(A short story based upon a true incident. That happened in Vijayawada fifteen days ago. I weaved my imaginative narrative around it)
“What I have to do I haven’t decided yet.”
I’m waiting for the morning Sunlight to present itself. A smartphone in hand to video record my last conversation with my parents and my brother. An accusing message to my wife for whose deceiving behavior, I find myself standing on the railway lines. I’m waiting to fast track my death!
My name is Gaurav, and I just came out of two-day police detention. I never knew that I have to wait and adjust to such a dehumanizing situation. I was made to sit on the floor. No one was allowed to approach me. They even snatched away my cell phone. I know my parents are waiting somewhere outside the police station. They are as helpless and insulted as I’m. We were both clueless about what fate awaited me.
I hear a lot of commotion at the police station. It’s both threatening, and intimidating. Police in their uniforms behaved like undisputed lords. It’s like whoever entered they saw them with criminal suspicion. The language that slanged around was outrageous. We have to die in humiliation listening to vulgar language hurled at to those who are brought in as accused. And they entered in the name of various complaints or offenses. Today I’m one of them.
I sat in one corner all curled up. I’m so frightened that I couldn’t even dare to ask for toilet calls.
Sometime in midnight, it was more than twenty hours I was in my hunched up position. The unspeakable inconvenience was spreading to every part of my body. I felt too dumb to entertain rational thoughts. Suddenly, a constable pokes his lathi into my stomach and snarls at me.
“Yeah, are you alright, did you eat anything.”
‘I nodded my head,’ in no particular direction, no sound came out of me as my mouth felt too dried up.
“Lie down, for now, the inspector will speak to you in the morning’, he spoke to me as if I’m a pet dog chained in a corner.
Hearing those words stirred a frightened churning that made loud noises in my stomach. I felt an urge to run to the toilets. But I couldn’t move an inch. I was frozen with fear of anticipation of what mistreatment awaits me in the morning.
Filled with dread in every part of my body, disoriented, I drifted into my past.
It was all about Lavanya I met six years ago.
I first saw Lavanya, at the college where I joined to complete my intermediate. I came from a modest family, and my father was a small businessman. My mother took care of the house where I stayed along with my younger brother.
I’m aware of my family’s ordinary background. ThereforeI’m modest in my manners and as well as in my aspirations.
“Let me complete my graduation and join a job to earn and help my family” was the only goal at the moment I had in my mind.
“My age and cultural and caste taboos are too rigid to think of anything else other than being a good student and earning good grades.” That what my parents advised me day in and day out.
But college life threw at me a temptation for which I had foolishly succumbed, and I paid dearly with my life.
“But this girl Lavanya” a frail, short, pretty girl sitting four rows before me in our class.“I’m not able to concentrate.”Looked blankly out of the window I yawned lazily. “There is hardly anything I could follow in the class today.” I quietly said to myself, mindful that I’m yielding to these strange romantic temptations.
For Lavanya too, everything seemed equally puzzling. Especially, she noticed how the eyes of the boys lit up when they passed by her.
“One particular boy is too openly gaping at me” Lavanya was surprised to find herself smiling inwardly. “This is something I’m enjoying” she added to herself at the same time nodding her head to the lecture she was hearing.
The co-educational setup, the huge classrooms, the lengthy corridors, equally lengthy lunch breaks. These have provided encouraging opportunities for Gaurav and Lavanya to exchange the sneaky glances, and followed by the class-notes. Within six months they developed enough closeness to sit together on a bench and to share a cup of tea.
Both of them are aware of their ‘just above average family’ backgrounds. There are also wary of practical financial and family impediments that would break in when they would go to the point of undue intimacy.
Between them, Gaurav grew up more sensibly optimistic about the future outcome of the relationship that is unfolding. Whereas Lavanya is slightly frivolous; and less inclined to what is gradually budding between them. He seemed more decisively planned to chalk out a good future for both of them. His resolution has deep roots of confidence in his sincerity and his intimacy to Lavanya.
Lavanya was more worried about the studies, however, couldn’t resist the caring and genuinely poised attitude of Gaurav. But she secretly nursed a feeling, “I don’t think I genuinely want to marry him.” Outwardly, she never allowed that feeling to show itself in any of the conversations they had – now happening every day – regularly.
On the last day of their final exams, Gaurav asked Lavanya for an outing. They chose to spend a couple of hours at a roadside restaurant on the outskirts of the city.
Lavanya was less of an active participant and more of a listener. Her words or eyes never keen to represent anything clear or hint an assurance.
He had seen her closely for the last two years. He was familiar with her mood swings very well. Gaurav decided that he should take the lead to a plan for their future together. His thoughts had a feel of earnest sincerity.
He moved little closer to her on the bench, turned towards her and spoke, “Lavanya I have something to discuss with you.”
With her eyes speaking, Lavanya raised her eyebrows curiously, “what is it?”
