Well here goes.
I'm sitting here inside these bars that hold me in and thinking over my life. It was a life that had started with so much rebellion.... i had gone against my family to marry Linda... broken my mother's heart. I carried that guilt for a long time.... but a happy marriage would at least have justified my choice to my mother. I didnt even get that.... had to come back to india without any money, having handed over my daughter to Linda... Perhaps Linda and i were never meant to be. It is to the credit of my mother that she never said a word.... never said 'I told you so'.... just asked that i give life one more chance.... her idea of that chance was Mathura.
Mathura.... she's impatient, can be jealous and incredibly petty when jealous, i also suspect that she can be very manipulative when she wants to be.... but she belongs here... in this place, with my family.... perhaps love is very different from what i thought it was.... because i cannot deny the fact that i am happy with her.
But it was only when i discovered Rusty all over again that i realised how love can make you blind and controlling.... i had found my daughter after a lifetime.... i had no other children.... [I had them at the beginning of the show but then the makers forgot all about them].... 'rusty'... that silly nickname... who would have thought it would stick..... initially she wouldnt come back with me.... i left home.... somehow couldnt stay there.... it was suffocating to take so much simplicity and a certain naivete of happiness when life was so complex elsewhere.... when my daughter didnt want to be with me. Does this sound selfish?.... but arent parents always selfish just as much as they are selfless? It is this contradiction which makes them impossible to live with and live without.
I sound wise now, i wasnt wise then.... i went away from home to raise money for her future education and returned only to find her here in India. She seemed to have given up all thought of future education, by the way. (Sorry, i cant be in character all the time, have to be shvetal also 😉).
The next few months were completely chaotic.... what was happening to the world i knew?...i had always known that this place, my place and these people, my people could be incredibly violent... there was always that fire smouldering beneath the surface... but that things could so spiral out of control.... i cannot even narrate the events of that time, dont want to remember them one by one.... i've lost my father forever to that violence.... and my brother for god knows how long.... whenever Samay and Rusty come to meet me, Samay keeps telling me what he's doing to trace my brother down....to go back to those times, the conviction that rusty was a part of it all, then the discovery that she had sacrificed her love for Ajeet, then the discovery that she had come to india to ruin my family.... almost seem like events out of a show.... somehow i still feel that Mathura had a hand in these things too.... perhaps she too knows, like me, that evil can be attractive.
In all these trying times, troubles had erupted and i had responded to them.... but nothing had required that i prove myself all over again...that came only when Samay came into my life... life tests you at certain points but i thought it had tested me enough as a young man... i'd seen my share of struggle and survived it with a certain dignity.... but here i had to prove my worth in the most elemental way of them all.... i had to prove that i could hold my own and protect my family against another man.... strange how it should be Samay against whom i have to prove my identity all over again... i remember him as a kid.... when he'd come i had tried to play a paternalistic role in his life.... after all, i was enjoying being the fond father to Rusty at that time.... but he wasnt the kind of guy you could patronise.... at times i wondered if he could be right for Rusty.... but she hated him so.... and soon i realised that this was going to be open war... when he took my house and business away, i was livid.... it was one of those defining moments when i knew that i had started life all over again, i had to prove myself as son, husband and father.... getting my money and status back and getting even with Samay... that was how i would have to do it.
And then she married him.... just like that. Why did she do it? I had always known that letting my daughter go away from me was going to be very difficult.... but she took that away by that marriage, robbed me of all emotion and left an incredible pain... though she's never told me the exact reason, i now know that she married him unwillingly ... at one level, i'm still angry about that, thought not surprised that he should have forced her.... i remember being angered by the intensity of his obsession with Rusty... but also frightened.... yes they're happy now but things could have gone so wrong.... why did she not talk to me before she married him?....
This was followed by days of hardship and ambivalent emotions towards Rusty and Samay ... his brain tumour.... at one point i wanted him dead... but there was a sense of honour that kept on re asserting itself... i couldnt really wish them ill or stay away.... i still wanted to prove myself all over again... it was the second rebellion in life after Linda.... i would win back what i had lost.... but at the same time i could feel reasonably just towards them... after all, they were probably going through their own hell at the time.
