Chapter 9: The end, or the Beginning

I had picked up reading to everyone’s satisfaction. Truth is, it was just to ensure that I had enough weapons to avoid her.

“You can’t do this”

“Yes I can” I would think to myself

“You know this is childish right. If you know I am just an imagination, I am your imagination, I can hear your thoughts”

I ignored that but it struck me just then, the kind of scenario I was in. She was there.

In my head, hearing my thoughts.

The love of my life is not with me.

The person that I trusted and loved more than my life had lied to me just about everything. The whole thing was a lie.

And the person I loved so much did not even exist.

And I can’t even trust my own head. First, it created a whole person. And now, even thoughts are not private to me.

I go through the day ignoring her. Even though I knew she is not real, I felt guilty for being rude to her.

I ignored her. She would keep talking, sobbing like a child in the corner of the room. Sometimes, I thought, what if our love was just magical and only I could see her. What was I doing to her.

“You didn’t have the gut to meet real people”

“You had this imagination of perfect and extremely nice people. Like a fool rather than seeing people for who they are, you would imagine the great potential of being good, of being great they had. All you needed was one nice streak. And when they did what they were sent to do, be humans, you would be hurt. You would be dejected for days and suddenly see every human as bad. Yes, they are, but, it was you who had set out to find good in them. It was so difficult, so much work, to bring you back to normal, get you out of your room.

You know I really believed in you. You never believed in yourself, but, I did. You had clarity about the right and wrong in this world when everyone around is just finding out their ways to become the next Apple, the next Steve Jobs. You never wanted anything from anyone. You were someone who could think about the world in a detached way. So, you had to survive the world. You had to survive yourself”

I knew that she knows me very well, after all she was a part of me. But, I am not that impractical.

I kept ignoring her with a resolve to not to see her. I was angry. I was hurt. My love didn’t mean anything. It was just a medical condition in my case. But, I knew that I had to become normal again. Like you, I too needed acceptance in this world.

Don’t you need acceptance? Everyone wants to know if they are being heard, says Oprah Winfrey. I think since the time we are born, we are taught the ways of the world. We are taught in a way through the basic reinforcements by the teachers and parents, that we learn to find ways to keep them happy. Because when they are happy, we have better scores in class, better yummier food at home. Everyone just loves us at that time. And don’t you love that. When we see people drooling over a certain character from a piece of fiction, a movie, again, we feel jealous. When our parents say nice things about a friend, who during that visit to my house was so nice to my parents, that we keep looking for ways to be like them. Anything is considered nice about someone, you want to be that. So, you keep getting good score in all the examinations in school. And you find yourself a good job. You don’t really know what are you going to do there. But, that happiness that you see on your parents’ face, makes you want to do this. All your life you go through this feeling to finding newer ways to be better in other’s eyes, through bigger titles, better car and bigger house and a more paying job to attain these.

To all the people who keep saying that they are different, away from this rat race, like the founders of these startups, they are the hungriest for this acceptance. Talk to any social entrepreneur, the ones taking the road less travelled, too. While their business is doing good for people, let’s say the rural people, for them it is just a way to gain the differentiation, and popularity and slowly the unicorn status. Can you guess why? Because the founders of unicorn startups are celebrities. They are accepted. They know they have done okay. In all this struggle, everyone is just looking for a little more acceptance.

In that last breath you too would need to know, if you have done okay. And you know what is that one thing that can really make feel complete, something like a sleep medicine to someone deprived of sleep: Not a perfect solution, but, a good first-aid: It’s Love!

So, I have sought that love of hers, but, it could never be a permanent solution. I needed my life back now!

Moved to this new place, in a new city,

Where people are not called men or women,

They aren’t people,

Because they are not normal they say,

They said they are mad, some people euphemistically put it: mentally unwell,

But, I saw people who had died from inside in the battles of life.

I saw people who had become someone else in this constant struggle to stay alive.

How am I here?

They say I have a great imagination,

Some people and things that I see are not there,

May be that’s true. But, What’s real anyway!

I had seen so much good, in all of us,

Possibilities of greatness, of sweetness, of humane goodness,

But, then they say a lot of what I see doesn’t exist,

I think I am just optimistic,

They call it a mental illness.

Like me 100s and 1000s here are hurt,

Each one has a story,

Some couldn’t cope with the some shock in life,

Some got smaller doses all their lives,

Some were tired complying to how the world around wanted them to be,

Maybe to the world they were an aberration,

We hide them away not because they are dangerous,

I think it’s because they are an aberration,

A picture, a proof of our own failure,

Failure as a society, failure as people,

We just look the other way and say, “See, the world is such a beautiful place”.

And yes they are dangerous,

Because if there is too many of them,

It’s not an aberration anymore.