Gaurav noticed she’s not comfortable when she saw him moving within a breathing distance to her.
Gaurav hesitated but haltingly, started speaking:
“My parents told me they couldn’t support my further education. They advised me, ‘Find a job and support in whichever way you can?’ And I love you and want to marry you. I want you to continue your studies. I can join some job and support you. I’ll help you to complete your engineering. I hope you accept my proposal.”
Gaurav completed his monologue. He was quite apprehensive about what he might listen to her as a response.
Lavanya was not all surprised seeing his confident posture and depth in his promise. But she went on into her reasoning.
Secretly, she knew she is wearing a thin veil of selfishness. She is further full of rich ambitions about her future and type of job she wished to take up. She is also fully aware of her family’s status; that they can’t afford her further education. But whatever Gaurav suggested very well it suited her. With one exception, as a hitch: to marry him.
A clear but misinformed idea started drumming in her mind. But she silently nodded her consent, “I’m ok with what you proposed.”
Two years later they got married. They had few or no objections from either of their families; owing to the tough financial realities.
Gaurav joined as a hotel supervisor with a salary of fifteen thousand rupees. Lavanya took her entrance exam got selected and joined a local engineering college.
It’s seen in middle-class lives, after marriage. The daily grind would go on smoothly only when the grip of adjustment is held as flexible and as tolerable in the hands of a husband.
That is exactly the attitude expressed by Gaurav. He worked hard every day; saw that Lavanya now his wife was well supported to finish her graduation. On the sidelines of his apparent routine lifestyle, he didn’t miss to notice a shade of disturbing attitudinal change in his wife. A few cracks of dissatisfaction spilling out some rude words at him. On some days such rejections disturbed him. However, he remained a contended naiveté; rich in affinity to his wife.
Gaurav is a genuine lover from the start. Now he is a consummate husband. He believed in all manners that his love would survive and flourish. He had sacrificed and put up with many psychological adjustments to make his married life a happy one. He trusted that with his staunch support his wife would become a successful graduate. And she would help invite possibilities of more joy and financial happiness to their family.
Gaurav hardly noticed that his wife now a successful engineering professional, and was flying in an altogether different fantasied orbit. Secretly she started resenting her husband’s presence and his ‘socially lowly’ job. She had her hidden ambitions. She applied for a job in an MNC in Hyderabad, and she got promptly recruited.
Initially, Gaurav and his parents were against the idea of her shifting to Hyderabad. But she was adamant and held on to her stand. And he had no other way to stop her. He reluctantly put her in a hostel in Hyderabad with the condition that she should visit him every fortnight.
Lavanya is now a new person. She is salaried, independent and turned maliciously arrogant. She assumed a sly attitude and behaved as though her marriage relationship was a past ‘business transaction’. And she has no qualms to dump it at will.
Of course, she knew that without depending on Gaurav she could pursue her lifestyle. Today she considered Gaurav an ‘old outfit.’ That has lost its shine and newness. Right now she was in search of a ‘new outfit’ in the form of new love.
She responded to Gaurav’s calls with messages like, “I’m busy, I’m in a meeting, I can’t take your calls right now, and don’t disturb me.” She didn’t show minimum decency and avoided Gaurav for more than six months.
He visited her office after failing to reach her. He gathered from her colleagues that she is intimate with someone else. And no one knew that she was even married. A nasty quarrel ensued; she insulted Gaurav in front of her colleagues.
Disappointed and devastated he returned to his hometown the same day.
The worst was yet to befall him.
The next day two constables knocked on his door, collared him to the police station. Later he realized that it was his wife who complained against him. “Ill-treatment and physical abuse” were the main charges that were highlighted by her.
Spending time sitting among criminals hit his sensitive psyche like a brutal punch. His entire body inflamed by humiliation.
The public shame and the let-down feeling crushed him in the worst way. The pain of defeated thoughts threw him into a dazed hole.
“I have been used and duped by someone for whom I slaved for six years.” How I was shouted at and shamed and forced to walk down on the road by police. I was shoved to sit to hear the worst language hurled at me by uniformed guards. I saw myself stripped of my decency and self-dignity.” I became emotionally stunned the way I made a fool of myself.
I learned the bitter truth, “only the closest persons can betray you, but no one else.”Within the twenty hours of such worst humiliating hours, I have tasted, I felt, “I’m an ignorant freak, and I have no reason to live.”
In one split second, I came to a decision: I assumed that my relations, parents, and my life altogether have no one good reason to convince me to live. My eyes are devoid of tears, my disappointment simply disappeared. I got left with one stubborn resolve “I have no reason to live.”
After a two day detention, I returned to my home.
“I stand among railway tracks. Checked the daylight was sufficient to record my self- video message. I spoke my‘goodbyes’ to my parents, my brother and my wife also.
“What I have to do I haven’t decided yet.”
I can see a train fast approaching me. I stand as much close I can to the tracks. This is the way I want to end my life. And “I took my decision…….”