How I lost everything, and in turn gained everything
She looked up.
There was no sky above her, only a stationary fan. She was covered in sweat, and her eyes were full of tears, she didn't know where she was.
She looked around. She had a basket full of waste papers, crumpled in a small heap. She exhaled, and let out a deep sigh. She was so close to her target, her goal of life. Her moment of reckoning, the end of starvation and catharsis at last.
A knock.
She heard a knock on her door and some muffled voices. She drowned the voices. She started singing, and a rainbow of colors blew up on her face. The room sprung up with life, with vigor and infinite possibilities but soon turned back to how it was initially. Someone passed a plate of food under the gate of her room.
Surprisingly, the food was very good everyday, considering she had expected everyone to have conveniently forgotten her by now. But evidently everyone loved her.
Moreover, she had turned out to be a celebrity in India, considering what she had done, how she had reacted to the circumstances around her, what she was doing right now,no one knew. There were speculations, there was a media circus trying to snoop in every possible chance it had, there were people predicting if she was dead or alive. No one knew for sure.
Except for her.
She was now only a blank reflection of her past, thin, bones poked out of her frail build. It had been 12 months and somewhere she knew today to be the day of her baptism.
She dragged the broken chair towards her, and the limply broken armrest fell off. Well settled and in peace as soon as she closed her eyes, she heard a deep voice, cracking under the influence of life leaving the body, saying, "You have to do some thing for us all kid. You can't let my name die and turn to dust." The voice had the same ego and self importance every time she listened to it.
The voice continued, " Promise me, you will do something. Promise me you will not let our family dissolve into oblivion. Your mother is handicapped, your brother is long dead, you will be half dead when I will be gone. What will you do then?"
The voice disappeared.
She switched on the lights in her room for it had for long been a movie theatre, and she was the actor, director and the viewer. The gloom had started to dissipate a bit, for she had started to lose her grip on the darkness, for she had poured it all in the pages of her life. The waste basket was staring ominously at her, but she knew that it was only the bad memories which were staring at her.
Mustering up all her courage, she looked up to the table in front. There were pages lying on it stacked in form of a heap. Many pages. 453 to be precise. The first page had the title, "How I lost everything, and in turn gained everything", and on the second, a dedication to her father, who had died a proud, but honest man, a construction worker who snapped his neck and died, a father who had lots of hopes inside.
The dead lock had been broken.
She stood up, and moved towards the door, her feet stuck firmly to the floor. The gravity of the event was getting to her, the prospect of seeing her mother after 12 months was overwhelming to her and she was feeling smothered under all the pressure. Slowly, she opened the door with the pages in her hand. She knew there would be millions of publishing houses waiting to welcome her. After all, everyone wanted to know what had went through her mind through all these times, in this period of isolation.
Her family was standing outside to greet her, snapping cameras, bright flashes, and a strange look of wonder of everyone's faces meant that she was already a celebrity.
She had tortured her family, but she knew she'd made her father proud,
And that was all that had mattered to her, all her life.
There was no sky above her, only a stationary fan. She was covered in sweat, and her eyes were full of tears, she didn't know where she was.
She looked around. She had a basket full of waste papers, crumpled in a small heap. She exhaled, and let out a deep sigh. She was so close to her target, her goal of life. Her moment of reckoning, the end of starvation and catharsis at last.
A knock.
She heard a knock on her door and some muffled voices. She drowned the voices. She started singing, and a rainbow of colors blew up on her face. The room sprung up with life, with vigor and infinite possibilities but soon turned back to how it was initially. Someone passed a plate of food under the gate of her room.
Surprisingly, the food was very good everyday, considering she had expected everyone to have conveniently forgotten her by now. But evidently everyone loved her.
Moreover, she had turned out to be a celebrity in India, considering what she had done, how she had reacted to the circumstances around her, what she was doing right now,no one knew. There were speculations, there was a media circus trying to snoop in every possible chance it had, there were people predicting if she was dead or alive. No one knew for sure.
Except for her.
She was now only a blank reflection of her past, thin, bones poked out of her frail build. It had been 12 months and somewhere she knew today to be the day of her baptism.
She dragged the broken chair towards her, and the limply broken armrest fell off. Well settled and in peace as soon as she closed her eyes, she heard a deep voice, cracking under the influence of life leaving the body, saying, "You have to do some thing for us all kid. You can't let my name die and turn to dust." The voice had the same ego and self importance every time she listened to it.
The voice continued, " Promise me, you will do something. Promise me you will not let our family dissolve into oblivion. Your mother is handicapped, your brother is long dead, you will be half dead when I will be gone. What will you do then?"
The voice disappeared.
She switched on the lights in her room for it had for long been a movie theatre, and she was the actor, director and the viewer. The gloom had started to dissipate a bit, for she had started to lose her grip on the darkness, for she had poured it all in the pages of her life. The waste basket was staring ominously at her, but she knew that it was only the bad memories which were staring at her.
Mustering up all her courage, she looked up to the table in front. There were pages lying on it stacked in form of a heap. Many pages. 453 to be precise. The first page had the title, "How I lost everything, and in turn gained everything", and on the second, a dedication to her father, who had died a proud, but honest man, a construction worker who snapped his neck and died, a father who had lots of hopes inside.
The dead lock had been broken.
She stood up, and moved towards the door, her feet stuck firmly to the floor. The gravity of the event was getting to her, the prospect of seeing her mother after 12 months was overwhelming to her and she was feeling smothered under all the pressure. Slowly, she opened the door with the pages in her hand. She knew there would be millions of publishing houses waiting to welcome her. After all, everyone wanted to know what had went through her mind through all these times, in this period of isolation.
Her family was standing outside to greet her, snapping cameras, bright flashes, and a strange look of wonder of everyone's faces meant that she was already a celebrity.
She had tortured her family, but she knew she'd made her father proud,
And that was all that had mattered to her, all her life.
Comments
Post a Comment