I hadn’t seen her for a few days, a few hours or may be a few months. Here, in this place, amongst these people, it was easy to lose track of time. While you can choose to call them mad, mentally unwell. But, Each one had a story. Some are here because they are ‘dangerous’. I don’t think not being similar to you, unpredictable to you makes them dangerous. And about some of them being aggressive and their tendency to hurt others in a fit of rage, how you normally imagine them: where was your fine judgement when life was showing its aggression, it’s own lack of predictability. I know, life and the world has just one predictability: that it will change, it will change again! These people couldn’t cope up with the changes. Some got their shot of madness in just a snap, like this, from one hurtful incident! Some got it in smaller doses all their life. I don’t think we hide them away because they are dangerous or need special care. We hide them because they are a result of our doing, and we know it. We hide them away out of guilt and not out of concern.

I hadn’t seen her in quite a while I think, or probably, I was just missing her as an effect of this godforsaken place. The doctor walks in to see me.

“How are you?”

“Good.. Sir” I am always respectful to him. He does seem to know his work. But, he seems to be respected here by all the staff. My only shot of getting out is him.

There was one other thing, unlike every other staff or visitor, he never spoke down to you. He wouldn’t speak to me like one is speaking to kids, a foreigner kid, who doesn’t know their language. He didn’t really have that fear, that pity in his eyes, when he spoke to me, or to any other patients here. Sometimes, I think, it was a part of his treatment. According to some research, I have heard if you call a man a thief, he would certainly become one. Interesting isn’t it? I wonder how my mad friends here are ever going to be okay?

“You have shown good progress. why don’t you come to my office tomorrow. We should discuss the next steps”

It sounded like I was going home, but, you can’t be certain. But, the feeling that I am going to be okay, I am going home, didn’t feel great. Here, in this place, the last days are ones when I have spent ‘alone’ without her.

I remember the last time I saw her.

She was here with me. She didn’t need any visiting hours. I hated this place back then. I hated her. I hated her for keeping me in dark. While, she was a part of my head and that part was not in my control, but, I couldn’t have thought of it this way. If I was mad, everyone who talks to Him in a church, a temple or a mosque and in their prayers is mad too. If you believe, He is there, she was there too.

“I hated her for making me look like a fool to the world. I have a freaking audacious head that she has come back, after all this to hold my hand here.” I thought. I had resolved not to address her directly anymore, a small step to accept my condition.

“What could have I done! I love you, I care for you” She screamed.

“Then why didn’t you just leave. No no, why did you ever come into my life, rather my head” I shouted.

“Don’t say that” Pressing lips, she said “All I need is your belief for just sometime”

“Every-time, I didn’t turn up, you were hurt, you were dejected, hidden yourself from the world, in your blanket at home and your laptop screen. You would try to muffle the sound of your thoughts in loud music and the keystrokes. I was in your head all this time, sharing your pain, seeing you try everything in your capacity to scratch that wound till it would kill you.”

“ I was scared every time you drove or picked up a knife. I could feel the hate you had for your own life”

“I hated every time someone looked at you like you are mad, and I couldn’t hide you in my arm, blur the sound of their remarks, let you not look into anybody’s eyes, because you wouldn’t find any love, only pity. I wished every second that I could protect you.

Only I knew, how full of love you are” She said as her hand slid into mine.

She was right about me. This was my state even before she had ever arrived in my life and even before the world knew about my insanity. Slowly, it was getting easier to call myself insane.

There was one more thing she was right about: No one could ever be this close to the one they love. We are really in each other’s thoughts. We can listen to each other’s thoughts. We don’t really need to speak. We can look into each other’s soul.

“I wish I hadn’t come here. I don’t want to live without you”

“I don’t want to go” She said as her eyes welled up.

“I should have fought. It doesn’t matter if they think I am nuts. At least I would have you. ” “Is there a way” I wondered.

She smiled and ruffled my hair softly. This was probably the last time. We knew it. I moved closer, kept my head on her shoulder with her hair covering my face. I still loved that smell, I still loved that soft touch of her skin.

Though, there were nights when I would wake with her sob. I would not open my eyes. I wanted to remember this last one as our last meeting. I was scared, what if I didn’t remember her face and I would see a deformed face in front of me. Her beauty, her love, that last touch, that last meeting was all I had. That is all I could hold on to. Slowly, the sound of sobs, her pleading voices faded away.

I still had her. I had her in all the love she had given me. I might have been insane for everyone, but, I had seen and felt love.

I remember when…

I had come to understand that your beauty is the lesser of your traits. What had drawn me to you was your smile, your simple reassuring smile which in truth, was the sum of all: all the struggle, all my pains and all your love. I am fascinated with your goodness. I couldn’t have really accepted if during this time, you hadn’t left. I realised how your coming and going mattered so much to me. I know this is hopeless. But, don’t the lovers, all the lovers wish that they could just become one with each other. Why are we struggling we already are. Aren’t we at a point where dream meets reality. I want to live in this life. With you. Forever.

I know I am pathetic, but, I wish I knew any other way.

Perhaps I’ve spent too long in the company of my literary romantic heroines. I could not find real people who could match my expectations.

