A Life Of Lies | ✔

10 - Part 3

June 28, 2017

Drugs. The only thing in Anirudh's life he had let control him. He was only a smoker at first. Just regular filter cigarettes, the ones he found a way into after his father died. It was mainly because he felt sad and he didn't like feeling sad. It's a weak emotion. And Anirudh doesn't do weak.

It was the main reason why he let drugs take over him. That bloody cook bitch Rekha. She found out that Hansika and him were being sexually active a week after they first 'made love' and she told his mother. She decided it wasn't good for them and the family's name would also be spoiled this way. So, she paid for Hansika's transfer into the medical college's hostel.

It had been seven years. Of course, she came home during vacation or any long holidays. All those days she did come back home, she spent the days at his room. No one dared ask anything. Even her own father.

Her father. Neeraj Chaturvedi.

Anirudh quite liked the misery on his face when he kissed his daughter in front of him. So helpless, so disheartened. Hansika didn't seem to like the way he treated her father, but he always consoled her with his sweet kisses. She was a sucker for them, he thought.

God, he missed her. He missed her so much. Seven years of no breakfast wake-ups, no evening make outs, no smile-on-her-face moments. He could only resort to drugs. It started with joints, then some crack. Moved to pills, and then his friends found him some syringes. He floated above the sky in a world where Hansika wasn't on the ground near him. It was his way of life.

At first, he thought the misery would be over once she finished her degree. And it temporarily did. She was home for six months. Just six. And then she went again. This time, to do her specialization. Pediatrics, she said. Bullshit, he thought.

Of course, his MBA was over by then. He 'took over' the company. But to this date, he never actually went to that awful place and sat on the chair for one whole day. Just a few good hours, and he left. A mundane, 9 to 5 job, even if he was the boss of it, did not excite him. He only took the job to have the money flowing. He can't be poor. It's worse than being sad.

Years passed by, and she finished her specialization too. Anirudh had a field day at her graduation. His patience could only be dragged so much. And God forbid, the hostels were too strict, not letting him sneak in. Not anymore, though. He was going to have her all to him.

He was going to marry her.

Only, she didn't plan on it. She came back for one week. Let him have his way with her body for seven whole days, over and over. And then she left. Without even a proper bye or reason this time. When he asked his mother, she simply told him that she had this medical camp to attend. Something about doing a government service. And she didn't even know the place where her camp was.

This game she was playing was too hard for him to follow. He was growing too old for it, too. The final key to drop out of the piano was this: Meenal bringing home some prospects. For his marriage. She told him that Hansika was a good girl, and she wouldn't mind having her married to him, but it was Hansika who didn't want to. She had other goals, other dreams.

"It's better if you start letting go of her now, Anirudh," Meenal cupped his son's face and told him.

That was the last he was seen at home. He took his clothes, his credit card, and his stash of chillum. A few months back when he went to the Pune beach with his friends, he found this old, abandoned lighthouse. It was pretty good, stairs pretty stable and the power still working inside. The big lights didn't work, so it made sense why it was abandoned. But Anirudh had a liking to it. A strange liking. Then again, Anirudh's likings were seldom normal. Strange was his middle name, he'd say.