Posted:
Hi all!
After yesterday's letter to Lakshya, I felt there was a lot to say to Sujata too so here is my take on Sanskaar's letter to Suju. There will be other letters coming. I have therefore titled this the Despatches Series. Here goes Despatch 2. Hope some of you enjoy it!
Link to Despatch 1:
https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/topic/4490375Dearest Mom,
I will have to keep this simple for reasons that will be obvious to everyone except maybe yourself, and you are likely to ask why I am even writing this at all. Well, I just wrote to Lucky and told him that I would burn that letter but then after writing that one, I sort of changed my mind. My current thinking is that after I write a host of letters to certain members of our special family (and some others who are also family but not by blood), I may just take early retirement. Oh, not from my thriving business, which I have been recently neglecting due to one or two other little things that keep distracting me- but from the freak show that our lives have now been turned into.
You see Mom, I am tired. Weariness threatens me and that is more dangerous than the hate that consumed me after Kavita's death, because that fuelled me and kept me going and despite the damage it was doing, it felt better than this utter helplessness I feel. I feel the effects of all that pain, hurt, subsided anger and renounced hate now. It is a climatic feeling but one that brings a sense of loss and desolation with it, rather than the rejoicing one should feel when something is seen to its end.
I know what you will say. And yes- Swara is a HUGE part of this. We can dedicate that pain and sorrow and hurt to the mockery of my relationship with her. But, there is so much more Mom. You are an integral part of this, hence this is addressed to you. Please try and concentrate on this, I know it is not about the latest issue of sublime importance in your endless war for power and recognition in our household. It is nothing to do with what you can say to Badi Maa that will elevate you in the social strata of our hypocritical family. It certainly has no connection to that form of kitchen politics that seems inescapable in most families (I am guessing other families have this, as it gives me limited comfort that ours alone is not so strange).
No, this is about me. Your precious son- your sun, moon and stars. For I know how much you love me mother. I know that you have limitations, there is a deficiency of depth that others often misread in you. But not me- I really see you and understand you and then accept you, flaws and all, just as you do me. Must be the biological bond, but whatever it is, you know and I know- that I love you.
However, my curse has always been that loving never made me blind. I can love but still be capable of understanding that love in itself is not the alchemist's stone that turns the object of your affection to gold. That is a mistake the likes of Ragini make and perhaps that is why she is where she is today. Be that as it may, I hope you won't feel hurt by what I say next to you.
Please mon, try and be my mother! You will be shocked and hurt at this, and will cry. I hate to see anyone I love cry, you know that. I am however desperate and reaching out for comfort and understanding from the one person who should understand a son- the mother. Oh, I know the extent of your love and obsession with me. After all, you stood by me all during my stint at playing villain. You unconditionally accepted my wrong doing and then went out of your way to cover and connive for me. I was grateful, no, I still am I guess. But now I find myself hoping you had done what you should have done. Slapped me hard then and shown me the right path. I know I probably wouldn't have listened, blinded with hate and anger as I was. I know it took Swara to apply that balm and I would not probably have let anyone else administer that medicine, but maybe you could have tried at least? What you certainly should not have done is take it unilaterally to the next level with Ragini as that then caused me untold grief and remorse afterwards.
That is history so as to speak. Maybe it is a bit unfair to blame you as it was probably inevitable that I should fall in love the way I did and repent in the way I do. Fitting punishment for someone who tried to meddle as much as I did in an innocent's fall. I don't mind paying my dues. I don't also mind the heartache in a way as I feel my love is worth is but what I do mind is the utter disregard my own mother has for my feelings.
You will by now be wailing at the Gods for your ungrateful son who doesn't understand how you do everything for him. Trust me, mom- your son is well aware. The same son though, cannot simply move on as you want him to. When Kavita died, you would have wanted the same. You saw what happened. Then you went into cahoots with misguided me and we almost destroyed Swara. I really could have done with your help and support when I tried to make things right with her but you were so cowed under by Ragini, you made it all oh so hard and painful. Too late to bemoan this now but you know Mom, your every barbed comment to Swara and every insult- hurt me way more than her. She is the forgiving type in case you hadn't noticed! Me- you know- anything that hurts mine, I usually pay back in the same coin, but I couldn't even do that to you. I was totally hamstrung by my own mother.
That fateful day where Swara cleared me of the atrocious charges faked by Ragini and you showered affection and approval on her- it felt like I was basking in glorious sunshine in the dead of the night. I felt my heart and spirits lift and I so wanted to hug you and thank you. I didn't though as I am not given to overt expression. Perhaps that is why whatever is happening to me is allowed to continue.
Just when that part of me which refused to wilt and flares with hope sometimes thought there was chance you could accept Swara, you crushed it by re-stating your prejudices again. I found it easier to forgive you when I thought you hated Swara as you misunderstood her. Now- when you so obviously like and admire, perhaps even love her in your own way, and you still reject her, it drives a knife deep into my soul. I know you don't want a Bengali bahu. I also know why- it will according to you, reduce your social standing in our all important family and society. I get it- but it infuriates me and hurts me. You compound this by actually suggesting she finds a "nice Bengali boy". Do you know what I would want to do to this hypothetical person? An image of me tearing him from limb to limb might make you balk but it is what my mind truly conjures up. I don't mind your shallowness, but this that is ready to totally overlook someone's suitability and more than that, her own off spring's want and need, seems grotesque to me.
Still, I thought that when the marriage happened despite the best efforts of us all, you accepted this with resignation. I even hoped that deep down, so buried that you yourself may never find the source, would be a feeling of rightness and inevitability about it. After all, your son will never have greater happiness than if that one girl became his life partner. I know I don't want a forced marriage, but you know how much I love her. She is my life and without her I fear the very thought of existence. As it is, we have enough to grapple with. You then went and, at the most inopportune moment, raised something that has been the source of my greatest dread.
Divorce from Swara. The thought makes me literally break out in a cold sweat. I feel pain lance at me at the thought of her leaving me. I know she will, and wants to, but that my own mother should have been the one to pave that way, is indescribable agony. It was not bad enough that I had gone through an emotional wringer, leaving me drained of anything pleasant, and you then whacked me with that. I almost wished you had been one of those mothers that had hit me all my life, rather than the one you are- never raising a hand and in fact, pampering me and cosseting me as much as you could, or I would let you. That would have been preferable, as the pain you have caused me is like being plunged into the fires of purgatory. I could not say anything, I stood helpless, screaming inside but stoic outside- Sanskaar style till the bitter end.
So there Mom- I have said it. You have let me down in a way you may never grasp. And before you repeat it, it will not be ok in time. I will not forget Swara and move on and find a nice Marwari girl. We will not be playing happy families anytime soon, or maybe ever. No- I may exist, as life for those like me is not something you can choose to turn off, but I promise you that existence is not living in the true sense. You may feel like you have your son, sans a Bengali wife but what you will have is an empty husk of the man your son is and can be.
Just as I had no hope with my letter to Lucky achieving anything, I don't with this one either. However, if I am to abandon you all again for my sanity, you will all need explanations and so here is mine for you. I know it will hurt you but I can't lie and don't want to.
I will always love you regardless.
Your son,
Sanskaar
Despatch 3:
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