MEENU

Sitting on my chair, near the bedroom window, gazing outside while it's raining I wonder to myself ,"Why do I have to be born as burden?"

All my life I have been trained by my mother to be an excellent housewife I often had this doubt in my mind "why?" but I never dared to ask her after seeing how Baba treated her. She was brutally beaten up by him at night, after getting drunk. I used to sulk in a corner quitely. I had no courage to even stand in front of him. I always hid behind Amma whenever he was home.

But as Amma always wanted, I did become a good housewife.

If being a housewife was a matter of choice then I would have never chosen this imprisonment for myself. I was young when I got married back then, I didn't have the slightest idea about the reality of marriages. What I knew and what people told me about leading "a happy life" never really happened but I don't blame it on them too.

I never paid attention to my studies when baba enrolled me into the village school which he was very hesitated about, but Amma somehow managed to pursue him.

Amma didn't have any personality of her own. She was an illiterate typical housewife whose happiness lied in her childrens laughter and tolerate all the violence Baba did to her. I never  understood her action, loving a man who makes your life a living hell and compromising your self respect. But the day Baba died, I saw amma turn into a living corpse, her soul left her body and that day I learnt one thing from her, when you love someone with all your heart and honesty you, can never accept the same coming from them.

And she did teach me how to love truely.

I got married when I was sixteen to a man ten years older than me. On the mandap I saw him for the first time, he seemed to be a giant, an obnoxious creature. I was a afraid when he looked at me with his big brown eyes but he turned out to be an angel . He eased my mind, gave me chocolates and promise me to protect me always.

True to his word, he did protect me from his mother who could spend eternity yelling and cursing at me, from his father who once spilled a cup of hot tea on my face because it wasn't good enough and from his sister who spied on me for my mother in law. Secretly I actually like him a lot but I was too hesitated to say this.
He taught me how to write stories and poems with passion. He was a book worm, reading  and writing never bored him.

Taking care of my needs, fulfilling my wishes seemed to be his only goal in his life. And after dinner his favourite thing to do was listening to my voice humming his favourite song.

But as all says nothing stays in life permanently similar God snatched my only happiness, while returning from a trip to Kanpur, the bus he was travelling in got into terrific accident , and just like that my angel left me behind on my own.

The grief set like a heavy weight over my soul, he took away a part of me with him. His dead body was place in front of me, my knees weakened and I fell on the floor. Drops of pearls ran down my cheeks as my whole body started shivering vigorously.  I was devastated, broken into uncountable pieces. My hands were shaking while trying to somehow wake him up and that's when the past rushed it's way  into my mind, in front of my eyes. I was again, standing in the  funeral of my baba where I saw my amma  crying like mad woman, hugging his corpse. The slow and steady pain in her heart......I could suddenly feel that. I understand why her cries are so painful, why her eyes are so desperate to see him breathing again,her ears are so eager to hear him call her name again. I fell that. I fell that all.

Memories and regrets are the only things left now. The memories of him protecting me ,cherishing me , acknowledging me. Regret of not telling him how much his existence in my life helped me to do better at every thing , how his comforting smile made me feel home and how much his loving nature made me love him so much .

Now whenever I see my reflection in the mirror, I see him in myself .

My eyes, my nose, my lips, my body, my soul......it's all his.
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Happy reading
Peace ✌