The Beautiful Broken

Vignettes again

Now that Asfand looked back at the past, he realized theirs had been a choppy relationship. There had been an awareness, certainly from his side, and maybe Zubiya had felt it too. But Zubiya was so used to stamping out all her emotions that it was hard to know whether it even reached her awareness. Several times when he felt she was disinterested in him personally, he would just blow his top off with her on some professional pretext, hoping to make her react. Which she never would- always the calm indifference in place. That had become a pattern, him getting angry, she retreating further in to her own self and then the long wait for the relationship to come back to an even keel. Of course he hadn't realized how insecure he was until the morning he found her talking and smiling with Dr H, jealousy had been like a knife stuck in his heart. He had felt completely out of control and for almost the first time in his life he felt so inadequate over a girl. It was then he had decided that it was impossible to exist in this limbo and that he had to know one way or the other if this was going the right way. The truth was, he realized, he envied the easy camaraderie she had with Dr H and hated being ignored disinterestedly by her. He wanted to matter to her. And the completely crazy thing was that it was only when he changed his tactic from misbehaviour to concern, did he realize she was not immune to him. She had learnt to handle his misbehaviour with disinterested acceptance but could not handle his sudden care and attention and gave away more of her emotions, than she intended.

But if A had thought that the way was smooth after this, he was proved wrong time and again. The enormous secrets and guilts she carried in herself were huge roadblocks. It was as if underneath the quiet and reserved front she presented to the world, there was an ongoing storm, which threatened to overwhelm her. The only way she had found to deal with the burdens of her past was to completely cut herself off from her internal struggle and emotions.

Of course, marriage and the intimacy had changed many things, but he knew that there were still spaces in her life she did not completely allow him entry. He understood that the traumas of her past, were likely to rear their ugly heads some time or the other.

Just before his marriage, he had a conversation with his mother, who perceived far more than he actually told them about his relationship with Zubi. She had said

" All marriages require hard work son. In some marriages, the hard work occurs before the marriage itself, but in yours, son, despite the love both of you have for each other, there will still be times you may have to work hard at your marriage and sometimes you might feel that you are the only one working at it.

He had understood what she was implying, because he himself felt that too. There were still unresolved issues that Zubi had, which she kept locked up inside herself. But despite these sobering thoughts, he knew there was no other life he wanted except with her. As she did. Despite their different temperaments and the enormous gulf created by Zubiya's fears. They both felt that, knew that.