Does Death Make Us Happy

She stared at the email message on her computer, her mind racing so fast that the words blurred together and no longer made sense. Just three lines, but enough to make her life – the life she had worked so hard and sacrificed to build – begin to crumble around her. The words were truly blurring before her. She thought her vision was giving way. She immediately decided to move away from her workstation for some time. Her eyes had now begun watering. She tried to read the email from her specialist but in vain. Then she went to the washroom to splash water over her eyes. She thought,

maybe that would improve her vision. It did. She was now able to read the words in the email better.

They said, “You are suffering from a rare cancer of the breast. You just have six months to live. Try to keep yourself happy in the time that you have remaining”. The words hit her like a bolt of lightning.

For the last five years, after her divorce, she had tried to become independent. She had tried to resurrect her life such that she could live without any help from anybody. She had just started to become financially and emotionally independent. She was earning a four-figure salary per month. It was enough for the survival of Priya, 55, and her mother, 80. Priya was a conservative spender. She did not spend on things she did not require. 

Priya was still putting the pieces together after her married life collapsed five years ago. She was married to a person who did not like commitment. The word commitment-phobic would be right to describe Prakash. Theirs was a love marriage. Both of them were college mates. They both studied MBA from the same college. Although, their specializations were different, they did study together during the first year of the course, when the subjects are the same. It was during one of these study sessions that Prakash and Priya came close to each other and crossed the line of decency. They were not yet married then. After that night, Prakash and Priya decided to tie the knot. They did so after one month of the incident happening. Actually, Prakash wanted to wait until he completed his course and secured a job. However, Priya was in a hurry. Prakash did not have anybody to take permission from, for the marriage, while Priya decided to go against her parents’ wishes and marry Prakash. Thus, they did not have family support for their marriage. They accumulated together whatever savings they could muster up and got married in a private ceremony on 14th February. It was Valentine’s Day, the day they got married. Some friends were summoned to give witness for their marriage. Prakash liked the way Priya had created a space for herself in his life. However, he feared committing to her.

For the first three years after the marriage, things went off well. The first year was a veritable honeymoon with them planning two travel trips three months apart. The first was to Goa, where Prakash had some close friends. The second was their honeymoon, to Bali. They could have honeymooned in Goa, but they wanted to be away from prying eyes. Thus, the Bali trip. They both had chipped in money for the Bali trip. They enjoyed Bali so much that they decided to come back on their tenth marriage anniversary. Priya liked the beachside city of Kuta, very much. They also visited some yoga retreats in the country. Both of them were fitness fanatics and therefore, yoga was the favorite with both. Here, they also visited the Kintamani Volcano. Some other noteworthy locations where they paid a visit and clicked photographs were the Uluwatu Temple, the Jimbaran Bay Beach and the Tanah Temple. Finally, after a whirlwind fifteen-day honeymoon, they returned to base. They came back to their daily routine. Prakash had secured a job with Camlin Ltd, during placement week at their college. He insisted that Priya should take care of the house, while he earned.

After their honeymoon, Prakash’s interest in Priya had started waning. He was always talking on the phone with his friends, whenever they went out together. When Priya protested, he would say that the friends were going to help him professionally. Therefore, he was keeping in touch with them. This went on until the third year of marriage. This was when Priya decided that they would never go out together. This was the first sign of them drifting apart. Both of them expected this, but were unable to do anything about it. After the fourth year of marriage, Priya decided that sexual relations between them were to cease until Prakash started valuing Priya. This further increased the distance between them. After their honeymoon, the only reason Prakash talked to Priya was for sex. Other than that, they barely had any conversation with each other. Priya knew this and therefore she had put an embargo on having sex with him. She thought this would bring them closer. However, nothing like that happened. On the contrary, Prakash started getting irritated at every small wish that Priya made to him. Unknown to Priya, Prakash had started having an affair. The affair was with his secretary, Renuka. Prakash had acquired a secretary when his boss granted him one. He had started forgetting his tasks. His boss thought that maybe a secretary would be good for him. Prakash was getting older, but his sexual demands were increasing.

