Epistle 98: The Tragedy of LivingA/N: Hey there everyone! :D :D Here is the next update! :D :D
Happy Reading! :D :D
18th March, 2009:
He's... gone.
That's it... He's just... gone. Away from all of us. Away from me. He'll never smile at me again... He'll never stroke my hair lovingly again... He'll never watch out for me silently ever again... He'll never fight with the world for me ever again... He'll never be my shield ever again... He'll never cheer me up ever again by taking me out to dinner or by bringing me lots of ice-cream... He's never going to hug me and love me ever again...
Nothing's ever going to be the same anymore without Papa.
Why did he leave me? Did I do something wrong to him? Did I fail him in something? Was he angry with me for something? Papa always said that I was his soul, no? Then why did he leave me for another world? Didn't he always used to say that he'd always be with me and how he'd never, ever leave me like my other father did? Then why did he leave me, God? Am I that bad that nobody likes me and wants to live with me? Am I that unworthy of having someone like Papa shower all the world's love upon me? Am I just meant to yearn, never to yield? Am I just born to live without love my whole life?
I trusted Papa so much... So much... He would never break me apart like my other father did. Then why did he leave me like that, God...? I begged and begged of him to stay with me... I begged and begged for him to be restored back to his fullest health... I begged and begged if him to just hold on for me... Didn't I matter to him even that much that he sought leaving me behind in this cold and cruel world all alone?
I don't know what to do anymore... I don't know what to feel anymore... I don't know whether I even want to live anymore... I'm just tired. Tired of repeatedly going through the same thing over and over again. Tired of picking up the pieces of my broken soul and trying to make them whole again. I'm just tired of trusting and trusting and having my trust being trampled upon all over again.
When I stood outside the ICU waiting for the doctors to give me something to hold on to, I trusted God. I trusted Him to pull us all out from it because I knew that after a life long of suffering, things were finally falling back into place for me. Especially after blinding walking down a dark path for above a year trying to hold myself from breaking apart completely and trying to find myself in a world where I didn't belong at all. I've barely managed to break surface in this one year amidst all the drowning and just when I thought that I had, I've been pulled back to the bottom of the sea again.
But even more than God, I trusted Papa. I trusted Papa because I knew that he knew how much he meant to me and what I'd be put through should something go wrong. He knew how many entire sanctity depended upon him. He was the one man who I trusted blindly and knew would never hurt me and leave me because he knew that it would tear me apart forever, and I'd never be able to trust anyone after that. And I trusted Papa enough to know that he'd even fight Death for me to come back to me just like Ranveer did.
But even above that, I trusted Ranveer. I trusted him to give Papa the will to pull through this ordeal and come back to all of us... Papa loved him so much... much more than any father could love his real son too. Much more than Papa even loved me, I think. And I trusted Ranveer to make Papa live through it because I knew that Papa would never leave Ranveer behind at a time when he's just begun accomplishing his dreams and it was Papa's dream to see Ranveer reach the topmost pinnacle of success with his own eyes. I was so sure that Ranveer would help Papa see through this, if not for anything else then for that dream.
And yet when Ranveer remained in the room for much, much longer than any of us did, I knew it deep down in my heart that something was terribly, terribly wrong. I knew it in my guts that something was wrong the moment we stepped foot into the hospital, and even though Chirag and everybody else kept assuring me that Papa would be alright, I knew it deep down in my heart that something wasn't right at all. But I did not want to believe my heart for it was always meant to feel premonitions that weren't even true half of the time. And yet I was numb. Blank to all the reassurances that everyone kept giving me.
Everybody in our house had already begun crying as the doctors kept ushering everyone out after barely a minute, saying that he needed as much rest as he could get. And yet I couldn't cry. Not really. Not even when I sat there for barely half a minute staring at Papa, aghast. The tears were there but they refused to leave my eyes because the tears would only mean that it would become true what everyone knew in their hearts - that Papa was now a guest of this world for just some time. So I knew that I couldn't cry. All that I could do was futilely beg of him to hold on, even though my heart knew that it was lie.
