Chapter-2 | My Dearest Aazaad

What will be the state of your mind if a day before your marriage, you receive a text from your fiancé saying: ‘Ayush, I am sorry. I don’t want to marry you. I can’t say no to this wedding even if I want to, I wanted to tell you everything before our engagement but I couldn’t because my parents forced me to marry you, Ayush. Please help me. Please. Only you can stop this marriage from happening.’ Shocked? It’s a natural reflex, isn’t it? But as for me, I was more than shocked, I was dreaded by the ghosts of my dreams for this wedding.

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A sudden rush of blood was making my heart pump harder. Every thought, every dream of mine was swooning back and forth inside my head, I couldn’t understand how to handle all of it. What should I do? What will I tell everyone? Everyone has arrived at our house for the sake of my marriage and my marriage, it probably isn’t even going to happen. My brain was frozen and the pace of my heartbeats were slowing down. Thump-thump! Every single beat was clearly audible in my ears. It’s difficult to explain, it was like everything was happening in slow motion. As I closed my eyes, all I saw was my dreams being shattered into millions of pieces which could no longer be mended even if I tried to stick them together with the strongest of the glue. There was a huge weight on my shoulders that I couldn’t share because sharing it meant crushing everyone’s happiness just like she crushed mine. The huge rock that I placed on my heart to not feel the pain was making me unable to breathe, it was stifling me. I thought I’d die.

I was delusional, I should have always known that dreams seen from open eyes are only lies. She was a beautiful woman and it was obviously a dream because she said yes to marry someone like me. I should have known but even if I had, I know I wouldn’t have accepted it.

My heart that used to race just by looking at her name on my phone suddenly stopped beating when I read her text, I thought everything was over. A few minutes ago, I was happy I wanted to marry her make her mine, I had all the plans and our desires sorted and then she just texted me that she didn’t want to marry me and that I should be the one to tell everyone that it was my decision to call off this wedding. Lie! I wanted to marry her. I desperately wanted to; I desperately wanted to marry her and love her till we would get old. I loved her with all my heart, the heart she broke in an instant with a text message.

‘Bhaiyu! What are you doing here alone? Are you talking to bhabi? Oh man! It’s just one day left for you both to get married. Once you’ll get married you won’t even get the time to enjoy, you’ll get stuck in all these family things and rituals and whatnot. Everything will start suffocating you, I am telling you Bhaiyu I’ve experienced all these things. This is the only time you can enjoy your freedom.’

Raman kept speaking and the sand below my feet kept slipping from the ground burying me deeper and deeper amidst the darkness and loneliness of the world that exists below the surface. 

Suffocation, he said, suffocation was exactly what I was feeling.

‘Bhaiyu once you’ll get married you won’t get this chance. I understand that you don’t talk much and is boring most of the times but come on, this is your only chance to live. Enjoy with everyone, we are here for you. To celebrate with you. Be free bhaiyu and fly. Just like me.’ Raman spread his hands and started fluttering them to make me laugh but I just couldn’t, maybe the reason behind my straight face was the pressure of telling everyone about everything or maybe it wasn’t, maybe Raman was right, I was boring. I was a boring guy with no fun in life maybe that was the reason why Radhika didn’t want to marry me. I was a loser.

I was locked up in the bathroom, crying, because I was scared. I never said no to anything that my parents had asked me to do but because of Radhika, I had to say no to my parents for something I really wanted to do. I kept looking at the mirror on the wall, I had to splatter the water on my face every time there was a tear in my eyes, my mother always said, ‘Good boys don’t cry’. Then how could I? But I knew I couldn’t hide everything from everyone, sooner or later, everyone was going to find out about everything anyway. I had to gather my strength and tell the truth I wish I could lie but there was no lie that could make the situation any better. There was no lie that could save my parents from feeling disappointed and me from being hurt. I couldn’t escape, I just couldn’t so I decided to face everyone and tell the truth about the whole situation.

