Lockdown

Me

PARI POV

" I didn't have a good childhood, like a normal kid or a good relationship with most of my family members," I had cried to him for hours before he fed me some left over rice from the morning and at that moment, we were sitting in the bed when he told me to tell him everything.

" I love you. I want to settle down with you and I want to know everything about you," it took me a minute to realize that even I wanted to tell him everything but when I did, my lips just started moving on their own.

" My mother's in-laws. Basically, my aunts, grandmother. People like that. They weren't so good. They'd taunt her, anger her and just trouble her for fun when she came home tired from work every day and she used to get frustrated a lot. One day she realized that if she shouted back at me, taunted me and hit me, all that stress she had would get released. She couldn't do that to Pranav because he was the light in my dadi's eyes. If he even got one scratch on him, she would pick up the entire house over her head. She didn't want to do it with Prachi because, well... She was small and had a big mouth. I was the quiet kid who wouldn't tell anyone how she felt, ever. So, it was easy for her to get away with abusing me and difficult for me to do anything in life. I always got the best grades, always did my best in everything, sports, dance, singing, everything. I was a model student and I did that to show to my mother that I was good but she would always find something or the else to taunt me about... That is why I still have a very low self esteem and that is the only reason why I am still sure that she likes my younger sister much better,"
" Didn't your dad try to stop her?"
" Papa? Papa was never home to stop her," I cried, " He didn't even know what my age was or what I liked. He was always busy with his work. Eventually, one fine day when he was supposed to come home late from a meeting, and mom was busy beating the shit out of me for being so short and ugly, dad walked in on her. That was when I was in my 7th standard and my dad immediately removed her out of the house along with Prachi. Because well... Those two were inseparable. But for a year after that, I didn't meet my mom. She called me, and I ignored her. Papa was still never at home so, to make up for all the times I needed his emotional support during my breakdowns at school, at home, sometimes outside, he'd buy me expensive things. Like this laptop here. It was one of the first things he bought me... And I was naive. I dug myself into the world of screen. Without having my mom to impress always around me, my grades started going down. Papa didn't say anything though. He couldn't. He didn't have anything to say. So, I just, went ahead and got addicted to my phone and every other expensive thing that he bought me. That is when I discovered the passion I had for writing. I was never a reader. Reading books was boring. But then I came across an online book site where people wrote books and published and everything. It was legit and I was hooked. I remembered those times in my childhood when mumma or anyone for that matter wasn't around me. At night, it would peaceful and quiet and no one would want to harm me. After mumma would tuck me in, I would just close my eyes and think of stories that I wanted someone write. I would think of synopses, and characters and how things would go ahead and the plot and everything. So, just for fun, I wrote a short story and I published it on that site. I didn't know that it would blow up in just 2 days... And after that for a whole year, my entire focus was at writing. I wrote and wrote all till I managed to reach a goal. It was my passion. I had found something that I really wanted to do,"
" Why don't you write now? What happened?" I sighed as I looked down at my feet with sadness in my heart. Why don't I write? I lost my passion and my will.
" By the end of my 9th standard, mumma and Papa got back together because Prachi was small and it was better for us, kids, if we had both our parents. They didn't divorce. In the end, they just decided to work their way through it and mumma left her job to stay at home all the time and I felt like I was being watched by a hawk every time I was at home. She didn't do anything wrong. Papa told me that she went to therapy and she even apologized but, it doesn't change the fact that my own mother did all that and it hurt. So, I didn't forgive her. Instead, I kept my distance. I started coming home late just to avoid seeing her and stayed most of my time in the library which was cool. No one bothered me there and I could still write. And then, by the end of my 10th, I had this big draft ready of something that I called a masterpiece. For me, at that age, I found that book flawless. I didn't want anyone to know who wrote it but I also wanted to get it published. In the end, I mustered up the courage and wrote a big email to a big publishing company explaining my story in a synopsis to them and Pranav sneaked up on my work and sent the email. I mean, I was mad but not so mad when I found received an email telling me that the company did want to publish my book and also sign me up for a diploma abroad. I was happy. Life was looking up on me, finally. Papa was happy, Pranav was extremely happy. Mumma, well, I didn't care and I wasn't close to Prachi because I always envied her... So, that day, I was going to send them my draft but something happened. Prachi's long term crush proposed to me in the school and in revenge for him liking me, she deleted my draft,"
" You can't be serious,"
" That girl has always gotten everything in her own way. She literally deleted my draft because her crush liked me and not her. And mumma's excuse for her? "She's a small girl. She made a mistake," well. It was a mistake. Only that it ruined my life because after I had that fight with my mom and sister, I just couldn't bring myself to write. I still have stories in my head, I just lost my will and ability to bring it on paper because, if my own sister can do that to me, why would someone else not do something similar? That's why I got stuck with my backup plan because I didn't have that great grades. I did a BA, and. Just got stuck in life... And that is me for you. Uncensored,"