“You must have really hated me when I was a child.” Vishakha simply asked her mother Kaushini.
Kaushini was shocked. “What kind of question is that? What are you trying to imply?” her shock was slowly turning into a mixture of anger and hurt – a queer feeling that she feels quite often these days.
Vishakha was silent. Her heart was beating faster than usual and her stomach was churning. She felt numb. All the pain that she felt for the 35 years of her life and existence suddenly swelled up within her entire body. She didn’t know how to control it. She didn’t want to control it. It was time to face the truth.
Slowly she looked at her mother. “Ma, there are so many instances throughout my childhood where your actions towards me showed that you could not even tolerate me those days. You never hugged me when I was a kid or growing up; you were continuously irritated at me; you never said anything good about me ever. I grew up thinking I am the most ugly, useless girl. You called me heartless. You even once said a dog would have been better than me for you.”
She had to stop. She was already chocking up which she hated; because she didn’t want to show to her mother that all these things still matter in her life even after 35 years. Vishakha fought her tears, hold them tight in her eyes and swallowed her cry – a trick she has mastered through her growing up days when every single night she cried silently without
any noise until she slept off tired with her own pain and existence.
“Ma, do you remember I used to have such breathing problems when I was growing up? It was so bad that you had to stop my dance classes for a while. You know, Ma, during those attacks when I couldn’t breathe it was also a panic attack for me. I had to concentrate so hard to breathe and any noise would feel like destroying my effort to do so. I had to try and try and try and then on the 6th or 7th or 12th attempt I could catch that precious little air and breathe. During one of those desperate life and death situations for me, from which everyone else in the house stayed oblivious, and I was at the last end of trying, I shouted at bhai to stop talking because it was distracting me; and you came rushing from the next room and shouted at me “If you are having breathing problem, you expect everyone else to stop
doing what they are doing? Get real!” and with that you left the room. And I again put that blame on my breathing problem and thereby disturbing others, on me – like everything else I knew I was to blame for.”
Vishakha’s voice trailed off to those lonely days of insufferable pain and agony…
Kaushini was furious. “You are making me a monster! I certainly don’t remember any such incident happening! These are all your imaginations. Now stop it.” she retorted.
Vishakha smiled. She had expected her mother to behave exactly like this. This is the way she has always behaved and made it feel to Vishakha that everything was her fault or her imagination. She still wakes up with nightmares crying which has her mother angrily discarding her for something she has done unknowingly or being punished by her mother with her angry devastating words that always pierces her heart and soul.
“Ma, why did you leave me with your parents when I was born and never took me back until I was 18months old? I was born a sick child, right? I was born underweight – since you were terribly ill during your pregnancy. Then how could you live without me next to you after I was born? Were you not concerned about me? Did you not care?”
Kaushini was silent. Her anger was slowly changing into indifference with age old thoughts of life lost. She was a superstar in whatever she did in her school and college. She was a radio artist, an award winning elocutionist, first female leader of the student’s political division of the ruling party. She was beautiful and smart – the world was at her feet. Men of all ages were always competing to woo her, and she brushed them off like flies. She was someone and she was special. She had so much dreams and ambition for her life, for her future. She was almost giddy with the thoughts of possibilities and opportunities. She could have been a world famous singer or the fiercest political leader. Or she could have been the queen of a kingdom with subjects worshipping her like a Goddess!
But – all that happened was that she got married. To the wrong person. To the wrong family. To the wrong world. And her life turned completely upside down. All her dreams shattered. All potential lost.
“I ended up becoming just a cook and a maid for my husband.” She sighed. “And then I was bloody pregnant!” Her face turned red with anger again with that thought. That pregnancy was like the last straw of disappointment and obstacle for her to get out of that morbid life that her parents had forced her to accept. “I could have been someone else if….” her thought was broken by her daughter’s voice…
“Ma, do you remember that car accident after which I had the miscarriage and my marriage was over? I was sitting with you at our home feeling destroyed and devastated. I needed someone to hold me and tell me not to worry and that everything would be alright. I needed someone to get my faith back to live.
And you told me a story. You told me how pathetic your marriage was, how you and dad fought every day hating each other and how after one and half years of struggle both of you had decided to call it quits and seek divorce. And then you found you are pregnant. And you were so mad. You knew that now your parents would not allow you to get divorced and get the life you want. And even with a divorce but with a child, it would never be the way you wanted your life to shape up. So, you tried everything that you knew to induce a miscarriage. To abort your pregnancy with all kinds of reckless behavior so that it looks natural and no one can blame you. But you were unsuccessful, sadly.”
Vishakha looked at her mother and continued, “And I was born. Ma, why did you tell me this story on that day? That day all I needed from you was an embrace of love to take me through my life. And all I got from you was the story that why I shouldn’t have existed in the first place.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks and Vishakha didn’t bother to stop them. She was cleansing her heart. “Ma, now I know why you hated me so much.” She smiled with her tears spilling over.
At last she could cut the old rotten stinking umbilical chord and even though it has taken her 35 years to do so, she was happy that she has many more years to look forward to – unattached and mended.
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My first try at writing a story. Hope you like it. Please send me your comments. And Thank you for reading it.:)
