𝐇𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐫, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐆𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐬.
Love is hope for the hopeless and sin for the saint. Love makes you do things you never intended to do, but it's distinct when you hold hands and promise to behold each oth...
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Do I believe in love?
Life is too harsh, too corrupted, that even a simple word like love carries immense power. Pain is an inevitable part of life, and so is love. But it's sad when people accept the pain life brings easily but struggle to accept when life offers love. It's as if love is some kind of miracle. Maybe my thoughts are nonsense, and people would find it ridiculous if I shouted them out loud, but I still believe in love.
At the age of seven, after watching a princess movie where the prince kisses the princess at the end and declares his love, I thought, This is what real love is. My naive, seven-year-old self believed this was the true definition of love.
So the next day, I grabbed a boy's collar from my class and told him to get down on his knees and propose to me just like the prince did. The boy got scared, but a senior student stepped in between us. He kneeled before me, and I was overjoyed, thinking he would confess his love like in the movies.
But he was anything but noble.
He lowered himself, reached for my hand, but stopped at my knee level. Instead of proposing, he pulled up my skirt. At that age, I didn't understand what had happened. I didn't think much of it and proudly told my father that I had met my prince charming.
That was the day my father first taught me about good touch and bad touch. That's when I realized the "prince" was a molester, and I had been sexually harassed. My father took immediate action against him.
I thought maybe it was a bad incident, but I didn't give up on love.
When I was eleven, a boy from my art class confessed he liked me and gave me chocolate. It was the first time someone had expressed feelings for me, and I instantly fell for him.
But then he grabbed my hand too tightly and slapped me across the face-not once, but five times. I cried out loud with fear and pain, and he said, "Don't cry. My dad brings gifts for my mom and says 'I love you,' then beats her. Why are you crying? Don't you see, I love you?" Thankfully, the teacher intervened, and Karhan bhaiyya beat him a hundred times harder, breaking his front teeth.
That day, I realized that love could bring physical pain. But my naive self didn't recognize it as abuse at the time.
At thirteen, I met Yash Devraj. He used to bully me like the typical bad boy romance in books and movies. I thought, Oh, he likes me! I tolerated it because it wasn't too harmful, and over time, we became close friends. We shared everything with each other. We played together all day, and he even gifted me a beautiful teddy bear.
But I was wrong. Again.
That teddy bear had a hidden camera inside it. He used it to spy on me, watching me in my room and recording my naked body. The rest, well, you can imagine and know. When I heard about his murder inside the Central Jail, I felt nothing.
