Metro Diaries: The End?

Nishi splashed water on her face one more time and stared at her reflection. Her eyes were swollen red, the only remnant of her endless crying session. Her tears were now mixed with water making it difficult to make out which was what.

“She is no more…!” the words still rang in her ears long after that phone call had ended.Finally it had all come to an end; something that she had always imagined was a reality today. And yet she could not believe it. The years she had spent carrying that burden on her feeble shoulders were now a history but the feeling hadn’t sunk in till now. The End, one that she kept looking for was today knocking her doors and she was trying to recognize it. 

Stumbling through the door she somehow managed to reach her bed and collapsed there once again breaking into fresh bout of tears. Once inside the safe confines of her blanket she could not hold it any longer. The dam broke finally. She was holding it too tightly perhaps till now as the moment it broke everything around got flooded.
She cried like a child. She cried with everything that she had within me. It felt as if every fibre of her being was shedding tears. She cried for what was and what could have been. She cried for what is and what could not be. She cried for a corpse that was long dead. She cried for a heart that did not remember being whole. She cried for that part of her which would never be the same again. She cried for the hollow feeling inside which would never be filled again. She cried for herself. She cried for her. She cried for them.

Suddenly a thought came to her mind. Why am I crying? She wondered. Was it because it has all ended finally? Or is it because it reminds of all she had been through that hurt her more? Was this really The end to it all?She had no answers right now, only questions. Loads of them revolving inside her mind, creating a storm, making it difficult for her to sleep or think anything else. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes in an attempt to fall asleep as her mind drifted away to her.

If there was one word that could describe Nishi’s relationship with her, it was complex. Nishi did not remember why and how it started. All she knew was she hated her and Nishi spent her entire life trying to prove her wrong. Nishi never realized that to see the goodness in others, one needs to have been blessed with some. 

Sometimes Nishi felt it was because she was brutally honest that had led to this cold war while at times she mused that it could be because she couldn’t believe someone like Nishi could be her daughter. She remembered all those beatings she got as a child, the times when she would just refuse to speak to Nishi as her punishment for days and ensure no one else in the house also did that. Such incidents had scarred and scared Nishi very badly. She had grown up to be a timid woman when it came to relationships and her biggest fear was being left alone. For that’s the way she was treated throughout her growing up years. Locked up in a dark room for hours, being called a stubborn and arrogant child for being fussy about food, being hit with belt for failing in a subject, ridiculed at her suicide attempts the list was endless.

But some of the incidents that stared back at her glaringly from all of them were the ones where her mother had let her down very badly, never to gain her trust again. And that didn’t happen once, it happened so frequently that there was a stage where Nishi was numb to her mother’s treatment towards her.

Nishi remembered that day clearly when she must have been around 13 years old. She had decided to end her agony by sharing with her mother what she was going through. She was a victim of child sexual abuse and her abuser was none other than her own Uncle. Fearfully as she approached her with all her fears tightly held with her tiny fists hoping her mother would take all of them away like she used to when Nishi was a child. But as they say childhood dreams remain behind with childhood as we grow up to embrace the harsh realities of life. Nishi was caned that day for having thought of something so horrible. Her TV viewing was banned as movies were blamed for her behavior. That was the night when Nishi got her first grave injury. She bled to sleep.

At 17 when she fell in love with a guy, she was thrown out of the house and sent to a strange location to live amongst complete strangers. Taming of the shrew her mother thought it to be as she felt living in a town brought around such malice. Little did she know that she was actually watering a rebel to become stronger!

Years passed by adding on to this list where there were days when Nishi was called a prostitute for having lot of male friends one day and the other she would be called unfit to marry because of her stubborn nature. She grew up believing that she was an ugly misfit in this society who deserved to be tamed.

Source: Google Images

She had become like that horse who with every whip would try to mend ways, so much so that at 24 she couldn’t recognize herself. That was when she decided to free herself from the clutches of this bitter fact of her life and move ahead to a deserving life. However much she tried she could not detach herself completely. An end was what she always craved for and an end was something she never got.

There were nights when that child in her would cry herself to sleep asking the most unanswered question, “Why me? Why cannot I be loved for what I am?” and got no answers. This was like the black hole of her life where things just vanished without any trace. Any amount of joy, love, laughter…. all would get sucked inside leaving only darkness to breathe in. 

That relationship had become like a huge monstrous bag whose weight she carried around despite being miles away and it bogged her down completely many times. She tried and tried and tried but was never successful. And the injury in her heart just kept getting deeper and deeper. She feared someday she would die like this, bleeding and believing that she was the worst possible person to have been alive. In trying to please her Nishi had left behind all that she could have been and sadly couldn’t even be what she should have been. 

Few years ago with a lot of difficulty Nishi had started afresh leaving behind all that was there and gradually picked up the shattered remains of her life. And just when she thought she was in control that life decided to spring this surprise for her. She felt she didn’t have any more tears left in her to shed on her, but she was surprised today when she couldn’t stop crying.

She opened her eyes with a start. Drearily she dialed her travel agent to book her tickets as her mind questioned again, “Will this be The End?” only to have a strange numbness take over her senses.