Love & Hate

PC: Elitedaily.com

Silence woke her. As she laid on the floor, saliva drooping from her mouth, she realized it had gotten darker. She must have passed out for an hour or so. She sub-consciously touched her forehead. There was no blood this time but she knew it would bruise. The glass had hit her pretty hard, after all. Hits, Bruises and cover-ups were just another day in this household.

As she got bearings of the time and place, she started to look around. Few yards away in the next room, she saw a heap of limbs passed out on the floor. Upon closer inspection, she could smell the concoction of alcohol, vomit and sweat. The view was jarring but she wasn't repulsed. The emotion that overcame her was pity. Pity at the man who was her husband. Pity at the man she once loved.

As she looked back, she didn't know where exactly she she went wrong with her life. Born to a privileged family, she was smart and beautiful. No wonder, she had caught an athlete's eye. He was pretty good-looking and she liked how his eyes twinkled when he talked about Tennis. This was a man who loved his career more than anything in his life. That should've been a red flag, if any. But how could she blame someone for being passionate about their work? Things clicked and they'd gotten married 2 years after they first started seeing each other. They were in love and beyond happy. In Retrospect, she should've seen it coming because when was life ever fair? One night, while returning from a cocktail party together, they'd gotten into a car accident. Having to lose one thing that he loved the most, he was never the same again.
He was never much of a drinker before but that had quickly changed. Whiskey for breakfast, 10 cans of beer before noon was becoming the norm so soon, she had no idea how to put a stop to it. The situation had spun out of control and the day he hit her first time was the day it was all over for her.
After that, it felt weird waking up next to him. She was caged in her own home, prisoner to her own memories.

Standing up, she moved towards the man. She carried him, cleaned him up and put him to bed. She had given up on him years ago so now the task felt menial, almost robotic. She sat in the chair beside the bed looking at his face. She couldn't see how that face had looked charming to her before. She heaved a sigh. And the man suddenly stirred in his bed.

"..a glass of water", he slurred.

She went to the kitchen to get him water. She wanted to cry but the tears wouldn't come. She wanted to slap him awake from the mess he had them in but she seemed to have no energy. As she was filling up the water, her eyes suddenly flew to the knife that sat on the countertop. She had thought about it a million times but could never go through with it. Maybe today was the day, she thought and pocketed it.

She went back to the room and handed him the glass of water with shaky hands. She felt nervous standing so close to him.
He sat up halfway, his sluggish body restraining him, and took the glass. As he took a sip, she knew something was wrong.

"What is wrong with you? I asked for a cold glass of water. Do you not listen to me. Bitch", he bellowed.

And just like that the glass dropped and shattered into a million pieces.

This was it. She took out the knife and right then, she could see the fear in his eyes. She decided she liked having him fear her for a change.

"No, honey....no..please. don't..You don't want to do this...", he whispered.

And just at that instant, the misery that ate her alive was too much to take. She looked into his eyes and with as much force as she could muster, she stabbed herself in the stomach, painting the million fragmented pieces of glass a vivid red. She fell to her knees and knew right then that she would never make it. The pain was intense and beyond anything she had ever imagined. But it would cease eventually.... it had to cease.

Just a couple more moments and she could run away.

Run, run, run and never look back.

Comments

On moving 6629km alone away from home

It was a fresh start, one that I needed desperately. Applications and documentation had taken so much of my time and sucked so much of my energy, I don't think I quite comprehended what the move was going to entail. While I was open to changes, I don't think I was aware of how much transformation across all aspects of life it would take to acclimatise myself to my new reality. I was just happy for a fresh start. Nothing else mattered. But turns out, getting on the plane is the easiest step in all of this. The amount of transformation I've gone through and learning I've done in the past couple months is truly insane, to say the least. Recently, a friend back home asked me how I was doing living alone and I thought about it. Honestly, it hasn't been all good or all bad, but the important thing has been rooting and balancing myself despite it all. Not sure if anything I've written will be groundbreaking or something that hasn't been already said 7 million time...

Questionable Choices

As of today, around 7 million people have viewed Deepika Padukone's Vogue Empowerment video. For the first few days, I just ignored it when it appeared on my Newsfeed. But a slew of jokes followed and I knew I couldn't ignore it forever. The first time I watched the video I had a deep unsettling feeling in my gut. Women Empowerment is a very important issue and all that the video pointed out to me was the societal double-standard against men in today's seemingly "modern" world. The video talks about matters ranging from the choice of clothing to choice to have sex (I'll come back to this one later) and something about being the snowstorm not the snowflake. The video has got so many things wrong it's not even funny. India has so many problems regarding the society bringing women down. India is the place where a girl being married to a man thrice her age is normal, where a girl has to pay the price when the only sin she has committed is being born a...

YOU & I

The sweet scent of summer had barely trickled into town. The trees were thawing, making way for color to seep back into the world. The sun dug into my eyes as I tried to take in the blueness of the sky. As my eyes started to tear up, I looked away and they fell on you. I didn't know you at all but as you made your way past me, I knew that that was what love looked like. You were beautiful. A tall, glorious vision I never wanted to forget. I wanted to encase you in a poem, to refrain you from ever leaving my mind, but you walked away before I could think of metaphors and similes. You didn't even look back. You just left. Too soon. The clouds greyed and the sky turned black. My heart was freezing and I desperately wished for the warmth of some one's arms around me. Much later, you told me how you liked people who could make their own fire. It was one of the things that I liked about you because it meant you didn't care how I wasn't looking for an...

