Half Girlfriend

Pages from her diary:

“My soul houses that unfortunate heart that greets rain bearing clouds every season but still receives no water and remains dry and parched, and hence I stopped planting seeds of hope inside, because they’re never gonna bloom.”

”Every now and then, as my world gears up for an evolution, tectonic plates clash and collide, new continents are formed and old ones are dropped, the whole life thriving inside me is massacred in a mass extinction process. But there’s no progression. The lands are still cracked, lifeless and barren. There’s birth of erupting volcanoes, but no signs of flora that reside below the ice capped mountains. My beautiful world is ruined everyday and nothing fruitful comes out of it. This is my earth, my failed planet.”

***************

Do you know how it feels to be depressed?

Imagine you’ve been imprisoned inside an underground cell. There’s a bustling world above you, alive with its crowd. The people above know the presence of the jail. Sometimes, they might tap the ground to check if there’s still life inside.

There are other cells surrounding you. You can hear the inmates, sometimes happy, sometimes hysterical. You realise that everyone inside might not be sharing your story but the lessons learnt are eerily similar and painful. There is some form of interaction amongst you people through the thick walls of that dungeon.

There is a man sitting outside your cell, the prison guard. He knows that you’re not guilty and you’re just a girl arisen from circumstances. He knows everything. He has the key to your freedom, your happiness and liberation from this suffering.

Some days you explain yourself that he too must be a man of circumstances, must have gone through a lot, maybe more than you’ve gone through. You should forgive him, he’s nice and he’s just doing his duty. It is his greatness that he has bestowed some kindness upon a girl like you, who has been imprisoned for no reason, but still a prisoner is a prisoner, no matter what. The next day you’re angry at him. ”He knows I’m innocent. He can go out of the way and release me! What is my fault? Is it wrong to be different? Is it wrong to take a road not taken? Is it wrong to expect? ”

On the days when the pain is unbearable, you shout. You cry. You keep begging him to set you free. You keep up the hope. He knows. He knows you more than you can ever know yourself. He knows that only he can bring you out alive from that cold and dark cell. He knows your pain, he has been through the same; yet he forbids to open the door. When all the howling gets cynical and crosses his threshold of patience, he starts to walk away.

“Please, I beg you, please let me go. Please let me come to you; I want to see this happy world. I want to build a life of my own. I imagine the wind touching me and the sun kissing me. I want to stay alive in reality. I can’t stay here anymore!”

After sometime you realise that he’s disappeared and you were just shouting into the void. Now it may take days, maybe even years for someone to cross that path again. Till then, you keep up the hope. There’s a grim solace in that silence.

But he might change his mind one day, who knows? Be positive!

He’s never gonna come back.

***************

She sees him in her daydreams and in the paradise at night.

He and she, both holding hands and walking in the glow of the beautiful sunset, red and orange hues around. She, taking pride in her sindoor and my red inexpensive yet priceless bangles, holding his hands tightly as if it was her birthright to do so; and his herculean arms swinging over her in their ever protectiveness nature. There is no need of an abroad trip, just the walk to the local market is enough for her; I, being fiercely proud of her husband, her honour. She wants to show him off to everyone. Look people, here we are, from different castes and occupations, with different ideals and ideologies, yet we stay together. Who said that true love couldn’t be perfect?

It is past 9 pm. It’s getting late and she’s running home. He opens the door and she literally jumps on him. He gives the most reassuring hugs in the whole world after her parents, and she’s so grateful to God that she found him! They talk about our day. She’s chirping like a morning bird, constant, too excited to stop. He reaches for her hand. They are so comforting. She puts her head on her shoulders and doze off.

It’s been a bad day at office and she has got this splitting headache. She’s home and she’s getting mad over little things, being stupid and irrational. It’s been a tiring day for him as well. Going through wards filled with ill patients and checking on them for sixteen hours is not a joke. Yet he says nothing, just goes to her and listens to her ramblings, caresses her hair and says, “It’s okay.” Then there’s again that silence, so soothing, so known and so warm. She hugs him tight and his shirt is wet with angry tears.

He’s a shy person, always buried in his own work, yet makes time for his loved ones. He never reverts back, he’s such a patient listener. He’s got such innocent eyes that you can almost see through them what lies inside: honesty and a never give up attitude. He’s a self built man, rather adamant, but that’s the best part about him: once he takes a decision, it is final as if it were a bill passed by the Parliament of India. He laughs when you laugh, cries when you cry. He takes time to explain you stuff that always escapes your little brain. It is always so cute when he asks you questions; you feel like a celebrity and transform into the Professor mode instantly. He accepts his flaws gracefully and tries to learn. He checks your pulse and counts the bones of your fingers.

Oh, the perks of marrying a doctor!

