In many ways, some moments in life are like a moment in the
loo-you feel like peeing, coughing and sneezing at the sneezing at the same
time. Bottom-line: You’ll have to make an awkard choice. And sometimes, the
proverb “Once bitten twice shy” actually doesn’t work when it comes to falling
in love. And the battle in your mind about the feeling in your heart and the
nagging doubt if it’s love or not doesn’t help clear confusions. It’s said that
sneezing actually kills some cells in your brain. It would be of great help if
you could help a sneeze kill some of your memories.
When all these
thoughts were flipping through the head of the twelfth grade kid who was
looking out the window of this class he called “file” (because of the structure
of the class and the rows somehow resembled of the leaves of the file.) his
teacher called out, “Vashi! Daydreaming again?” and about a split second later,
a voice screamed “Dad!” to splash reality on his pleasant reverie. “Why are you
screaming Shiro? It’s a hospital for God’s sake!” said Shiraja Karthik’s dad.
“Appa, the nurse’s calling your name for the fifth time!” Vashigar Karthik
silently stod up to follow his daughter into the consultation room of Dr.Namir
Sridhar smiling very faintly about his lucky number six.
After the pleasantries, Dr. Namir enquiringly said, “So?” looking
at Shiraja. She looked nudgingly at her father who was looking at her curiously
trying to figure out if it was her grandmother’s nose or her grandmother’s nose
or her mother’s nose that she had inherited. By the time his head turned to
talk to the psychiatrist, he had compared the color of Shiro’s eyes with her
mother’s and decided that Lakshmi Chidambaram had the brighter pair of eyes.
“You’ve come here for the third time, Mr.Vashi. You refusing to open up does
not help either of us. You are matured enough to know that your daughter is
really worried about you.” By the end of the statement, all Vashi had done was
comparing Dr.Namir’s bald head with Mr.Chidambaram’s. Mr.Chidambaram had the
same physical features of a bald head and a French beard as Dr.Namir did but
while the latter tried to understand what he was going through, the former did
not give a damn about his daughter Lakshmi’s feelings. The thought infuriated
Vashi so much that he accepted reality to quench the heat in his head. The eyes
were no longer dreamy, the lips no more agape, the teeth no longer visible and
the figure no more shaky. His actions happened so swiftly and sternl;y that the
pupils of Dr.Namir dilated a wee bit before letting a twinkle play for a
fraction of second and then replacing it by focus.
The doctor nodded
encouragingly while the patient leaned forward intently while his daughter’s
unmoving eyes followed his actions intently. He then started unraveling the
past, “I’ll not bore you with how beautifully my love story began and how it
went on to become a success story, almost, till this she-demon called
depression started to possess me” heaving to pause, having silence preside the
room broken only by the rustle of the calendar and the gentle stroking of a pen
against paper. “She was, no is a temptress and mistress built into one save the
difference that she possessed me.” Because I’ve thought of all the reasons
which have bade me come to this and I want to get my condition treated really
quickly, I’ll get on with the symptoms. Well, I think everyone has a weakness
which can be exploited by your dark side and mine was…” hesitated Vashi with
the air of a man who is just about making his mind up. “He’s addicted to
morphine!” said a voice which Vashi wanted to believe was Lakshmi’s but
realized it was his daughter’s. His face suddenly became grave and his heart
lurched with fervent hope when the door opened to reveal Divyarishi, Vashi’s
mother. “You know she’s married Vashi and she’s not going to come out of the
blue to save your back. Sorry for the intrusion doctor, I wanted to come. “said
Divya, as she helped herself to a chair. Vashi wondered what was ruder- the
thud of the door or the sudden dawning of what they called “the truth.”
Acceptance had never been his forte’. He wanted to be many things but he
believed he was a natural actor not only on stage but off it too. Many times
he’d felt on retrospection that his off stage acting was better. He wanted to
appease everyone who mattered to him and therefore twisted facts to appear
within the purview of their goodwill. Sometimes, he cried in silence ruing that
he couldn’t be truthful even to himself. Was he really living in denial like
Shiro pointed out so many times? He was scared, shit scared to face that one
question. He was sure that any answer would drive him nuts. He smiled wryly-he had come here because he was
nuts-well, at least a little. While he looked up his eyes looked moist and his
brain was fighting to put a mattress of smile on the naked sorrow on his face.
And then it started, the confessions, the memories about how they had
fallen in love, all the beautiful moments at the hangouts, how they made love
and how Shiro was a love child, yes, a love child! At this moment, he paused
and the three generations of the family wiped their eyes together. “It was a
shame to all of us-having a child before marriage! I had to accept moral
responsibility-he’s my son first” Divya sobbed, “well, that wasn’t the worst
yet; it was only the beginning. When they decided to elope they should have
bloody well got married. But all this neo modern attitude, is it? And, to top
it all, he still thinks he’s married!” she finished with some bitterness. “In a
way I still am” started Vashi while Shiro shot it down with an “and how is that?” look. Nevertheless he began again,
“When we decided that we were made for each other and lived together for that
one year, we really were married.” “And she left you when Shiro was six months
old!” protested Divya. “That’s because I had…” began a reply and “Bipolar
FUCKING disorder, yeah we know!” Shiro finished it fiercely. The fact that
Shiro had sworn for the first time in twenty three years almost tickled him
while the heat from his mom’s stare belted it out. “Well, both of you do not know
what happened between us during those six long months before Shiro was born
which included losing my job, my virginity and some of my hair in that order.
I’ve not seen in my head what I saw during those moments of hell, I’ve not
cried more loudly than in the bathroom of our tiny apartment in electronics
city and I’ve not felt more dead than I had felt in those six bloody months and
at the end I thought it better to bring this to a close one way or the other.
“It is a sin to commit suicide. You can do no more dead than you can do living”
said my mom. Also, I was too much of a coward to take my life. So all those
twelve days I felt continuously of suicide, which felt like years, I
hyperactively thought of some solution to the turmoil. Well, I never thought it
would come to that but that is what happens when you suddenly realize you’ve
got a brain when all you could feel was a heart, rather two. Then came the
worst part-pushing her away to a safe distance from me. No other girl could
have tolerated what Lakshmi did and I’m grateful to her for half of what I am I
owe it to her. And from the moment I pushed her away one part of me died and I
think it will remain so. But I will live for my mom and Shiro, for they’ve
always been there for me. My mom tolerated being spat upon behind her back by
my family. I now know what disgrace really means. For Shiro,” he continued,
brushing her hair with his hands and kissing her head gently, “I’ll live all my
life for you darling, for all that you endured because of my stupidity. I’ve
stooped so low that I have no low to stoop to,Doctor! Thank you for patiently
bearing with me in all the three sittings.” The three stood up handing the fees
of rupees 500 to the doctor. Vashi remembered Lakshmi’s birthday was on the
fifth but consciously removed it from his head.
At home, the doctor went to the bathroom and cried all his bad
memories down the drain of the wash. He knew his name was not Namir, he
couldn’t confess to Namir and he knew his name started with ‘V’.
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