But a man cannot lose everything in life twice over and remain compassionate to those who caused it.... they were the ones who were sponsoring my recovery.... i know Mohini didnt tell me that out of any kindness for me but i dont care what her motives were.... it is the truth and thats all that matters.... whether Samay knew that Rusty was bankrolling me or not is also besides the point.... is this what my life is going to be? i have everything taken away from me and then given back on a whim.... i no longer want to make sense of our relationship.... i could have been friendly with Samay Rusty while building my own life again.... but these had to be two separate spheres of life and stay separate... i wanted to be the parent here and the person there.... instead they had made me the figure of fun in both scenarios.... of course, even today rusty frequently tries to explain... but i change the topic.... even today i find this topic a sore one... her help only shattered everything again.
Now i wasnt just angry or defeated, i was bitter. And my vengeance became what it had never been before... it became sly. The impatience and anger was replaced by cunning... i have discovered that everyone has the potential to be cunning, to be sly... and i'm sure that the night i spent in prison helped bring this out. Oh god i will never forget that night.... but some things are best left unsaid.
Then came a period where i discovered and revelled in my own potential for evil.... perhaps i had been too accomodating all my life... this time around i strategised and planned my moves.... the cat and mouse game can be so much fun... it was very easy to manipulate Rusty.... i could sense in her a need for my approval.... Samay was more canny.... i could see that he could see what i was doing.... that i was subtly but systematically interfering in his marital life.... and he of all the people would resent this interference the most.... but he couldnt say anything.... since that would leave him looking foolish.... i know Mathura and Biji suspected.... but the politics of the household had changed....Biji no longer had the same power.... it was only Samay who could mount a challenge to me.... he would get frustrated so often.... i could see him itching to say 'But cant you see what he is doing?' to Rusty.... but he couldnt say it.... made my life to see him straining against the leash like that.... yes i know that expression.... you think i still remember it with pleasure.... and i admit i do.... it was one of those rare times in my life when i was completely in charge.... when life and all the people around me danced to my tunes... it was a heady feeling.... and i think wisdom lies in acknowledging that pleasure rather than pretending a shame that i do not feel. Also, i came out of it myself didnt i?
Actually, i didnt come out of it myself... rusty did it.... when she threatened to kill herself....why do kids never realise that this is the one fear, one thought, one possibility against which life stills for all concerned parents?... and beneath it all, i discovered that there was still a concerned parent in me.... when i was following her in that car, her entire life flashed in front of my eyes.... yes i know it sounds filmy.... but i remembered her birth.... the one moment that linda and i had wept as one.... she had been such a fussy kid... kitne nakhre karti thi khaane mein.... Samay se shaadi kar li, ek baar bhi mere baare mein nahi socha.... bataya nahi.... aur aaj waise hi marne chali gayi.... i still get gooosebumps when i think about it.
Well so here we are. I came here to own up to my crimes. Before i came here, each of my family members came to 'confess' to me.... Mathura confessed that last year she had been the one to instigate Rusty.... but she had never thought that so much would happen.... and by then she had no option but to hide her role.... said it had been on her conscience forever.... i was angry... par shayad mein aur Mathura ko hi nimit banana hi tha.... my family had to break apart and a new family had to come together under Samay... imagine that, Madan's son.... Madan ki apni kabhi apne family se nahi bani, tabhi toh Canada bhag gaya tha.... but thats another story.... Samay confessed that he had forced Rusty to marry her... didnt say how.... i said it didnt matter now.... didnt know what else to say or think at that point.... Rusty confessed that the scheme to help me was all her own, Samay didnt know about it... sounds like a silly confession, na?.... but i know why she said it.... she's my daughter and knows what hurt me the most in the tamasha that my life turned into.
Well, my term ends tomorrow and i dont know what is going to happen next.... over these 4 years, i've often met Samay and Rusty, Biji and Mathura.... i know the house awaits me.... and my family.... Madan might also come in a month or two... but i dont know what i'll do. Samay is very much at home there, he's the head of the household... while i do like him, i'll have to learn to love him.... becuase he controls the household he lives in, living with him based only on liking will be very difficult... but he has a lot of tact... so i know that both he and rusty will be deferetial to me.... i'll have to learn to be peripheral in my daughter's life.... however 4 years of solitude have given me a taste for retired life.... perhaps it wont be so difficult after all....
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
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