Some Crude Desires

Women tend to live a life full of encumbrances, still administrate umpteen responsibilities both domestically and professionally. Anamika was one such dexterous girl, born in the lap of lush green gardens and serene White Mountains, the place full of life, Mussoorie, Dehradun. She gained her initial edification from the same place and then went to U.S.A. to pursue her further qualification. She was a prodigious girl, earned plethora of awards in school and university. The best part was that she got employed in a recognized university in U.S.A as an associate professor. All her education, paid her huge amount of success in life and somehow she was able to prove herself in front of her parents who were once refraining her to pursue her further education in abroad just because they wanted to visualize her secure in their protective hands, but the girl out of safety zone validated her distinguished abilities and revealed to the entire world that in a comfort zone, greener pastures cannot be inherited. One has to explore the external environment to cross the bridges full of challenges and obstructions.

Once, while delivering a lecture on mathematics, she received a phone call from her parents, which made her bit pessimistic and in an aggressive tone, scolding a student in class, she left the room distressed and shattered. At that point, an ability of her was disclosed that she was a laudable writer who can pen down her pains and acts of contentment effortlessly on the pages of a diary. Leaving the class, she shared all her frustration with her diary on the desk. She made a phone call to airport authorities and booked a ticket for herself for next week to India. The night on that day, she woke up from bed after four hours of long sleeplessness and settled herself with broken heart and teary eyes on the desk again but this time not to share her agony with diary but to pen down something which turned her life drastically towards an alone less trodden road of life. She held the pen in her hand and her hands were shivering and were victim of excess spasm not because of the extreme cold outside but because of the discomfort she was facing, which was persecuting her mentally and what she wrote was astonishing, it was her resignation letter to the university stating that, “I, Anamika Bhanot wants to discontinue my services due to some unavoidable circumstances.” unavoidable circumstances? Appalling! Nobody knows what those circumstances were and she left everyone inquisitive after attending a meagre farewell, which was arranged by her loved ones, her colleagues, her directors who applauded her work myriad times and now were standing defenseless, merely gazing at her from the back and when she turned back, millions of hands were tossing in the stormy wind, saying her last goodbye, including the hands of all her students whose classrooms were left vacant and were lifeless because of the absence of a diligent mentor, a guide who enlightened numerous minds with the light of knowledge.

Now came, a turning point in Anamika’s life. She reached home; once again she stepped inside the beauty of nature. All the flowers were blossoming and on the way she was feeling nostalgic, memorizing every single moment of her childhood. The car stopped in front of her home. Parents and siblings came out to give her warm welcome and she was in dilemma whether to smile or cry at that point. Mother and father approached towards her with tears in eyes, as they were meeting their elegant daughter after a long time. They carried her inside the home and what she observed was that a family was sitting and every single person was staring at her with widen eyes. Mother introduced them to her. Looking towards every individual, suddenly Anamika’s eyes settled on a handsome boy who too was looking at her curiously and the fact was, nobody knew that he was that figure who would be her better half for the entire life. Yes, she got married to Anshuman, the same boy who came to see Anamika, the moment she came back, her fate was tied to his life forever and this was the intellect for which she came back escaping from all the desires and dreams which she carried along with her when she left India, but she accepted her destiny because women cannot argue according to so called ethics of their family.

Her family was ecstatic seeing her settled with Anshuman, who was a proud son of a modern family, was working in a multinational corporation as a software engineer. The married life of both was going well. Somewhere, at a corner of Anamika’s heart was still lying a dream of becoming a renowned author, so that she can share her experiences with other people in the world too and she wanted to become a voice of every person stating that ‘never leave your dreams to stay aside, let them give wings, so that they too can fly with freedom and can explore the huge sky’. She started writing about her acquaintances and formulated a small book and was left with few pages only. Although in miniature pond of time, she still managed to jump several times to create space for her favourite hobby of writing, but was not able to finish many prospects in the book due to huge responsibilities on her light shoulders. Then, the time crawled a bit forward and she became a mother

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of two children, a daughter and a son. She carried along with her the qualities like intelligence, patience and perseverance, also took one more trait of a dutiful and responsible mother, who taught her children the ethics of life, some requisite values, lessons of life and all that essential subjects which were significant to learn for her juveniles and while passing through that one more stage of life, she forgot those last pages of her book and life was moving forward with great pace. She along with her family shifted abroad for better future and career prospects of her children and even for lavishing lifestyle.

