Diaspora of life
The chill in the air persisted. Spring was here but the bloom of the flowers shrunk with the cool wind restricting their beauty. The people around were overdressed for this part of the year. As I walked by I overheard murmurings of how dangerous the retreating winter could be. The flash of the sunshine in the afternoons was only a mirage to give you a feel good factor and perhaps make you fall into the trap of the spring that had yet not arrived.
The biting chill hit me on my face as I tried to draw the curtains and close the window. I felt the warm tears trickle down my face. I was trying to reconcile whether it was the events of the day or the cool weather that were forcing down the water down my cheeks. I took a long breath and tried to recall the picture that had stunned me as I had walked in the office this morning.
The office boy had left the news paper on my table along with the cup of tea. As a daily routine I flipped through the pages reading between the lines the usual stuff of corruption and crime of my country. The obituary page was never of any interest to me sending a chill down my spine of the reality we all shall confront one day of our near and dear ones and ourselves too. As I put down the news paper and finished my cup of tea the shiver in my hands let the cup slip and the left over tea spilled into the news paper. I tried cleaning the paper when the familiar face in one of the photographs caught my attention. I tried to have a closer look at the picture and then read the name in the obituary. The name was of my best friend in college and the photograph also resembled her. My moist eyes read the obituary again and again reading the names of her parents and her husband in the column below.
My mind was racing, I was trying to comprehend to try and put the sequence of events together, the last time I met her, did she have any health problem or was she not happy with her family life? There were so many things that were flashing my mind and the fact that I had lost my best friend at the age of 32 with no clue as to what had gone wrong and now how helpless I feel . I walked like a zombie to the wash room and cried my heart out, first letting this reality seep in me that I had lost my best companion. I howled like a baby.
Taking a deep breath I walked back to my desk, wiping my tears and avoiding the curious look that surrounded me from my colleagues. I tried to search her phone no. I had not been in touch with her since the last ten years, ever since she had got married to Manish. With a faint smile I remembered Manish her husband and the way I had been crazy about him in college.
I closed my eyes to stop the flow of tears and to combat the questioning looks from the onlookers from my strange behavior. The office boy came to pick up the empty cup of tea and the newspaper when I held the paper tightly in my hands and with a heavy voice told him that I need this page. He stared at me strangely and my puffed red eyes perhaps indicated that something was wrong. I packed my bags and requested for a leave from my boss.
As I walked back to my house there were pictures of emotions hammering me and I was trying to recollect all the times I had spent with my friend Leena before Manish arrived in our lives and a sense of bitterness crossing our relationships.
Leena and my self met on the first day of our college. We had an instant liking for each other and were friends instantly. We bunked classes, chatted about everything under the sun, sat in the canteen for hours, shared notes with each other and went for movies, shopping and holidays together. In college we were almost inseparable sharing with each other all the smallest happenings of our lives. As all relationships have a sour point at some stage in our lives, the coming of Manish in the scene wobbled our lives. We both loved his style of dressing, his witty jokes, his smile and I guess everything about him. There was no hiding the truth between us that we were both falling for his magical charm.
Manish gave the two of us equal attention initially and gradually we were both becoming possessive about him. He soon made a preference and decided that it was Leena who actually rang the bells of his heart. I was devastated when I sensed that I was losing both of them as they seemed to be getting involved into each other. I was jealous but choice less, they both meant a lot to me. There was nothing much I could do except rejoice in their fondness for each other. Leena knew heart of hearts that she had hurt me but she was too much in love to sense anything else.
College term was over and I moved for my masters in a different college not keeping in touch with the two of them any longer and here I meet her again after ten years, on a page of a newspaper as a past that can never be reached again.
The pace of my walk slowed down as the canvas of my life and the gaps just flashed back so clearly. I knew that they both had been married, they had sent me a card and invited me but I had made an excuse and did not go. Meanwhile, my parents too had found a good match for me and I consented because I too did not want to be left behind in the race of relationships. The cauldron of jealousy had been broken with Leena’s death and I felt so shallow and heartbroken.