Every Saturday night Prakash began spending with Renuka. Unknown to Priya, he had started sleeping with Renuka. While this was going on, they completed seven years of their marriage. On their seventh marriage anniversary, they had a big fight on the issue of Prakash missing a family outing with Priya. The next morning, Prakash decided that things were going too far and finally, Prakash uttered the dreaded word. Divorce. He said that Priya did not love him anymore and that is why he wanted divorce. Priya was initially taken aback. She tried to salvage the relationship by accepting Prakash as he was. She decided to accept whatever he did and not find faults with him. She decided to compromise for the sake of their relationship. This made Prakash bolder and he started getting Renuka to their house. He had not yet told Priya that he had started sleeping with her. He introduced Renuka to Priya as his secretary. On the other hand, Renuka was told that Priya was his live-in partner and he was breaking up with her very soon. Prakash promised to marry Renuka after that. In his relationship with Renuka, his commitment phobic personality came to the fore, again. He was using Renuka, but he did not want to commit to her. Renuka was innocently being exploited. She was a very innocent girl of 25 who had just graduated from Secretarial College and she had many romantic dreams related to her marriage. However, none of them had Prakash in them.

Prakash had promised Renuka that he would marry her, after he was promoted to the position of Regional Manager at Camlin, the company where he was working as the marketing manager, for the last seven years. Prakash was very successful professionally and therefore, he was dictating terms in the relationship between Priya and himself. Priya, on the other hand, had not been working for the first three years of marriage, because Prakash wanted it so. However, when Prakash started ignoring Priya’s financial needs, she found out a job for herself, after their third year of living together. She had done an MBA in finance and she decided it was time to take her life’s reins into her own hands. However, as she had not worked in the industry, her stock had plummeted. She had to compromise. In these times of compromise, she found an able friend in her mother. Her father was now dead. He had succumbed to his habit of drinking. He used to hit Priya’s mother after his drinking binges. Although, Priya’s mother was fine, the beatings had left scars on her body, at various places. Priya had married Prakash, against her parents’ wishes. However, when her father expired, in the fourth year after their marriage, she decided to renew her ties with her mother. As it is, her married life was leading her nowhere. With the renewal of ties between Priya and her mother, the latter started becoming privy to the private life of Prakash and Priya, which was not very happy. She started visiting her daughter every weekend.

This irritated Prakash to no end. He started remaining outdoors on weekends. If he were at work on weekends, he would spend more time at work, or if there was no work, he would plan a leisure tour with Renuka for one night. Priya felt a change in his behavior towards her, after she announced that sexual relations between the two of them were to cease. Priya decided not to rock the boat. She had however, not bargained for him to have an extra-marital affair. Priya discovered his affair one day when she was cleaning his room in the morning. Prakash was in the bathroom taking a wash. His cellphone was lying on his bed. It was a Saturday and Priya’s mother had come to stay with them. Prakash had announced that he would be working over the weekend. His firm had scheduled a business tour for him to a neighboring city and he was readying himself for it. Suddenly, Prakash’s mobile phone buzzed. Priya picked up the phone and spoke……..”Who is this?” The female at the other end of the line said, “This is Renuka and I would like to speak to Prakash”. Renuka left a message asking Prakash to call her back. Priya took the message and was preparing to put the phone back from where she had picked it up, when she accidentally put her finger on one of the Whatsapp messages that Renuka had sent him. The message was a video of her dressed in nothing but a negligee.

Priya was surprised. She could not understand how this video could have come to Prakash. She thought it was a mistake and decided to ask Prakash about it. This was when Prakash emerged from the washroom. He immediately told Priya that he would be leaving in half an hour and would be back only on Sunday midnight. He took hold of the luggage that Priya had packed for him and was preparing to leave, when Priya asked him: “What is your relationship with Renuka?” Prakash was not prepared for this question so early. Therefore, when it was put to him, he became angry. He angrily replied, “Haven’t I told you so many times?” “She is just my secretary.” Priya then asked him the dreaded question. “Are you having an extra marital affair with her? Prakash was taken aback. However, he regained his composure and decided to come clean. He finally told Priya about his relationship with Renuka. She was angry and alarmed at the same time. She asked Prakash for an explanation about his behavior. There was none. Prakash blamed Priya for his affair. He said that he was having an affair because there were no sexual relations between himself and Priya. He also told her that he wanted a divorce from her. This made Priya angrier. In that state, she asked Prakash to leave the house and not show her his face. Prakash immediately left the house with his luggage in tow. He was going on a business tour to Delhi and Renuka was going with him. Priya decided that after Prakash came back from his trip on Sunday, she would make him see reason and salvage their relationship.