He never fails to remind her that no matter what, she needs to work hard and prove myself, because education comes first. And makes me realise that there’d be moments when you’d feel like running away but you’ve to come back because the world sees your performance, not your perseverance. He’s the pole to her climber.

He is romantic, but he doesn’t like to show it off. He doesn’t post pictures of *we are such a happy couple* on Instagram, or doesn’t go live on Facebook. Like all men, he doesn’t understand what is going on in your mind and sometimes his ego takes over his soul but nevertheless he is still cute, he accepts his mistakes even though they are yours and he makes peace with you and sleeps on your lap like a newborn.

Sometimes he lies to her just to make her angry or jealous. A handsome man that he is, she is constantly under this threat that someone who’s better than her might come and steal him away. Because loneliness is a human’s biggest fear. She can stay without food, but not without him.

She doesn’t know what love is, maybe it is this: a hectic life with him by her side, to pick her up when she falls down, to listen to her blabbering which isn’t equivalent to the worth of 2 cents as if they’re holy sermons from the Bible, to guide her when she’s lost, to be her light when it’s dark.

She doesn’t know what love is. She doesn’t know what commitment is. She wishes she knew.

***************

No sooner than she wakes up and tries to distinguish between the fragments of her unconscious memories and the original ones, reality sets in. She realises that there’s no happy go lucky life, it is an everyday fight. To pursue him, to persuade him for giving her the seven vows. It is not an obligation, it is a necessity. But for him, it seems as if she’s playing around with his family honour. He feels sorry for her and she feels sorry for him. His hands are tied up. Hers are in no better condition, but at least she’s trying to open the chains, the chains this society has brandished them with. The chains that were supposed to bring communal harmony have now become the noose of their necks. He’s afraid of the scars the jute ropes would leave on his wrists, however he fails to look deep into the scars he’s busy carving on her mind and heart, unknowingly and unintentionally.

There’s a war raging inside her, for her, against her. One part of her soul screaming to get away from this isolation and live the final moments as if they’re gonna stay with them forever, the other part calming her down and settle down for self respect that she has been avoiding since long, to forgive and forget, to restart her life. One part of her brain telling her to stay updated on all the recent advancements of his life and that of the Constitution, to gather enough facts and prove him what you’re asking for is not wrong, what you’re asking for is your right and there’s no dishonour in it, no shame. The other part of her brain telling her to focus her energies on better things, because he won’t understand, you’ve been doing this since last year I guess.

She doesn’t remember their first meet. He had seen her in the bus, while she was trying to focus on her biology notes. Those were the days she was planning to run away from Engineering to Medical Sciences. He told her later: “Everyone made fun of you and laughed behind your back for doing so.” She had first approached him, because she used to be an expert in starting conversations. And very soon they became close friends. She had thought that it was the end after he had left for his new medical college but as fate would have it, he returned back to her university after a year.

She still walks through his corridors, trying to feel his presence in his absence, leaving her space, trying to understand his world and hers, trying to entangle them, to mix their planets. The hospital feels like her temple, she being the only devotee, and he residing in the sanctum sanctorum of her heart. She walks aimlessly through his campus, sometimes bumping into security guards who sternly warn her not to go inside because it is not allowed for civilians. If only they knew that she was a patient. It then dawns upon her that there are more lines that separate them, more parallel than intersecting. The more she tries to make their bloods an emulsion, the more strongly they turn out to be immiscible. The word caste churns her stomach and makes her blood boil.

There is affection, but there are no promises. There is fun, but there’s no happily ever after. Everything is so hush hush, as if they’ve committed a crime and they need to wash their hands off in silence. He gets suspicious when she’s with other guys. She starts getting trust issues when there’s no text from him. She’s always in this fear that he’s getting ready to take off, irrespective of her efforts to keep him close to the ground.

He says, she’s more than his best friend and less than his girlfriend. She has importance, but no identity in his life. He loves her deeply, but then she’s just another woman. She’s talkative, loud and funny. She gives weird advices and laughs for no reason, behaves like a madman. She walks around acting like a man, it’s her swag. So people feel that this girl is everyone’s pockets, and that she can be used, she won’t mind because, you know. But they forget that even she has got feelings. She dreams of everything a girl sets her eyes upon, innocent and small wishes in life. She doesn’t dream of burdening others, she dreams of setting up things on my forte and giving him surprises. And all these dreams just stay back in her heart as dreams.

The final verdict from his court of justice has been delivered yet again.

“Your Honour, you’ve again rejected my plea. You’ve yet again proved that the background of a person is more important than her character. I object Your Honour, I object. All my hard work in finding and submitting evidences and examples to you have failed. Your Honour, if you must punish me, then give me the death sentence. Don’t imprison my life inside the walls of the splendour of your goodness and affection for me.”

The court has been adjourned till the next session.

“Maybe, just maybe, next time, I’ll get justice.”