What do we call this?

Mrs. Sulochana D’souza is 65 years old. Over the years, age has taken a toll on her. She suffers from osteoporosis and has to take medicines to regulate her BP. Yet, there is no trace of all that on her radiant face or in the sound of her laughter. 

I met her at a wedding that I had attended back in December 2013. She was the maternal aunt of the bridegroom who happened to be her favourite nephew. Wearing a stunning white and golden sari, she has adorned herself with gold jewellery that complimented her perfect attire. Talk about some traditional fashion! 

I don’t think I had ever seen an old woman dancing like the way she did! She gave the younger girls a run for their money! She shook her hips, waved her hands in the air, whistled with the crowd and even tried jiving with a young boy! The other guests loved her so much that they formed a circle around her and cheered her on as she danced her heart out. Truly, I felt fascinated at her vigour.

But, when the guests started departing, I found her sitting alone by the table. Upon getting closer to her, I realized that she was staring at the others with sad eyes. There was no mistaking the melancholic expression on her face.

I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t get it. Why was she upset? Just a few minutes ago, she was the life and soul of the party. And here, she looked so desolate.

I approached her and sat next to her. She didn’t even acknowledge me but knew that someone joined her.

“Hey aunty, what happened? Is everything okay?”

“Children,” she said, sounding dazed as if she was lost in sometime gone by, “Children, what has happened to them?” It was then that I realized that she was staring at a couple talking to the bride. 

I followed her gaze and looked at them for quite some time. The woman was dressed beautifully in a Kanjeevaram sari. Her hands were covered in bangles along with an amazing necklace and a mangalsutra that went down to the length of her torso. She was smiling and talking to the bride. But it was her husband who grabbed most of the eyeballs.

He was a short, portly guy, dressed in casuals and had four bodyguards around him. His neck was completely covered in thick gold chains. His fingers had disappeared behind large gold rings. His left hand was firmly grasped around his wife’s right hand.

I really wondered who could this man be and why Sulochana was staring at them. Before I could say anything, she started speaking,

“You see her, that woman, she is my daughter. My husband died when she was just 2 years old. I brought her up alone. I did business and managed to educate her as well, all alone. No one helped me! I did it all by myself!!” She hit herself in the chest repeatedly as she said this. “And look at her today!! Not even acknowledging that I am here! Not even looking at me! Standing there with her loser of a husband”

“What?” I said, surprised, “That’s your daughter!?” I felt bad for her. How difficult it must have been to see her child not talking to her or even looking at her. I wanted to hear more but couldn’t bring myself to it. 

“All this time, I taught her so many things and she throws it all away to marry that gunda (thug)!!!”

Now, the mystery behind the bodyguards was solved. I stared at her husband again. Now, did I realize the meaning of the firm grasp of their hands.

“But, if he is a criminal, then come she ended up with him?” I asked.

“Arrey, beta, I was against the marriage while the whole family supported her decision. After all, who doesn’t want to live like kings? Her own mother became her villain. She left the house, left me alone forever! Married him and hasn’t even spoken to me ever since.

“And it is not like that I crave company,” she choked, tears springing up in her eyes, “The need for it was lost when he left me. I can manage myself very well! Every morning I get up; prepare food, wash my clothes, wash my utensils, clean the house and relax the whole day. It is the silence of the night that gets me!”

She paused. Her voice sounded hoarse. 

“There is no one there to say goodnight to me or to talk to me. My voice echoes in the confines of my home.  I have everything and yet, I have nothing.”

She broke down into tears earnestly. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, wiping the tears running down my face. 

Sulochana is one among the thousands and thousands of people who are living the way she lives now. Despite being rich, she feels like a beggar. Her own daughter, the one reason for her to live her life, is now gone. 

Her daughter threw away her mother’s love unconditional love for someone she fell in love with. She disregarded her mother’s love completely for something she decided was universally correct than her mother. True, we can argue that the daughter did the right thing by following her heart, but who gave her the right to hurt her mother like the way she did? 

What do we call this? Love? Did love for her husband made the daughter distance herself from her mother to the extent that the latter is now completely submerged in depression? Once can argue that even the mother acted selfishly in not accepting her daughter’s lover, but who are we to judge on that? She is the mother after all, she knows better.

Sulochana decided that she couldn’t take it anymore. Bidding me farewell, she walked away and left the hall. I sat there alone, thinking about what she said to me. After sometime, I noticed that the couple were walking out too.

Just when they were near the exit, I caught the daughter turning back and staring at me. Her eyes scanned the table. When she realized the obvious, she turned back and walked out with her husband.

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Preeti Desai and Ram Sharma were friends for a very long time. He met Preeti through some acquaintance at work. They immediately took a liking to each other. 

After several years of friendship, Preeti and Ram became inseparable. They fell in love. Ram loved her very much, despite the fact that Preeti was a divorcee and even had a kid from her failed marriage. They were the best of friends first and lovers later. They shared everything with each other. Ram became a pillar of support for her and her kid. The kid loved him too and had started looking up to him as a father figure.

