Neeti's life

 

Life is a journey. In the end all of us die so the end can't be something to look forward to; it's the journey that matters. It's the journey that teaches us how to learn, how to grow, how to heal, how to love; it's the journey that makes us who we are. But in the journey of life, we often find that we are mere passengers. We can open a window for fresh air, we can try to reason with the driver about what turn to take, but many times we find ourselves on paths that we never chose. As passengers there is only so much we can do. As passengers we accept the situation and adjust.

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Monsoon bhuttas on the highway...

 

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Neeti:

 The Sanwer road looks so different today. Plain, barren and cold. In the monsoon it was green, glistening and full of life. We had come here to have the famous Sanwer bhutta. Even though I have been living in Indore for almost seven years, I had never gone to Sanwer before. Raj and I were standing by one of the makeshift stalls, overseeing the vendor as he roasted the local variety of corn on the cob for us. The vendor looked up at the overcast sky as he fanned the embers in the small black sigdi on his wooden cart. The fragrance of the corn was mixed with that of the soil. The indication of the approaching rain did not deter us from waiting for the bhuttas to be roasted to perfection. Soon it started to pour and Raj rushed back to the driver seat with one bhutta in each hand.

"Bhabhi, come quickly!" He urged me to follow suit.

As I approached the car with the rest of the wares, Ronit slipped to the middle of the back-seat to give me room. I was wet, it was windy, but I felt warm. We were five full-grown adults in a small hatchback but I could feel only Ronit's presence. His legs brushing against mine, the fragrance of his cologne overpowering my senses. He laughed at Raj's jokes and fussed over how Amma was eating her bhutta. My presence went unnoticed. 

 

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Neeti's insecurity

There are a lot of people to help with things around the house. Nevertheless, there is still a lot that needs to be done in a big household with in-laws. But this work between home and school keeps me busy and keeps my mind focused. It doesn’t give me enough time to sit around and feel sorry for myself. Also, this effort is nothing compared to the depressing vibe of living with Maa. The Maa without Papa, that is. I am not as strong as Bhaiyya. I don’t know how he tunes out Maa’s rantings and mood swings. Whether she screams in the middle of the night or breaks all the glasses in the kitchen on a whim or decides to hack down all the plants in the garden one day, he seems to just be able to hold it together and not be affected by it. Whether she is diagnosed with depression or intermittent explosive disorder, my brother is stuck with my mother. Even though my mother has gotten better over the years, I don’t think she will ever go back to being the person she was when my father was alive. I already feel bad for my future bhabhi. If I can’t handle my own mother like this, how will she handle a mother-in-law like that? Maybe that is one of the reasons why Bhaiyya isn’t married yet. How can he marry someone and subject them to Maa? In fact, if Ronit knew the real me, he would probably not want to be married to me either. Divorce, no matter how uncommon, is not completely unheard of. But it’s best not to dwell on that today.

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Ronit's heartache

 

She was perfect but my life wasn’t. And that was it. That’s where it ended. My love story with the woman of my dreams. It ended because she could not be the daughter-in-law that my family was looking for. And that day I realized that if the woman that I loved could not be my parents’ daughter-in-law, then some day my parents might insist upon a daughter-in-law that I could never love. By choosing to support my family in a time of need, I may have bid farewell to love forever. The romantic kind of love. The kind of love that makes your life magical. 

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Neeti's nightmare

 I see myself walking on a wide never ending road. A road that is straight and even and comfortable to walk on. As I walk blissfully wearing a colourful dress that blows gently in the wind I can feel the joy in my heart reflected in the twilight sky above me. A sky that is a beautiful canvas of pink, yellow, and blue. A sky that fills my heart with hope of endless possibilities. Suddenly, a divine switch flips. A switch that turns off my beautiful sky into a blank black screen, a screen on which lightning strikes at the horizon, a lightning that fills my heart with dread, a sense if dread that is mirrored in a gale that ruffles my wavy shoulder-length hair and tangles it into a maddening mess that I absolutely fail to manage. In the madness of the moment I notice the clouds, the dark clouds that spit out a moon, a moon that illuminates the tall and muscular frame of my brother walking silently beside me. He is not looking at me though, my brother. He is looking resolutely at the horizon as he forges ahead. His presence reassures me, a ray of hope in the endless darkness. I try to grab his arm but the moment I reach out to him, he flickers like a hologram. I try to call out to him but no matter how hard I scream, he does not register my presence. He is walking faster now, moving away from me. I try desperately to catch up to him but no matter how fast I will them to go, my legs refuse to run. The clouds engulf the moon leaving me in utter darkness and despair. Suddenly, I fall into a bottomless pit.

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