I reached home, took out the old contact numbers I had and thankfully found Manish’s number. My heart sank. I could not think of how to begin my conversation with him as the phone bell rang. He picked up the phone and as he heard my voice he paused for a while and then poured the sad melodrama that ended with Leena’s death.
Stolidly, I listened unable to react to what was being spoken from the other end. His words did not sound so convincing and my gut feeling was giving away a different tuning. Manish talked about Leena as a wonderful wife who took care of her family initially but had soon fallen into depression after she could not conceive a baby and ended up her life swallowing a handful of sleeping pills. My friend Leena was not weak, she was a fighter and what Manish said did not go down with her personality. On one side I mourned the death of my friend and on the other side I wanted to know what had gone wrong with her. I was restless and I wanted to meet her parents more than I wanted to meet Manish.
Leena had always crowned me as a suspicious queen who doubted everyone. Sometimes I used to tell her that Manish was too smooth a talker and she was being carried away with his slimy ways. She thought I was jealous and I too felt that maybe it was the streak of jealousy that was making me see things with a different perspective. Heart of hearts how I had wished now that I was wrong and all the discomfort I was feeling with the way her husband had described the sequence of events that led to her death to be actually right.
I called my husband and told him that I needed to go urgently to a friend’s place who had a sudden demise and would be back late in the evening. Manish’s house was on the other end of the city, I was wishing I would meet Leena’s parents there too. After reaching his place a sense of shock hit me as I saw my dear friend’s photo on the wall graced with flowers. She looked so radiant and alive in the picture and I wanted to ask her, how could you take away your own life? We had always talked about that we have one life and we should make the best of it whatever the circumstances be.
At the end of the room I saw Manish talking to the visitors, receiving their condolences and intermittently wiping the occasional tears from his eyes. He looked almost the same and the stubble on his face made him look tired and the tragedy had worn him down. I had no words to greet him with and I quietly sat amongst the other ladies trying to spot Leena’s mother. I could see an old lady wailing inconsolably and I knew this was the aunt whose food I had relished and spent several nights in her house with her loving daughter. I rushed to hug her and tear my heart out.
The dusk was setting in and gradually people started leaving and Leena’s mother seemed to take control of herself. With my questioning look I asked aunty “what went wrong?” aunty looked at me and said that “It’s all over now. Leena made a wrong choice in life. She had been suffering for the last ten years. Now she can rest in peace.” Oh! My God, I said to myself. I was right Manish was not the right man for her. He had duped her with his charms and my gut feeling was right she did not commit suicide, it was a forced murder.
The heaviness in my limbs increased as I got up to leave. I saw the picture of Leena once again and said to myself why do I feel so helpless. I wanted to shake Manish and ask him what did you do to my live wire Leena? On the other hand, in this tragic ambience I did not want to be a spoil sport and sound absurd. I cursed myself for not keeping in touch with her for the last ten years. I got up to leave, said goodbye to Manish staring him in the eye, like a fish who had just been removed from the water. There were hundreds of questions that daunted my mind but I had no clue how to put them.
The night seemed endless as I lay on my bed just shifting sides to make myself a little comfortable. Tears were no answer to the situation I was in. I felt strangled where I seem to be in no position to crawl out a truth and the futility of it hit me even harder. The walled garlanded picture stared hard at me.
Next morning I was up again getting ready to leave for my office, confronting a failed friend in the mirror. The morning breeze was still chilly and I covered myself not to fall prey to this deceptive weather. I walked into the office perplexed by my behavior yesterday, feeling lost and empty, missing something precious and unable to walk with that stiffness as I always did.
I sat on my seat and as the newspaper was placed on my table, the obituary page was not flipped this time but I read each one of them, silently praying for their souls to rest in peace. One of the souls strengthened me and I called up Leena’s mother and said “Aunty, Leena has not gone, we shall fight together”. The next day a case was filed against Mr. Manish Khurana on account of suspicion against the suicide by his wife.
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Babita Arora Singh
Babita did her schooling from Mussoorie,
graduation and post graduation from the Delhi University.
She lives in Gurgaon, Haryana, India with her husband and daughter.
Writer Speak: I am a homemaker, who enjoys reading, cooking, spending time with my family and writing. Simplicity is my forte and I believe that all complex problems have a very simple solution.
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