Her children too shone her name in every step of life’s ladder which they were climbing carefully and smartly. She, as a mother was giving every sweet of happiness in the hands of her children and they too were relishing the taste optimistically and gladly. When the children grew up, they settled successfully earning handsome amount of money and were working on mammoth designations. Anamika never bound her children for anything in life and never set a boundary for them which they cannot cross or cannot have access to pass through them. She taught them something really interesting and repetitively used to say one thing, “fly free in the world my intelligent birds, nobody can cut your wings without your consent, make yourself tenacious enough, so that no one can modulate your life according to their own terms and conditions, you are, what you are, nobody is like you and you are not like anybody, let your dreams explore freely to analyse and accomplish the prospects of life.” These words were like a medicated dose for children, the moment they get inside, every time their body starts feeling energetic and mind gets optimized expeditiously. Slowly and steadily, the years in life kept on burgeoning and children got married successfully and were vehemently settled in their life and stayed away from parents because of their working circumstances. Anamika and Anshuman decided to spend their old days of life in India, at their home town Mussoorie, among the long-heighted mountains and green surroundings. They went back and started living a peaceful life with everything they had and children too were in touch with them through technological gadgets and kept on visiting during vacations. Unfortunately, a tragedy knocked at the door of their home, Anshuman suffered from a heart attack one day and after many medications and continuous operations, he was not able to come out of hands of death and died at an age of 65. Anamika was shattered like anything as she lost the love of her life, her life partner, with whom she had travelled through every single moment of her married journey. Children came for father’s cremation but went back again due to excessive work prospects and Anamika was left alone inside the hollow walls of that home which was no more a home without family members. And with her solitary life, once again a time came that she opened her incomplete book, whose last pages were left to be filled. She started filling them with some more experiences of life, which she faced at every point and included many lessons in that.

One morning she woke up and she opened her bleary eyes when the cat, all seven pounds of squirming flesh, climbed onto her belly. Squinting into the sunlight streaming in from the open window, she discovered that she was now the weary possessor of a pounding headache, and at some point, had managed to lose both a tooth and a spouse. She stepped out of the bed and saw her face in the mirror and witnessed endless wrinkles on the skin, mouth carried only tongue, spectacles on her eyes and weak, lean body with bones bulging out in excess. While gazing herself, she recalled her whole life and felt, how a human being passes through distinct phases of life, carrying a lot of prospects along with them, holding them in a huge bag, spends every single moment with lot of challenges and hard work, sometimes gaining success and sometimes leaving many desires for certain aspects and how life begins and ends, leaves an everlasting impression of dealing with the different confrontations in the mind of individuals. On that day, before going to bathroom and without taking any breakfast, she sat on her desk, held the pen and wrote the last line of her book and completed it and with that her life too completed. She fell down and lost her breath and died in those laps of mountains. Children came for her cremation and what they saw, their mother’s diary on the table while cleaning the house. When they both read it, tears scrolled down from their eyes and they noticed a sudden jerk in their body. Few days later, both of them attended a huge event in Mussoorie, where a book was about to launch and when the curtains fell down, a huge presentation of the book was shown to people and the cover page contained some words, which gave an eternal satisfaction to the children and the words read:

“SOME CRUDE DESIRES”

Written by ANAMIKA BHANOT

And the story ends with her biggest desire got fulfilled by her children but the irony was she was not present to witness those fulfilled desires of her life.