The State of Unacceptance
Karaikudi
31/12/1999
11:50 pm
There will be a moment you feel a sense of contentment in life, joy spreads your jaws and happiness creeps up your nerves.
Life exactly been upright at the top giving me everything I needed, if not for the night that came as a big blow.
“let’s go for a ride Aravind”,mathi said.
“Not a bad idea to welcome the new year though”
I took my gypsy out of my garage and drove towards Madurai which is nearly 88 km. The road’s been almost empty as people here are asleep barring a few loads carrying trucks from industries.
She stood up in her feet up the seat and started shouting aloud as new year’s almost here. I am scared that she might hit something and touched her feet and asked to lay down in the seat. She shook a bit and said,
“Ouch!your hands freezing”
“Give me some warmth then”, I quipped.
She came down closer to me, tugged tight and held grip around me. “I could drive all my life with you”
“Don’t lie just because you love this feeling”, she said.
“I would be a fool to let this moment go!”
“Don’t say you wanted to kiss me in the middle of the road”
“I have no clue to do this until you said it, you wanted it right?”
“I haven’t said it!”
I pulled my gypsy right behind the way to a corner and held her hand. She looked at me grinning through her eyes, twisting her tongue and nervousness slightly creeping up the nerves.
I could capture the whole moment with my heart.we raised in our seats, held our hands tightly and started making our moment that defines the day.
There’s a slight breezing that kept disturbing her hair, still, her eyebrows remained intact without making a move, without looking sideways. She’s almost looking like a dream I have been fantasizing all my life. I ran my hand through her cheeks that felt soft as hell.
She tilted her face slightly towards my hand, closing the grip of my hand with hers. She closed her eyes a little for the moment, with the wind disturbing her hair all the way.
“Don’t my freezing disturbed you this time around “, I said.
“I love this disturbance right now”
I moved forward to give a light peck around her nose and said, “Happy new year mathiyaa!”
“let me have this moment, the new year can wait!”
“We gotta move outta here.people are watching us”, I said.
“Give me a new year kiss, I will move”
“come on, we’re literally on the highway”
She leaned forward, hugged me around with her head above my chest. She kept saying, “Whenever you felt bad, look at the moon.you will find me”.
“Why looking at it, when you have one resting on you?”
“Happy new year Aravind Krishna”
I could feel her words reverberate in my heart, catch her breath dropping in a while, a smile trying to sneak in through her lips occasionally. I moved her hair the other way, her necklace kept shining even in the moonlight. I brushed my lips besides her neck, giving it a tender smooch that shook her a little.
I moved up her neck a little until I reach her ear, giving my hand a run through her hair. She crumbled a little further behind me and said, “Say something !”
I reached her ears and whispered, “you’re beautiful”
She gave a broad smile and said, “and then!”
“Let’s move outta here before people find us”
“Puff! you always see people keeping me beside. Don’t you!”
I got back to my driving position and started the drive yet again. I changed gears, started switching into racing mode through the breezing atmosphere.
She knelt her head near the window, gazing through the passing roads and smiling at something she notices in a glimpse, she seems to have lost in a while.
I let her have this moment with herself, that would give a sense of space to recap the year with everything she has had. I would rather say it’s been a productive year in terms of me being an electrochemical engineering student at CECRI, Karaikudi. I am almost closer to the dream of working in ISROand with the girl I love running through my shadows.
I feel lucky enough to be in the kind of space right now and with adrenaline rushing through my nerves, gave a loud shout out in the air. I kept shouting aloud until it reaches the horizon and beneath.
“I don’t want this night to end, it’s my happy place”, I said.
“I am loving it already!”,mathi told as she started moving her head going out of the gipsy side window. She knelt her head out of the side window, by allowing it to swing in the air. Her hairs moving beautifully over her face with a slight rise in speed. She shouted, “don’t stop until I say, am loving it!”
“Dude, you’re hanging dangerously around, you need to come in”
“No way coming down, I love here up there!”, she might have said the last word. Probably, the last word of her life, last word of my happiness.
Soon, blood splashed on my face outta nowhere, I immediately applied brakes as I couldn’t see the road and looked around to find mathi. There’s suddenly a lot of smoke-filled all over the place, a gipsy glass broke out and split all over the place.
Some of the glass pieces struck at my face leaving me suffocating for breath. I tried to push my car door and it got jammed due to reasons I couldn’t figure out. Smoke is causing a burning sensation in my face, am almost left to death lying with signs of no energy and helplessness.
Soon, someone dragged me out of the gypsy and pulled me to a safer distance.
I couldn’t see their face, but they gave me water to bring my senses back.”Am fine, look out for my mathi please!”, I almost yelled at them.
“There’s blood all over and her parts…”
I couldn’t pay heed to his words as I lost my consciousness at that moment. Back of my head, I kind of expect what would’ve happened.
After a week, I regained my consciousness, only to meet a lot of people visiting my fruits, sympathy messages. But, my eyes kept searching for her who mean the world for me. Time passed slower than snail that eating a lot of time for my healing. People would often come to me, speak about all the stuff except her.
I didn’t dare to ask them about her status and I feared to listen about the words they might tell. I kept writing words about her whenever I feel about her and record videos speaking about her in my cam. It used to give me a good feeling, at least used to give me a vibe that she’s with me.