As I was walking towards the living room, I could hear the laughter of my cousins, mocking each other and discussing who was most likely to get married after me. In another room came the voices of all my aunts, showing off their wardrobes and jewelry. Five more steps and I reached my destination, the living room where my parents were sitting with my oldest cousin, Rahul, who was almost like a father figure to me. He was my role model.

‘I am so happy Ayush is finally getting married. I was always scared that we won’t be able to find the right girl for her. He always stays so quiet, he never speaks up against us. He respects us more than anyone and I just really wanted him to be happy because I know there are things that bother him but he can’t tell us about them. I am so happy he is marrying Radhika.’ My mother said.

‘I too am glad that he is happy. He doesn’t smile a lot, neither does he speak much but in the past two months, he really has changed a lot. His smile is brighter than ever, he laughs often. I am so glad my son is finally going to be happy for “real” and not just to show us. I wish he will always stay happy like this.’

Suffocation; the air around me turned to smoke of expectations and it was suffocating me. Slowly, it filled my chest I couldn’t breathe. I was frozen, I couldn’t move my feet even if I wanted to. I was standing there like a statue. I tried to say that it was all a lie and that I could no longer be happy now but I couldn’t. I had no voice in my mouth, somewhere, I was glad that I didn’t. I couldn’t tell my parents, I couldn’t steal my parents’ happiness. But my conciseness kept asking me the same question, ‘Will not speaking, make things better?’ Not speaking was not a solution but how could I tell them all that? How could I say something like that? How could I tell everyone who came to celebrate my wedding that this wedding was just a prank that my life played on me? That the girl I loved and thought I will be spending all my life with, suddenly realized that she can’t marry me, as a matter of fact, she never wanted to marry me. Then what was all that we did together? Going out on dates, holding hands, planning future, was all of it a joke to her? She told me she wanted to stay with me then what happened now? Was it all just a big con to steal the little happiness that was left in me?

I didn’t even realize when my knees felt so weak, rejecting to carry the burden I was forcing myself to bear alone all this time. The only thing I knew was that I was staring at the clear liquid droplets shining on the floor between my shivering hands. I couldn’t feel the cold floor, the warmth of my tears or the hands of my mother which were shrugging me and her lips mouthing the words I only understood several minutes later of her asking the same question, ‘Are you alright?’, ‘No, I am not, mom. I am just not fine.’ It was all that I wanted to answer and hug her as tight as I could so I would stop feeling the pain. I wanted to cry my heart out but I couldn’t move; I couldn’t feel my legs or see clearly, I was right there but I couldn’t even hear them all. The only thing I could feel was the pain in my chest.

By that time I already knew, it was impossible to mend the torn pieces of my heart to make it a whole again. I knew I couldn’t possibly fall in love again either. I even promised myself that I would never believe another girl. That they all just lie and play with you till the time they are winning but when the game starts to give them challenges that are difficult for them to accomplish, they just shut that game off because to them it’s that simple. It was that simple for her too. I was just a game she enjoyed all this time and now was bored of. I wanted to believe that every girl was like that and I wanted to force myself to never fall in love with anyone else but then Aazaad came into my life. And for everything I believed in, she shattered every wall I created to protect myself from her or anyone as a matter of fact. But she wasn’t different either or maybe she was. Now that I look at it, they all enjoyed toying with me until I started expecting their sincere affection for the toy. ‘The difference between a human and a toy is the existence of the heart, the warmth of the skin. The feeling of love and affection’- I can only laugh at myself when I think about Aazaad’s words. How come I still like her?

The marriage called off. Eventually, everyone found out that it wasn’t going to happen anymore since the bride ran off with her boyfriend because her going to be husband didn’t help her in breaking the wedding she had to do.

‘How can you be so selfish?’ was Radhika's last text message to me.

