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Target : 120 Votes 

Audio Theme : Love |Ezra|

https://youtu.be/hxsbnyRcRRw

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52 | Dear Diary (14/05/2019)

May 14, 2019

Thursday,

11:30 p.m.

Dear Diary,

I was born on October 1, 1990, and when I was younger, almost every year at the time of my birthday, autumn leaves would start falling on the ground, back at the grove behind the manor, including maple leaves. Didaa and I would collect them all in a basket, and then at the end of every collecting session, she would ever so lovingly stroke my cheeks.

"Autumn is special for you, little one." That's what she would whisper into my ears every time.

I never understood what she meant by that until four years ago. So for the last four years, I adapted her belief into my heart—that indeed, autumn was special for me.

It was only when I saw her last year in October did that belief finally died within me. Autumn was no longer special for me after all.

Garbed in a red saree, with her bangle adorned hands placed in a prayer position and big toes tied together, that day, she was finally at peace. Her eyes were shut close, and her face was absolutely pale, as if it were a sheet of paper—exactly how I remember my grandfather's face was at his funeral.

When she died, she was actually pregnant. My Didaa was pregnant.

I might not like children, but I wanted that baby to survive so badly. I wanted him to see me, for his mother was not his mother alone, but my mother as well.

But God had other plans, for that child lost his life and his mother while still being inside her womb, and I lost my mother just at the same time as he lost his.

I sat there beside her body for hours. Yet again, just like my grandfather, she too didn't move at all. I tried to hold and warm up her cold hands too. But again, similar to my grandfather, her hands too didn't warm up as well. They continued to remain cold.

Like father, like daughter.

And just like that, autumn leaves kept falling on the ground, but I no longer had my Didaa with me to collect them in a basket.

The only relief I had was that her body wasn't burned on the pyre; it was buried, because I just didn't have enough courage in me to witness her transforming into ashes before my eyes. No child would ever want that to happen. No child would even want his mother to burn in front of his eyes. I didn't want that as well, not even in my worst nightmares.

People in our society have instilled some norms for everyone to follow; for example, dead and married women are supposed to be dressed in red in case their husband is alive. Just like my Didaa. But to those same people in our society, it didn't matter if that dead woman was sporting hundreds of red bruises on her body at the time of her death, which were actually gifts given to her by her own alive husband.

Society also has a very prejudiced preconceived notion about the male population, that we rush after anything that has been bestowed with a hole. That if given a chance, we will all jump on an option featuring multiple marriages. And I won't exactly deny this as well because this statement is both true and false at the same time.

True because rape victims do exist. That too in multiple forms. Now the forms can range from a baby girl to a female senior citizen, young boys of all ages, animals of all species, or sometimes even another man himself.

And false because not all of us are the same. Some of us prefer thinking from our hearts and brains over our genital organs.

I am married now.

And something worse than this fact is that I got married exactly two weeks after Didaa's death.

There in the heavens, she must be mourning her child's death, and here on Earth, her nephew was eating his wedding feast.

Such a good gift from me to her. Isn't it?

And I wonder what my friends and the other people who were present at my wedding were teasing me for. What was it that they saw in that situation that caused them to laugh and be all merry?

A free and legal pass to intimacy for life perhaps? Is that what they saw?

Is that it? Is marriage only about intimacy?

Or was it the 'Agni Hotra'? The sacred fire, as it is called.

Was it the warmth of that fire that caused them to feel that merry?

Because all I could visualize in that 'Agni Hotra kund' was not some form of sacred fire but my own funeral pyre.

In the eyes of the onlookers, those burning embers were supposedly bestowing blessings upon me and the woman I got married to. But in my eyes, those burning embers were only charring my skin and burning my soul, one inch at a time.

I so wanted to go back to see that Agni Kund the following morning after my wedding, only to check if my ashes were still there or if they were ruined as well.

She is a good person. The woman I am married to—Shivalika—is a good person.

She may not be the most quiet person in the room, but she accepts my quietude. Neither have I ever touched her, nor do we share the same bed. Our relationship lies somewhere within the lines of an acquaintance and a friend.

All along her feelings for me were fleeting in nature because she understood quite early that the man she was married to was not exactly the man everyone thought he was.

Ruination doesn't happen in one day; it occurs in stages.

I often ponder what stage I am at.

On the verge of getting ruined?

Or,

Already ruined?

And at times, I wonder if the girl from the hills is ruined too. Or is she on the verge of getting ruined?

I honestly don't have the answer to either of the questions.

Some time back, there used to be a small tiffin center some twenty meters away from the main gate of her university. It's owner Banu used to have a small wooden hut where he used to live with his wife and two daughters. But he had a secret. He used to beat and rape his wife and daughters every night.

Somehow, the girl from the hills detected this. And in the winter of 2017, Banu was dragged to the police station and eventually put behind bars. But what the girl from the hills never got to know was that someone else had helped Banu escape the prison in the dead of night with an assigned agenda, an agenda that revolved around getting her killed.

Was Banu behind this all alone? No, he wasn't, for he was just a pawn. A pawn devised to incapacitate me.

And to save her, another woman left her daughter, her husband, and her home behind. Banu did get killed, but two days later, Karim found Aisha's dead body at the crack of dawn. And shortly after, she was buried in a graveyard there itself.

The girl from the hills had no fault at all. Yet, for a matter of fact, I know that the day she will get to know about this reality, both of us will share another commonality between us—the burden of guilt.

The only difference is I am already wading through the massive waves of my guilt; she, on the other hand, is still standing on the shore with no idea about the gigantic waves approaching her.

And it shall stay like that. I will make sure that she walks far away from the shore.

She will never know. I will never let her know. It was never her fault after all.

Her guilt may revolve around one dead person. But I? My guilt anyway revolves around multiple dead people.

'The crown needs its rightful owner, and it shall by all means get its rightful owner.'

That's what my grandfather used to say. 

Only if he ever realized how many people have actually bled to death just for the crown to not fall from its grace.

Signing off,

M.D.

P.S.: The realization has finally knocked at my doors. I am not ruined yet, but I am definitely on the verge of getting ruined.

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