And then, Ranveer left the room...
I was close enough to the room to know that I'd heard Ranveer yell inside, and after a couple of seconds, the doctor-in-charge rushed into the room along with two nurses. And it was around then that Ranveer left the room, his shoulders sagged and his eyes upon the floor. And in that moment, I could have sworn that my heart had forgotten to beat as the fear was paramount... My heart knew what had happened even before it had happened. And the next moment, Ranveer walked straight towards me and stopped, raising his head ever so slightly just so that our eyes could meet.
He shook his head.
I lost my world.
Everything spiralled around me as I felt my guts knot up, my heart as cold as the iciest of winters while my brain simply refused to register anything else. I distinctly remember throwing off Chirag's hand from my own the moment he tightened his grip in support. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore. I didn't care about anyone anymore. The one... the one person who I cared about the most had left me and gone. Gone... forever.
I couldn't care anymore... I couldn't love anymore... I couldn't breathe anymore in a world where everything suffocated me. I wanted to shut my eyes and never open them again in pursuit of the one man who gave me a life filled of happiness in these thirteen years. A man who took me in as his own along with my mother, and treated me like his daughter even though the world tried to make him not to. A man who gave me an eternity's worth of love that even covered up for the absence of my biological father in all those years... A love that was as simple as it was pure.
He was the one who taught me how to love, to be independent, to become strong. He was the man who always put my needs above everyone else's, who gave me all the time of the world to call him Papa when I was ready to do so, and not just because he was my father in the eyes of law. He was the one who always stood beside me as my unsung hero, the one who stood beside me as my guide and my friend when I was too afraid to trust... He was the one who taught me how to trust and to live life with nothing but love and humility...
And in that moment, my eyes just shut of its own accord. I couldn't breathe and I definitely couldn't understand anything anymore... I don't even think that I knew where I was anymore. All I was aware about were the tears - the hot, burning tears that kept leaving my eyes faster than I could draw in air. It didn't even remotely vent the pain that my heart felt... the surging, blinding pain that shattered my heart over and over again with such agony that I was surprised that my body hadn't begun to bleed for real.
And the pain didn't end - it'd only just begun. And it just kept getting more and more and more with every passing second until I couldn't take it anymore. I just couldn't... I had to rid myself of the pain. I had to kill the pain that was killing me all over again as every second passed by. The pain only just kept rising and rising until all I could do was scream. Scream as loud as I could to give vent to all the ache that Papa's death left upon my heart.
I remember shouting and feeling my knees wobble as all my strength failed me, my eyes still shut. But I didn't fall... Somebody had broken my fall. And even as I held on to that somebody and yelled as loudly as I could, the pain in my heart had begun to reduce. It was as though the person who held me in his embrace had begun taking away all my pain by making it his own... filling me up with an essence that I'd been chasing for months now. The same essence that always gave me the will to live.
The same essence that made me whole.
My eyes still remained closed as I wept harder and harder into his chest. I couldn't dare to open them again for it would mean returning to a reality that I didn't want to return back to. The darkness comforted me as the pain seemed to ebb away slowly, leaving behind a growing numbness. I heaved and heaved for breath as I felt him rub my back in slow, concentric circles, his tears mingling with my own upon my face. And yet it was just wave after wave of emptiness that kept washing away my pain, the solace of his embrace just keeping my heart beating as I could hear his own beating in the same irregular way like my own.
"Ishaani... get up, I'm taking you home," came a voice from the person holding me as he gently pulled me up on my feet, wiping away the newest onslaught on tears upon my face.
The voice was familiar, I knew, but my mind was too tired to distinguish anything, not when my heart and soul had suffered a mortal agony like the one I just did. I tried disentangling myself away from him, but I moment I did, the cold winds swarmed around me, making my body go cold in its wake as my heart shivered terribly. I still didn't dare to open my eyes.
