She loved fragrances, flowers, books, poetry and literature. She pranced after colourful butterflies and lived in the world of idyllic happiness and perpetual bliss. Nothing could dampen her will and high spirits. Princess of love, queen of adoration housed in a place of beauty and harmony. But alas, nothing is eternal, nothing is more permanent than change!
Then came the sighs in her life, tears shed and unshed dominated the scenario of idyllic happiness. Grief and wretchedness surrounded the place where flowers once bloomed. What brought about this change in her life was simply the love of a single man. He came in her life like a whirlpool and she drowned in it. But, it would be wrong to say that she drowned. Had she drowned, it would have been a lot easier for her family and even for herself. She was neither among the living nor the dead, she moved her limbs to survive, but to no avail as the whirlpool was so strong that it ultimately engulfed everything and anything that came in its range.
The web of frustration woven in gold thread in which she found herself entangled had every attraction, beautiful promises and enchantment. But once caught, she realized that it was a living hell she had stepped into. Shackles of longings and chains of yearnings surrounded her, to the extent that she could not even move.
The guy was Apollo to her, the paragon of every physical beauty and myth of virtues infused into a single person, but it was not so in reality. She allowed herself to be doomed in the onslaught of wretchedness, misery and trouble when she closed her eyes to everything. She didn’t see that he was flirting with her, she couldn’t perceive that he was taking advantage of her innocence. He was destroying her bit by bit, and she was allowing it in the most masochist manner. Never for a single moment did she realize or allow herself to realize that he was not sincere with her. Never did she allow herself the light of reality, the glimpse of rationality or the reflection of practicality.
She knew she was dreaming, but dreams were all she could see. In this world of fantasy and imagination, she let herself be submerged fully and without any hope of rescue. She sang in solitude. Strangers wept on hearing her passionate notes, but he remained unmoved. No doubt, he gave her the semblance of love and care, of adoration and sympathy, but the implications were not clear to her. She was being exploited as he thoroughly enjoyed the attention and affection bestowed upon him, and all this while he professed love for her. Love, to him, was no doubt something that could be easily professed, declared and subsequently denied when convenient. But to her it was the whole of her existence, and to add insult to injury, she was also contentious and honest to herself. The thought of loving one and marrying another was simply intolerable, but ironically this was what he recommended to her every time they met.
He was a philanderer and the very idea of honesty and loyalty was unknown to him. She often thought how it was possible for someone so superior in mind and ideas, thinking and ambitions to fall prey to such unforgiving and tempestuous love. However, try as she might, she was not able to find an answer. It was her fault for being blind to what he was doing to her — killing her slowly and spiritually. Physically, she was in the best of health, but inwardly she had withered to the extent that there seemed to be nothing around her but a fog in which his image floated.
The sense of his presence churned her senses in an incomprehensible manner. The problem was that in love you can be everything but rational, anything but practical. The whole thing was meticulously outlined and planned by him, and he executed it in the most unblemished way. If it destroyed her — the life of another human being — it was not a matter of consideration for him because after all, women are weak and they should be punished for their passions. They are easily carried away by the apparent charms of any man they decide to take a fancy to. In they same way, Shakespeare was more than right when he said: “Fragility thy name is woman.”
So if one frail woman was desperately and hopelessly in love with him, it was not his fault. He obviously could not alienate the whole world for her. So a mind was destroyed in the most ruthless manner and a body was engulfed by the onslaught of worries, but the other soul remained quite placated and undisturbed. This was the soul of the man who once professed to be the soul mate of the mind and body that was destroyed in the end.
In the end, he jilted her on the pretext that their marriage was not feasible; that he was indebted to everyone living in the neighbourhood and around him. She was obviously stunned because to her transparent soul, you love with all your heart and if you don’t love, you don’t love at all. The concept of such partial love and compulsions was unknown to her. She couldn’t bring herself to terms with this idea and started tormenting herself in body and mind. She got addicted to alcohol, sleeping pills and relaxants, and did what she hated most — marriage to another man.
It was her punishment for not being able to know the bad old world and to think that she, through the sheer force of her mind and imagination, could rein in the circumstances. Living in the face of the bleakest of surroundings, she is a stigma on the society that allows one to play with the feelings of another in the most sinister and ruthless manner.
She loved fragrances, flowers, books, poetry and literature. She pranced after colourful butterflies and lived in the world of idyllic happiness and perpetual bliss. Nothing could dampen her will and high spirits. Princess of love, queen of adoration housed in a place of beauty and harmony. But alas, nothing is eternal, nothing is more permanent than change!