Twisted.

1 As we were sitting atop a hill overlooking the city, I told you how I loved sunsets. The fervor of the day changing into night, the caramelization of everything under the sun, the breathtaking frenzy of colors and how no two sunsets ever looked the same... I told you how I loved it all. You looked at me quizzically like you didn't comprehend a word I'd just said. You then confessed to me how you felt there were better things to do than spend time watching sunsets and gently kissed me on the lips for the first time ever. 2 It was a sweltering summer's day and we were both melting under the Kathmandu sun. I'd asked you to come help me out buy a dress. You asked me what sort of dress I wanted to buy. I had no idea yet so I told you the first thing that came to my head, something that always made my heart happy- Red. You mirrored your expressions from a few weeks ago. You confessed you didn't think I could pull off a Red dress. Maybe I should go with a tra...

I had to live without my phone for 10 days and it didn't go well.

Few months after I bought a phone, the worst thing that could happen to a person that bought a new phone happened to me. My phone started to dysfunction. My brand new phone, that I was paying way more than I could afford, was having issues. And like any normal person, I too went through the 5 stages of grief. I pretended like I did not see that my apps were crashing and my phone was restarting randomly. I would just put my phone face down when that happened because I did not want to deal with it (kids, don't try this at home). And then I levelled up to the next stage. My phone would restart exactly when I was trying to send an important text, make an important call...or take a picture, or a million, of a beautiful sunset and boy, did that piss me off. I tried to look up solutions online but I couldn't find any that worked for me. Then I started bargaining. Is my phone shutting down and starting up on its own, which takes a total of 20 secs, really that big of a deal? I felt li...

Chase

Picture of my friend Pooja Shrestha shot by Apekshya Rijal All my life, I’ve grabbed the bull by the horns Never sat back Never really minded the thorns “Roses will be worth it Just wait for your turn” I should have turned back I should have run. Tugging and pulling Fervent passion ruling I let it get to my head Words, a million in my mind left unsaid. All that chasing And mindless engaging Sowing but never reaping Giving Never receiving. Tedious bouts of rejecting And being rejected Honestly? I’m just a little dejected.

How I Met Your Mother vs Friends

Photo:Pinterest I watched How I Met Your Mother for the first time when I was in 7 th grade. At that time, the jokes most likely went right over my head and I probably didn’t understand the context to many things but still something about Ted Mosby resonated with me, even then. I have always struggled with keeping my love in check like him which has led to various failings throughout the years but Ted’s always had my back by being one step ahead. For these reasons and more, I whole-heartedly love the show. On the other hand, I watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S. a couple years later and thought it was mostly nice. I’d all but forgotten about it until last year when, for some reason, everyone started talking about it. I, by no means, thought it was a bad show but I couldn’t fathom why everyone liked it so much . People started labelling it superior to HIMYM which didn’t sit well with me. So I decided to re-watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S to gain perspective which led me to the conclusio...

Book Review: Kafka on the Shore

I love reading. And most of the time I go through books like a termite on wood. After I sit down with a book, the book only gets closed after I get done with it. However, this was not the case here. It's safe to say that Kafka on the Shore is the strangest book I've ever laid my hands on. Haruki Murakami, for me, was always one of those writers, holding whose book made you a serious reader. So, as I venture into adulthood, I wanted to jump into more thought-provoking, serious-people books unlike my usual YA genre around which my interests circle. Looking back, I could never have fathomed what was ahead of me. Because this book tested me. It tested my patience. It tested my humanity. And most of all, it tested my ability to do something that I absolutely despised. In this case, it was finishing this godforsaken book. This book has two main protagonists. We get to see inside the head of a barely 15-year-old Kafka Tamura who has run away from home to escape his f...

thank god it's friday

I don’t know if it’s just me or time seems to be moving a lot faster these days. I simply refuse to believe that it’s been 3 weeks since I joined my new job. And it’s end of March already? No fking way. I haven’t written for a big audience in a long time. If you know me, you know that I have always loved writing but over the past year, life caught up with me. I don’t know if mid 20s for everyone is a whirlwind or if it’s because I moved to a new country or because I was finishing up my Uni, working 4 days a week at my unpaid internship and 20 hours/week nightshift at the job that paid for my life all at the same time, everything was always too much. Sorry to my friends and family that I haven’t called in a while but calling takes too much effort. It’s my least favourite method of communication. But know that I miss you and I love you. Life isn’t bad at all, just a lot. I did try to start writing again in the past year and a half. But everything I wrote was stupid. I didn’t e...

Rust & stardust

There's not much to say about love beyond what has already been said But in the past, every time we fell apart I always used to find new ways To bleed on paper about you. Yet, this time has been different Because the words I spit out about you now don't make any sense Just like how we fell apart doesn't make any sense. Every time I sat down to write this, My thoughts always went back to that one time When you said I'd never be able to write anything without you in it, ever again. I laughed and rolled my eyes at you then But I knew you were right Even during the long stretches of radio silence between us, my words always seemed to find their way back to you. You were sometimes the hero in my stories Sometimes the villain And yet, you were there Car...

...I speak my mind =)