A Life Of Lies | ✔

Ayansh • 1

I was first introduced to the paradoxical world of consecutive contradictions when I was no more than five years old.

'You were born to rule the word 'success' and 'glory', my sweet boy,' my mom had said when she gifted me a Rolex for my fifth birthday.

'I want you to realize that life is not about celebrating yourself, but celebrating the zeal of everyone around you and finding yourself in it,' my dad had said on our way to the children's orphanage his trust owned to let me spend the day with them.

All the kids there gushed about the watch that shone in light so hard it could even blind the sun. I felt glorious then. But later, I didn't know if I ever celebrated them as much as they did my Shining Symbol of Glory. The Rolex prided me, but it didn't let me celebrate, did it?

That was the first time I felt conflicted with my identity.

Twenty-two years later, after I thought I had put those identity crises past me, here I am; feeling the biggest controversy of my life.

"Mr. Mishra? You're on in about three minutes," my Personal Assistant Jogi tells me.

I crisply nod at him and rub my cold hands together as he walks away. I shouldn't be so nervous. This is my company's annual meet. The people seated in the grand hall waiting for me are, for the lack of a more fun word, my bitches.

Well, except for one. The one who isn't a bitch and who isn't yours.

I groan internally at the voice inside my head I'm always at war with. I wish the voice inside my head were a person so I can kick his ass.

Rolling my eyes at my ridiculous thoughts, I train my vision to the ceiling. My CEO room in the Mishra Co. Building was opulent. Hundreds of square feet of fully furbished expanse with two glass finished walls and a contrasting dark background in the other two walls with the highest security and the comfort only God can buy, the room was complete with the star-studded ceiling. It was grand with chandeliers bragging their shining crystals and lighting that always overwhelmed me with their extravagance.

But today, for some reason, the ceiling reminded me of my father. Papa, are you here? I muse out loud.

This whole room was designed from scratch by him for me. His CEO room is at the other end of the building, now locked in his memory. It felt too personal to use the room of a legend like Neeraj Mishra. But sometimes I can't help but feel that he's here as my father, in this room, right on this ceiling looking down at me. Maybe he's smiling.

I should've sat in this room two years ago. For you, Dad. I would've loved to feel your undying presence.

But it is true how everything happens for a reason, I say as I contradict myself. If I had decided to become the CEO of Mishra Co. two years back, I wouldn't have had this life. I wouldn't have had her.

You still don't have her, you know.

Oh for the love of God, voice-in-my-head!

I stand up from my seat and brush my suit once before walking towards the grand hall where my guests are waiting.

The hall is filled to its maximum. I see suits and ties and formal dresses everywhere as I walk up the partition of the guest seats to the podium in the front. I made meaningless eye contacts and fake pleasantries to some of them - to those who were considered the surface friends. God, that compound word is a shame to the sacred relationship of friendship.

When I'm at the podium, I turn around to face the crowd, and my eyes immediately go to her. I didn't search for her, neither did she send any signals to get attention. And yet, our eyes locked. Magnetic.

She was the only woman in the crowd who adorned a saree. She was the only woman in the crowd who wore a real smile. She was the only woman who I wanted to live my life for.

It's strange how 'I would die for them' has much more than 'I would live for them'. Life isn't about dying. It's about living. And we all know how tough it gets to find reasons to live. And I know, I know it in my bones and the marrow that is stuck in them, that I can live on just for her. I can continue to breathe on just because she's breathing the same air as mine.

For the first time of the day, my inner sarcastic voice in the head doesn't come up with anything. Even he agrees with me.

"Gentlemen and ladies of the evening, I welcome you all on behalf of the Mishra Co., for the Annual Meet 2017. I thank every one of you for your presence. This isn't a company to me. This is my father's life that I'm running on after him and every one of you here has contributed in helping me carry forward the immortality of Neeraj Mishra. For that, I have nothing but eternal gratitude.

"There's this line my father lived by: if your life is a calendar sheet, your success should not be a single round on a date. It should be all the contented crosses that mark every day. Perhaps we all think it's tough to find it in us to cross off all our days as successful, but it's very simple, really. Do not glorify your goal. Make it simple, real and actually useful to boost your life. That's how success comes easily to you.

"Yes, we entered the Top Five Best Insurance Companies in India this year and we showed much better turn over than the last three years combined. But I didn't consider that as my success. My success was, in fact, something very primal."

I smile at all the raised eyebrows at my cliffhanger. I clear my throat as I flash the most genuine smile of the day as I look at her.

"My success for every day was to make her, the love of my life, happy and complacent," I say as I point my hand at her. Her doe eyes widen at my hands and the pairs of eyes that follow them to look at her. She has never liked attention from since I knew her but I really needed to introduce her to everyone in the world. As mine.

"Ladies and gentleman, I introduce to you her as I request her to come up on the stage. Please give a round of applause to the woman of my life; my wife. Hansika Mishra."

My wife, she was, yes. So long that she doesn't know the truth.

***