Destination

I came back to square one. I reached there, only from where I had started my journey. I was alone, I am alone at the end. Don't know why my destiny plays such mind games with me. I don't know where to go? To whom to go? Why to go? How to go?

 My parents had broken all ties with me since I got married. I know they love me but the barrier was society. I was not my in-laws choice from the very since I got married. The reason was dowry. Although, they liked me in the first look and they were expecting a huge dowry from us. My parents gave as per their limits. But my in-laws were not satisfied with that, they want more. My parents couldn't afford that much and in return, my in-laws started torturing me. 

 After 3 months of my marriage, my husband died in a car accident. Obviously, in-laws blamed me that I had snatched their son. Nobody helped me. My parents, they were not even ready to talk to me and my in-laws, they himself had thrown me out of their house. And I m here, in a care centre. Here, other Widows took shelter. Just like me, they are also abandoned by their families. There was a widow named Shanti. Just like her name, she was very quiet. We could hear her voice rarely. Shanti does painting and her paintings were fabulous. Her paintings speak much more than her words. Thanks for the care centre, we have been allowed to do anything, there were no restrictions.  

One day I was in the kitchen when Shanti came and asked me my story.

"My story!! it was never mine. It was always controlled by someone else - be it my family, be it my husband or be it my in-laws but never me.

 I fell in love with Mukesh. Mukesh and I were classmates since class 11 and we were good friends. In the first year of the college, Mukesh proposed me and I told him to wait for my answer. He waited for me for 1 year. In that one year, he never pressurized me to do anything according to him or to say yes to him."

"Then??"

" Then, after waiting for about a year, he couldn't control and determined to listen yes from me. He well played his card. He throws a card at me which was called jealousy. He knew me since class 11th, so is very well known to my behaviour. I was not going to say yes to him so easily. So he tried to be close to one of our classmates. Both of them were so close that I couldn't even imagine. I ran up to them. I slapped him tightly on his face and I warned our classmate to leave both of us alone, as soon as possible, otherwise, I don't know what I was going to do with her."

" You didn't seem to be so aggressive."

"Well !! Mukesh was stunned to see that face of mine. I didn't know that I would behave like that day. I fought with him. I felt jealous to see him with someone else and I showed all my frustration upon him. He was fighting with me that I knew his behaviour very well. He was Impatient, he couldn't wait for anything he wanted and I made him wait for an year. He shouted at me. Firstly, because of his closeness to that girl, then his shouting at me activated my lacrimal gland and I cried very badly. He started pampering me. I hugged him tightly and I confessed my feelings for him. I warned him not to see any other girl. "

" Wow. You have such a cute love story."

"It is cute, but never completed."

" What?"

" I agreed that I do love him but I was never that courageous to talk to my family about him. I was a coward. After we completed our graduation, my family started groom hunting for me. I couldn't reveal about my relationship, just because of our caste. I know my parents won't have agreed upon marrying me to someone, not in our caste. They gonna took that thing against their social respect and anything could happen to him or me. My father was a heart patient. Mukesh pressurised me to talk to my family at least once, he did not want to lose me, neither do I. 

 That day, I went to talk to my mother about us. I get to know that my father had suffered from a heart attack. I got numb and immediately went to see my father in the hospital. I couldn't control my tears and I completely forgot about what I was supposed to tell them. My father was believing that he may not live longer, so he asked me to get married according to his wish. It was his last wish. I couldn't do anything and I said yes to the proposal without even touching the photograph of the groom. I broke all my ties with Mukesh and now I am here, being a widow."

" I felt sorry for you."

" No need to feel sorry. This is my destiny. Love is a thing never meant for me."

" But didi, don't you want to feel that life which could be yours if you had chosen Mukesh?"

"Shanti, there is an old belief that never do regrets for anything you do or you had not done. Mukesh was my past, I can not make him my present or future. So why to go that way, where we don't know the destination??