In the stories from the mythology, this whole world around us, is all a dream. I couldn’t call it a bad dream. It had you in it. You were as beautiful as your thoughts. I remember your musings.

Even if I secretly have you, no one would know. But, the challenge would be to be able to love you and spend time with you, live my life in your presence,

I wouldn’t be able to give something to you: the acceptance from the world, a respect to our love. But, there are humans loving other humans going through this. Their problem is just that it is not in the combination of genders which is allowed and accepted by the world. At least they are real beings. How would I get this right, this basic right for respect for our love?

“If the earth was here for 24 hours, humans would have been here for a minute.” you said, quoting some research. “Imagine what took a day to be built, took just a minute to be burned down”. So much like my life burned down in a minute that day.

You were never comfortable in social situations and always had a bit of hate for the humans. But, you cared too. Every sad news in the news papers, and they always had sad news, you would be sad and depressed after reading them. You would be sad that I didn’t care, others didn’t. You would question the media and the newspapers which had learnt to build revenue from sad or sensational news. You would bomb me with rhetoric like, “ why the right and wrong has become a specialisation of the law, why is it that the morality of the society has ceased to matter”.

When I was searching for jobs and would be shown the door passive aggressively for my score in some school years ago, you would lecture me on the incompetency of the labour and the work market. I liked that interesting analogy you had about the rat race and supply-demand. If you had been with me longer, I might have left the rat race. By that, I don’t mean startup, another rat race. With everyone getting interesting, original ideas on the next big thing, setting up a website and looking around for term sheets, I was enlightened enough to not plunge into that. I think I owe you that.

I remember, even before I had proposed you, my idea of moving forward was to get connected with someone on social media and chat incessantly. It was funny how you had explained like I was a five year old, that the first hello, to Facebook or number to Snapchat to first sex was not the way forward for a relationship. How the whole lecture was because, I had asked for your Facebook profile. You don’t know, I know you know now, how difficult it was for me to ask that. Well, now I know more about your aversion to social media, but, I think it applies to you: non-existence on social media means no existence at all.

“Thanks to internet and social media, the society has become a large village where everything is under the eye of everyone else. Everything is judged by the people.” you had once said. There is no connection of the right and wrong to the morality . It is all about the belief of the people in the village. And tolerance is low: So, if something I say doesn’t match other’s opinions, then I am shown the way clearly. And this is all done publicly. And people are nosey. Not that it is a one way street, if people are curious about what is going on in your life, you are also very interested in telling them and getting their approval, their cheers, their envy. Instead of sitting at the cigarette shop all day, people form groups. rather than looking at people and discussing them, we just share the timeline screenshot of WhatsApp group. Celebrations are the sure opportunity to show off. Anything good said with a good intention, doesn’t match someone’s customs, so gets bashed again. Unlike the village, you can’t even leave it on the pretext of better education and job opportunities. Only option is stay low. There is one more interesting thing about villages. We hold the right way really high. When a kid or and outsider tries to follow our ways, rather than being really happy and appreciating it, we starting giving him a lesson on what is the right way of doing it. Look at Justin Trudeau wishing a Diwali Mubarak, a lot of people started teaching him that ‘Mubarak’ and ‘Badhai’ are different.

Women are asked to stay covered because the thoughts are not really clean. The social media too bashes women for their clothes, specially the actresses. While for some it’s a 2-minute to fame, but, for others it’s a real problem. But, I wonder why do they care so much. On one end, we talk against women being asked to wear burkha, on the other we question some other women of skin show. How can you decide what is wrong or right? On one end you can’t control the rape, on the other, we maintain an underbelly of prostitution. What can’t prostitution and porn be made legal? When an immigrant labour from Bihar or UP is found guilty of such a rape, we start attributing it to people of that state and the State. Well, a crime is crime and should be punished for. But, if you had any idea of classical conditioning, you wouldn’t have generalised a person’s crime to a category or type of people. If you call a man a thief, he would steal, because, now he has nothing to lose.

When you do this, you are being an escapist, trying to attribute it to a certain type of people! That allows to call these incidents and culprits outliers caused by some ‘other’ people! It allows you to stay pure and consider everything wrong a doing of someone else!

Everything is wrong with this!

During the breakfast, you would talk about how the corporations making my cereals were not doing any good to the farmer growing it, making me almost guilty for eating it.

Then, you would throw puzzles at me, like you weren’t enough a puzzle. “Think” you would say, with your eyes as concerned as an ill baby’s mother’s, “If the world population is increasing, there is going to be a food shortfall, then why does the farmer, the grower keep inching further into poverty”

I wish you were at least a book I could read. I loved the way you looked. I loved the way you knew me. Yeah, yeah! I know the explanation for all this is quite scientific. But, I wish I could have these chats more often, even now.

I don’t think the world around me is alive enough to understand these questions or appreciate such though.

I wish I had you, and your company forever.

This story is a part of the series called Alone. Please read the next chapter here: The aftertaste!