However, Prakash’s mind was made up. He had decided on taking a divorce when they had a fight on their seventh marriage anniversary. After Prakash’s confession, Priya was very depressed. She wanted to do something that would make her feel happy. She asked if her mother would accompany her for a dinner outing. Her mother was not open to accompanying her. Priya then called up one of her office colleagues and decided to meet her over dinner. Priya met Sheila, who worked as a steno typist in her office. Sheila was from a rich family and was single. She had decided not to marry because her parents had had a dysfunctional marriage. Priya discussed her relationship issues with Sheila. When Priya told her about Prakash’s demand for divorce, she immediately suggested that Priya should agree to divorce him. However, Priya was not sure she wanted to take this step. Her love for Prakash had not yet died down. It was only that Prakash could not see it. As for Prakash, he did not have any feelings for Priya, any longer. Prakash had stopped caring for her the day when Priya decided that sexual relations between them would cease. He had stopped loving Priya immediately after their honeymoon trip to Bali was over. Then Priya discussed other topics with Sheila. Finally, at 9 pm, both the women decided to return to their homes. Priya came back happier than before. However, the specter of divorce still hung on her head.

She started preparing for her meetings in her office the next day. She had been promoted to the position of Finance Manager by now. Her hard work and her increasing proximity to her deceased father’s friend had paid off. Priya had started taking tips from her father’s friend on how to perform better at her job. Initially, she had thought, Prakash would give her tips for the same. However, Prakash never had time for her. Priya stayed awake until Prakash returned and then raised the issue of divorce. Prakash was very tired and said they would talk over breakfast the next morning. However, the next morning, Prakash vanished without having breakfast. Somehow, he did not want to talk about his impending divorce with Priya. He knew it was inevitable because he did not love her any longer and so he saw no point in wasting time on speaking about it. On being ignored like this, Priya got depressed once again and confided her feelings with Sheila. She had by now become her able punching bag, both in and outside of office. The office colleagues were surprised at how close the two women had got in such a short time. . However, they did not feel it correct to interfere in their personal lives. After her experience with Prakash in her youth and her drunkard father, in her childhood, she had decided to avoid making any male friends. Her professional achievements were hitting a new high, when suddenly; she had this email from her doctor. 

On reading the email, her world had turned upside down. All her hardships that she had undergone right from her childhood came flooding in front of her eyes. She was thinking that she was strong, but when she saw tears coming down from her eyes, she rushed to the washroom once again. This time, it was to use the tissue paper to wipe her tears. As she was doing all this, her friend, Sheila was watching her. When she went to the washroom again, she followed her. Priya told her about the email from her doctor. Sheila started crying too. Somehow, both the females came out of the toilet, after regaining their composure, to continue their professional duties. A very different Priya left the office of NextGen Computers that day evening. She had resolved to live every day of her life as if that was her last. She made a bucket list of the ten things she wanted to do before she died. Some prominent items on her bucket list were:

Ø A visit to Switzerland

Ø Attending an Indian marriage full of pomp and revelry

Ø Visiting Disneyland in USA

There were some others too. Priya fulfilled her wish of going to Switzerland by taking a fifteen-day tour with her mother. The mother-daughter duo had the time of their lives on the trip.

She then forced her office colleague and by now close friend, Sheila, to get married so that she could fulfill the second wish on her list. For fulfilling the third wish, she requested Sheila to go to USA for her honeymoon so that Priya would get their company for her Disneyland visit. Similarly, she completed all the ten items on her list in the first four months. Finally, for the last two months, she enrolled herself in an orphanage and began teaching there. This would fulfill her wish to bring up a child. The orphanage had good medical facilities to attend to her disease. Her mother had expired immediately after they arrived from their Switzerland tour. It was another blow to her, but by then she had known that her mother would not live with her forever. She ended her life in the arms of her favorite child in the orphanage. When she was dying, her only regret was that she could not become a mother. She thought that in the last six months, she had been the happiest. THE NEWS OF HER IMPENDING DEATH HAD MADE HER DO THESE THINGS. DOES DEATH MAKE US HAPPY?