All was well until…

Ram’s parents had no objection to his budding relationship with Preeti. But when Ram announced his intention to marry her, then all hell broke loose. His parents objected to the kid. Ram’s mother stated that she could expect Preeti as her daughter-in-law but she couldn’t take the taunts of the society over the fact that she allowed her son to marry someone who already had a kid from a previous man. 

Ram was caught in a dilemma. On one hand, he had his parents whom he couldn’t be separated from and on the other; he had Preeti, the love of his life. Choosing one meant the end of the other. He tried his best to make his parents understand, he even brought the kid home. Although his parents loved Preeti and the kid, they couldn’t look over the barriers of society, traditions and casteism.

In the end, it was the couple who had to pay the price for their love.

Ram got married to a woman of his own caste, a match approved by his parents. His wedding celebrations lasted for a week. I had attended his wedding. As I looked at him, sitting on the stage next to his wife, I wondered on what must be going through his mind. He was smiling and posing for pictures with people who came to congratulate on his wedding. I wondered whether Preeti ever crossed his mind.

Unsurprisingly, Preeti was nowhere to be seen at the venue.

A year passed by and I saw them together in a club. Apparently, they were still in touch with each other. Preeti looked happy and cheerful. She smiled and laughed with us. In the club, she danced with us. It was then that I noticed that Ram was sitting alone at the table and looking at Preeti, his face expressionless and there was sadness in his eyes that seemed unfathomable.

This made me wonder: Who was the one suffering here? Was it Preeti who knew that Ram couldn’t be hers, no matter how hard she tried? Or was it Ram, who longed for her, for his life?

On a personal level, I felt more sympathy for Preeti. Partly because I could imagine myself in her place and thought how cruel it must have been for her and partly because of her acceptance of Ram’s situation.

Later, at a private party of a friend of Ram’s, Preeti burst out. She was intoxicated completely. She blamed Ram for everything that happened and declared that she would never ever forgive him for leaving her out in the cold like that! She stated on how she felt betrayed by him and how he broke her heart by marrying someone else. She said that she would never forgive him.

The night and we bore witness to her wailing. A couple of her friends took her to the bathroom while Ram slumped back on the sofa, speechless and staring at the floor.

I overheard a couple of men talking.

“You know I have never ever seen a person ever, in love, so much!”

 What do we call this? Love? What kind of love would inflict so much pain and suffering on both Preeti and Ram? Love was killing them softly, every day, every minute. The fact that they couldn’t be together, even when they were together, was like a dagger slowly moving to their hearts and killing them. 

Love wasn’t bringing them together; they were suffering because of it.

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Charles and Rahul were madly in love with each other. Charles came out of the closet for Rahul and openly declared his love for Rahul in front of the whole world. While Charles’s sexuality went down well with his friends and his folks, the same was not accepted by Rahul’s mother.

She often called up Charles and threatened to have him thrown behind bars for ‘brainwashing’ her son. She felt that Charles was the reason why her son was becoming more ‘hanky-panky’ types.

This even went to the point of her storming his workplace and crying out loud in front of all his colleagues about his sexuality. Charles had to resign from his job, had to bear the brunt of being called a ‘villain’ and a ‘defiler’.

Yet, there was nothing that would take him away or stop him from loving his beloved Rahul.

Their love for each other gave them strength – to withstand discrimination and stigma. The more his mother persecuted them, the more they came closer. It was their love for each other that made them lodge a complaint against his mother with the Humsafar trust. 

The situation cooled down and all was fine in paradise. 

  

Until, the day when the truth came to light…

The day when Charles realized how deep he had fallen in this trap.

A friend of Charles broke the news to him that Rahul was cheating on him. Although, sceptical at first to accept the friend’s allegations, Charles realized how mad he was to have given his heart to someone who would abuse him.

He discovered that Rahul regularly met different guys from an Internet dating site and went to meet them. Not only he met them, he even had physical relationships with a couple of them.

The discovery of this fact destroyed Charles. He felt the ground slip from under his feet. He didn’t want to believe it and yet, he couldn’t ignore the evidence at hand. He thought Rahul was his everything. He intended to spend his life with Rahul and was working on financial backing for the both of them to settle abroad. 

All this wasted. All the dreams shattered. 

He confronted Rahul who eventually accepted the truth. He started apologizing to Charles and promised to change his ways, but all for its worth, his apologies fell on deaf ears. Charles decided to move on; taking a vow that never ever would he get into a relationship with anyone again.

What do we call this? Love? Was it right on Rahul’s part to abuse Charles’s undying love for him? Who gave him the right to play with Charles’s feelings? He broke his heart, his faith in love and betrayed him in the worst possible way that a person ever could be betrayed. 

Charles has moved on with a broken heart and a faithless spirit. 

These people, Sulochana, Preeti and Charles, are people like you and me. The only thing that they have in common is the pain they are going through in the name of love. Sulochana feels helpless, Preeti feels hopelessness while Charles feels emotionless.

Love destroyed three completely fine individuals. 

Now, they are just waiting for time to take away their sorrows. But could they be alright again? Your guess is as good as mine. 

Time will heal away their wounds, but their scars will keep them reminding of their horrid past.

Being Lonely. Artwork by Tony D'souza

I still love you, that’s a fact. But a million apologies will not bring me back.