All that I did was cling to him closer as the warmth of his breath protected me against the cruel winds of reality, the strength of his embrace unparalleled to anything that I'd felt in all my life even though I could hear him cry and shiver at the same time. But it didn't matter. His embrace was what kept my heart beating, his life flowing into my own as I remained curled in his arms, letting him lead me out.
I don't remember what happened next as my head remained buried upon his chest, his slow and erratic breathing comforting my own uneven ones. It was getting easier to breathe as minutes passed by, the tears finally lessening in intensity.
All that remained was an emptiness in its wake as everything felt lifeless. Worthless. Insignificant.
How could the world laugh and breath when Harshad Parekh was no more? How was the world still functioning when the most important jewel had long since departed to another world? How was everything so silent in the night when everybody needed to yell in agony just like I wanted to? How could there be calm in the world when my life was in chaos?
And yet as I realized that we were in a car, cooped up together, a strange silence seemed to be falling upon my thrashing emotions begging for mercy. My demons seemed to have gotten lost in the gaping hole of my heart that was Papa, and my mind fell numb. Unfeeling. Distanced and emotionless. I may have been eight again in that moment, the same girl whose heart suddenly knew more black than red as the void remained bigger than the remaining pieces of her heart.
Nothing was said as I felt the car halt, and this time, my invisible benefactor didn't tell me anything. He simply carried me out from the car bridal style and I could feel my head bob against his chest that made me realize that he was probably taking me upon a particular set of stairs that felt too familiar. A couple of seconds later, the scent of fresh flowers hit my nose and I unconsciously knew that he'd brought me to my room. He gently laid me down as he rid me of my sandals, tucking me up with a blanket.
"Ranveer..." I remember breathing out into the air quietly, more as a plea than a prayer as I finally willed myself to open my eyes.
Everything remained hazy for a few minutes as a couple of stray tears left my eyes, the light of the room blinding me even more. And even though I couldn't see who stood above me, I didn't need to know either for my soul could feel it.
It was Ranveer who'd held me in his arms all along.
Ranveer sat upon the bed silently as my vision finally cleared, taking my hand into his own. Both of us stared at each other for some time as Ranveer didn't bother hiding away the tears that were leaving his face as well, holding hands in silence. There was no peace in a world of war, and there was no paradise in a war-zone. I simply managed to prop myself upon the back of the bed as I pulled him into my arms, stroking his hair gently as he cried upon my chest in the same agony that I'd let gone of at the hospital.
Ranveer and I held on to each other the whole night in the same embrace, unaware about any world that existed beyond the two of us and beyond the room that we'd barricaded ourselves in. And as the night grew thicker, I could only feel my heart bleed lesser and lesser, until it began to clot. It was falling numb and cold, uncaring and unfeeling towards everything as my emotions felt dangerously crippled under the weight of one incident. Ranveer fell silent after crying for a couple of hours, and yet neither one of us dared to break from the embrace.
Because both of our lives depended upon it.
It mattered to neither of us that he'd confessed just a couple of hours ago and had told me that he was in love with me. It mattered to neither of us in that moment that the implication of what he'd just said would definitely dent out friendship because I was in love with someone else. Nothing mattered to either of us tonight for we were only meant to mourn the death of Harshad Parekh, one of the greatest men the world would ever come to see.
I scooted in after some time to give Ranveer sufficient space to rest his back upon the bedrest as I lay my head upon his shoulder, both of us silently staring at the painting that he'd made. A painting that happened because of Papa at the end of the day. Had Ranveer not tried to save his life, he wouldn't have given up on his own one and that night would have never happened where he re-wrote our destiny.
Both of ours.
But we were dead to everything as the warmth began to scatter away, both of our hands cold against each others'. Reality was setting in slowly, and along with it faded away the warmth of the embrace we both sought. There was no essence anymore... Just a stretch of never ending chasm as the pain kept dripping into it, leaving us both numb against each other. And yet, we'd never been this alive before... Not since the night when Ranveer made that painting.
That night changed us forever; so did this one.
"Nothing's ever going to remain the same now, is it?" asked Ranveer into the quiet of the night just as the clock struck three.
