He is never at fault should I advocate that still, no he knew he was going to break me and he still doesn't regret it. It was a naive me, my blind love for him, we knew each other well still I worshipped him. Did you Nita..did you ever see God in him. I did so. I could not see any one or anything other than him, I was his disciple, his slave ...when I knew it was a mind game for him, I could not get over him but killed myself, my conscience with medications, right from my 18 years. But to the world he was my messiah my protector, my caretaker, he the opportunist, he the predator is and was to the whole world my benefactor, my well wisher. He was my disease, it ate me from inside out. He took control of my mind , my heart. , my body ...but Nita he and me were in love and had the freedom to marry he never wanted it. I was just his pleasure and when pain strikes he threw me and when he found me getting up from fallen fate he would take charge, destroy and leave.

That was love ...my love life.

Now your story is different, he never could see your inner beauty. Your pure soul. It was an arranged marriage. Was there freedom to choose in it? No , you and he had to exist for society.

Whether love or arranged, If I say I don't agree with marital rape where would be my place in society. I still remember my arranged marriage and my aunt telling me just cooperate, do all he wished to, mean my husband ....yes I too had an arranged marriage where I just agreed to what was happening to me.

Nita, when your divorce was ongoing I was there, I never knew You were crying in that court not able to lose that man ..the man I prayed with all my self should be mine ...the man whose sperm found in me a space to thrive, but left me devastated....for a lifetime.

In my marriage I was a culprit, I felt shame, guilt and the horrible feeling of doing wrong even after confessing a life I had with that man which I still treasure, no not now, a long time ago. The small life he set up for his whims and fancy was paradise to me only later did I realise I lost my mind being there against all my morals sense, him throwing me in an asylum and escaping.

He always did escape, from reality. He made it feel right that he could touch a woman's dignity and chastity after she is a wife and mother. Here I too must be wrong.

But Nita, am I cursed by you ...

Your divorce from him broke you but it shattered me that today I struggle with almost all medication, the psyche world can prescribe me. But I left him from heart mind soul. I am not his captive anymore. I know neither  you too are.

Nita are we his only women, no they are many, and just Me, I put up with that reality. He is the greatest government official. Have you prayed for him to be so?

I have Nita, I used to fetch him food when he did not have, waking miles and got contended while I starved. I have sold my mother's bangles my mother's special treasures for his benefit and I gave him myself unconditionally. I fasted for his promotion. He rather made me do it. I am that woman who prayed he should get a divorce.

Today I ask myself, what is the mistake, freedom of love or binding of arranged marriage.

The government passed bills for gay and lesbian marriages. Which Jaudiciary or agency  will pass a bill to stop a woman from marrying an arranged marriage, where the husband can dump her for his own reasons.

I could be mentally ill, and you could be physically ill, but what right did that human being have to erase both our lives.

He is the fire still and fireflies go to him get burnt and perish. He is the spider and still, he awaits his prey.

But where am I reaching with this letter Nita, I know you replied to him boldly to walk away, but me I don't have the courage to tell him any after 30 years ..of distortion and abuse I have been put through.

No, he was not my friend, he was the perpetrator who took away everything from me,even  my family, happiness of my daughter , her childhood where she saw her dad and mom fight for this indispensable third party ...

Nita, I know what you lost. I was never his accomplice in making hell for you. I was a witness.Still I am a witness 

A driver here asked me why do you I dians still do arranged marriages .I told that foreigner, no we advanced a lot, he told me there is a girl I know who is hiding from her parents who wanted to take her to India and get married to her cousin 

I sat there without words. Some arranged marriages succeed. It did, It went on and under the Carpet  all secrets were hidden. I have done research as part of my thesis on domestic violence and realised it is the freedom in marriage than the freedom to love and marry that is more important. 

Nita to me you are a beautiful, the bold woman I always admire ...well I am I was still the other woman. But freedom to love never got me anywhere while enslavement in arranged marriage never got you too.

It is a maze and I wished why do have to marry .at all in the busy world. I know my cultural head would drag me down.

Relationships happen and when they happen, let it be natural like a flower blooming, like two peacocks mating in rain...But where am I going to with his narrative 

You see him on an evening and he married you out of compulsion and he did not marry me out of freedom. He wins, every man wins in such a male-dominated, patriarchy where women are bred like cows to get married and beget children, it is nobody s business.

I wish Nita..one day we meet and make this world a better and place for women and girls. 

The other woman ...