Was I being selfish? Or was she the selfish one that she didn’t even realize what she did to me, my family and in fact her own family too. Her parents couldn’t even look at me in the eyes and whose fault was it? Was it mine for not calling it off and making her run from the wedding or was it her parent’s fault for making her get married to someone they believed she will stay happy with? It was her fault, all of it was. From making all of us believe in her lies to making me feel that I too could be happy without fearing people’s judgment or asking my parents’ permission. What do I do with those feelings of happiness now? What will I laugh at? Myself?

I spent enormous nights hiding my tears from my family. They did enormous efforts in bringing back the smile on my face. We all tried to act our best to behave like we have forgotten everything and we were alright but every conversation of us with our relatives always ended up with them discussing ‘that Radhika was such a wicked girl. She made her parents feel so ashamed too. Poor Ayush, I feel so bad for him.’

Somewhere in all those words, I started finding comfort. She was bad, wasn’t she? Didn’t she deserve it? Then why should I feel bad for her? I wasn’t going to, I never will. Because she deserved it. Yes, she did.

Seeing that I was probably never going to move on from all this, my parents decided to send me away from the city. Away from the people, their painful words, their concern coated taunts. They wanted to make me forget about her and have a new life. And like it’s said, to start a new journey we have to accept the mistakes we have made in the last one as a precaution to the next and so I accepted my mistake in full sanity and no guilt- ‘Yes, I did a mistake of falling in love with Radhika I accept and now it is time for me to finally move on.’ Move on and walk to my second mistake, going to Gurgaon. Leaving my hometown, my parents and moving to Gurgaon- a so-called big city which was different from my hometown Bareilly in every aspect. I was frightened, the feeling I never experienced to the fullest ever in my life, suddenly took over me. I was frightened to be embarrassed. I didn’t know what I was embarrassed about, I just was. I guess it’s like one of those things you read in stories about- you never really know it, till you experience it.

I was ashamed thinking that there was a huge possibility of me making a fool out of myself because I didn’t know the "how to" and "what to" on my own. Being a person who did everything according to a pre-planned map that was handed to him by his parents, I soon realized that this incident messed up even the smallest things in my life. It shredded the map with its sharp teeth into useless pieces of paper which I couldn’t use anymore.

I was finally started to get a little happy, I was finally ready to paint another picture, this time by my own hands. I wanted to draw it as beautifully as I could but I was missing the colors to fill it with, from the very beginning. It was just like my childhood but this time I had hope that all these resurrected feelings would fill up this picture just fine but then these colors too were taken away from me.

Maybe I was never meant to really feel happy in the first place. I was supposed to be this way, broken. Or maybe it was all a punishment because I was being greedy to wish for a happy life so this time I promised to God- I won’t dream anymore ever, just let me have a normal life. Take these memories away from me. I don’t want to dream, wish or expect. I just want to fake a smile without feeling empty inside. I am only wishing for this, just this.

It was all so new to me, suddenly caring about some person then after that person is gone, acting like I don’t feel anything that I was never hurt but knowing that I truly was, was a burden I did not want to bear. Wasn’t all that something I always did? Lied about my feelings to my parents, to me, to the world. Then what was so different this time? I couldn’t think straight, I asked myself the same question every single day, every single moment but why couldn’t I ever find an answer? I really thought that it will all come naturally to me but her face, the way she smiled, the way she laughed never got out of my mind or maybe it was my heart that kept reminding me that it was the first time I fell in love and I got hurt.

My mother’s words always made me hide my face under the blanket every night when I cried, her good boy wasn’t supposed to cry no matter how hurt he was. And so, I always made sure the pillow covers weren’t getting wet by my tears. How could I cry? How can a guy cry? Sometimes I feel it’s so unfair. That my mother is so unfair to me, why is it okay for her to cry and not for me? A look at my face when someone asked her to find another girl for me, made her eyes brink with tears but I who was there hearing everything, couldn’t even show that I was sad. Because if I did, she’d cry more. But what about my pain?

Continue reading Chapter-3→

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