"Nothing's been the same ever since you stepped out of the house," I confessed softly, and Ranveer gave me a pensive look.
I noticed how he lost all colour from upon his face as his eyes bore into my own, stirring a strange spark of life within my barren heart. A life, I realized, I hadn't felt ever since he left for Sydney in the first place. And with it came a very uneasy realization - I haven't felt alive in a year and a half.
And suddenly, it was as though everything flashed through my eyes - the long, winding path that I'd been treacherously walking towards in that one year and a half; a path taut with blinding darkness and just a prickle of light that I kept following - the prickle of light that resembled a star. And I've been running and longing and yearning to reach that light, but I haven't been able to. And yet my heart kept pulling me closer and closer towards it for there was an essence about that star that I couldn't ignore...
Something that I knew I needed if I had to turn on the lights.
That star was Ranveer, I vaguely realized as I could feel my eyes drooping in earnest, my mind too tired to take in anything else. Our eyes met once again as he stared at me tiredly, his hand upon my face as he cupped my cheek gently. He rubbed circles upon my face with his thumb that only intensified my longing to drown everything out and succumb to the vast abyss of black that seemed to be more and more tantalizing by every passing minute.
And suddenly, there was a burst of life that snapped both of us out from our slumber as our eyes seemed to connect with the same pulsating energy that it would whenever we would have those prolonged eye-contacts, the sudden burst of euphoria misplaced at a time when grief had crippled us both. My hand slowly slid upon his cheek as our proximity increased, his face barely away from my own as we both shut our eyes. I was driven neither by my heart or my mind for they were both dead that night...
It was my soul that yearned for a love that only Ranveer could give me.
I felt his cheek graze against my own softly, his stubble prickling my skin before I felt his head fall upon my shoulder softly. And as the adrenaline gush of the tension between us faded away, the inky blackness only seemed to ambush me faster and stronger until the last thing I felt was my head fallen upon something soft and plush, like a pillow.
And that was the last time I ever felt alive.
The next morning I woke up, I knew that something had broken inside me for good. And so I could see in Ranveer's eyes too when he woke up just moments after I did. Our eyes met, and we both could see the harsh handiwork of life in each other's eyes, now red and puffy. But atleast he hasn't lost his capacity to emote... I don't have any left at all. And it's been the same since two days - I don't feel anything. I can't cry, I can't bleed, I can't emote. Everybody has been telling me to cry it out because they're afraid that I've gone into shock after what happened, but I don't care. I don't care about anything right now.
Ranveer has been trying to talk to me as well, and I think he's the only one who I even make an attempt to talk to. I don't like to see anyone else... not even Chirag. It's been two days since Papa... He was cremated last evening, after Sharman bhaiyya returned from the US. Ranveer cremated him, as was Papa's last wish... Nobody had a say in it, not even Baa. All my cousins are with Maa and are trying to calm her down since she's distraught. If she couldn't love him the way he loved her when they were married, then atleast I know now that she loved him just the same.
She just never realized it in all these years.
But nothing matters to me anymore... The world doesn't matter to me anymore. What good is any world without Papa in it? The closest to Papa I have now is Ranveer... The only person who I can now trust with my eyes closed because even though Papa left me, Ranveer won't. He'll never break my trust and I need him now more so than ever to guard my deepest fears. To save me from them for they keep threatening to break surface any moment.
Ranveer and I have been spending the last two days in silence, and alcohol, in his case since he needs something to drown away his own demons. Had Papa been alive, I'd have so proudly said that this was just like old times where Ranveer and I would spend hours upon the terrace, stargazing. But only we know that nothing's going to remain the same anymore; and we're just trying to find Papa amidst all the stars while we found a way to cope with a life without him.
As Papa once rightly told me, 'All the coldest and hardest people you meet were once as supple as water. And that's the tragedy of living.'
Constructive criticism will be more than welcome and sorry for any typos. :D :D
Next chapter:
Epistle 99
Edited by LadyMeringue - 8 years ago
Geet - Hui Sabse Parayee
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