Within, three months I started walking normally without any support. I went back to college to finish the final semester of my graduation. People never had a talk with me about mathi, as if she never existed in my life. The frustration in me grew like leaps and bounds in no time.
I used to hate everything I knew so far about the world. Be it my family, my friends and campus persons. Their acting to seem nice to me without the actual truth killed me inside. There’s only one guy who could tell me exactly the truth, my best friend Vikram Acharya. I headed straight to his house without any delay.
He seemed surprised at first, seeing me recover so fast.
“You headed straight from college for me, seems like somebody missing me”, Acharya said.
“Tell me what happened after that night”, I put that straight.
“Buddy, you’re almost finalized as the guy going to isro on behalf of our college. Let’s party !”
I slapped him very hard into his face after hearing that, so hard that his face turned red. He stood there without moving, without uttering a word trying his tears from coming out.
“Now, you’re also acting with me. What a waste of life dude”
I lied in my couch, held my forehead for a moment and said, “Is she dead?”
“Tell me a yes or no”, I screamed hard.
“Right at the moment, your gypsy hit the truck”, Acharya said.
It’s just the time-lapse, I kind of knew it would’ve happened. I just grew in silence at that moment, trying to take that word into me.
“Truck owner got arrested for losing control and there’s a lot happened after that”, he said.
“How did she die, due to the blow or anything hit her bad kind of ?”
“She’s hanging in the air loosely at that moment, the truck got diverted into the wrong side accidentally and her head got spear”
“Stop it, please!”
“Her final rites and all the formal things have been done accordingly”, he said.
“ I should’ve returned after that new year, shouldn’t have gone beyond”,
“you need to cope up with a lot buddy, I will be there”, he said. He held my hand grip tightly and lied down on the floor in front of me.
I tried to resist my tears until that moment, but couldn’t manage to do after that. The feeling of guilt spread across my body reminding me of the fact that she died because of me.
I spent months in the same state thinking of that night, over and over again in the back of my head. The combinations of “what if’s” have been surfaced a lot of times since then. I lost interest in almost everything I have known since birth.
I kind of stopped eating food that resulted in my lean physique and my mother almost cried at me for doing this. I had developed a fear of meeting people, maintaining eye contact with them. I have gone to a new low of fearing sunlight that doesn’t allow me to get down out of my room.
I used to be with my self, four walls and in numerous darkness used to accompany me. I applied to cancel my license to drive as I felt am not a deserving person to be on-road driving. I rejected the role of a chemical scientist in ISRO which took my parents angrily, exhausted and reeling over pain.
“Don’t go hard on your self dear”, my mother said.
She rinsed my hair smoothly at nights and days to ensure a good sleep at least. I remember sleeping in her lap most of the time.
I met a person after five months and it took a lot of courage to come out of my room. And there’s Vikram acharya right in front me, wanting to kill me for all the stupid things I have done these days.
“Have you gone mad?”, he asked.
“I truly don’t deserve to be in ISRO and…”
“I am not asking you about that stuff, we can discuss those later”
“what do you need to know?”
“Why’re you preparing a list with all the girls whose name is mathi?”
“Who said it to you?”
“Mother said it to me over the phone weeping “, he took a long pause and continued saying, “you knew the kind of pain people are feeling over cuz of you, you got any idea about it”
“Those things are completely personal and I don’t want to discuss them in public”
He broke the flower vase lying in front of him and gave a death stare at me.”What the fuck is personal, nothing is personal any more!”
He breathed heavily, looked at me straight without any deviation and said,
“For god sake, accept the fate and move on. What’s in a name, it is just an indication and I bet my entire money that you can’t get the same person going with the name”
“I don’t hear anything, I just want the same person with the same name, that’s it”
“What the fuck you’re speaking?”
“I want the same person with the same name, the same smile that has similar compassion with that right kind of words she says to me. I will go all means to find her, but all my bucks to do it. Support me or just vanish”
“God, look at this idiot rejected isro and going on a journey to find a girl with the same name. just look at this fucking idiot”, he took a deep breath and said,
“you gotta respect the death at least before moving on this one, you got to respect that mathi needs peace and she can’t afford to see you turning in to one kind of animal”
I miss her breath, her smile, her skin, her fragrance and every fucking thing about her. She’s not dead, just hiding beneath the clouds waiting for me. It needs to be chased and will do it on my own
He slapped me real hard at my face this time, leaving me red-faced. I walked out of the house immediately and I appeared nowhere around the hindsight after that slap. I just walked over to the nearby pond and rested beside it. I raised my head and tried to face sunlight through my naked eyes.
It felt good to come out after a while, face the sunlight and talk to people trying to make a conversation at least. I just refused to accept the fate and move on as all the people do. I kind of knew that I wanted to find the same person, if not her by any means.
Back of mind I kind of knew, “me! Aravind Krishna wanted to find mathi, his soul mate who’s the same, carries the same vibe with a smile that builds compassion of the same that am addicted to five years from now.
I miss her, totally it may be my fault or I need to say that it’s time to return home after the new year, especially after that hug that melted my heart, filled happiness inside me and shouldn’t have felt like exploring after finding such happiness. Because I know fate meets pain after extreme happiness”.
