A Shady Realization and the Price I Paid

Every realization has a price, and sometimes it is more than one can bear. The apartment, I am still living in, was never so untidy and messy. Everywhere, there are either packed boxes or scattered things to be boxed. Somewhere, like in balcony, the piles of packets of groceries have blocked the passage way. Literally, this place is a reminiscence of a mid-sized go-down in dusty Sadar Bazar. And, like the inexperienced but enthusiastic heir of old ‘lala’, my wife runs amok, yells at everyone at her sight, and at the end, just sits on the sofa, opens her tab, and plays Candy Crush with a ‘don’t-dare-to-disturb-me’ face. I understand the ocean of pressure she is into and the momentary confusions she is facing, but I don’t understand my role here. Should I let her go? Just like that?

She is leaving for Mauritius for long three years and she is taking Vedantika with her. For the last five years she, and for the last seven months ‘she’, have become a good part of mine, if not best. Specially, not a single day in the last four months has been passed, when I had not kissed both, adored both and fought with both. Now there will be a long full-stop.

I can feel the sympathy in air from all quarters, especially from Mom and Mom-in-law, even my grumpy bearded boss tried to console me that day. They all presumably thought of me as a tragic hero, like in a Bollywood soap, who takes all the wrath and pain silently for his family, even with an evangelical smile on his face. But I am not a hero, nor a saint.

Rather, I fought with my wife bitterly, tried to persuade her, manipulate her; even offered my full submission to her ‘gender biased’ conditions and promised her that I would be changed accordingly, all in lieu of her continued stay in Delhi. You see, I am just a human, and when both of them will be gone, I also may cry a while, while watching TV blankly or just remembering Vedantika, having a toothless million dollar smile. But then I will be content and will search satisfaction in my knowing that I tried my best. I don’t care if you term that vanity ego.

But the story doesn’t end here, and though I genuinely believe that her decision to leave for Mauritius is best for her and ‘her’, some weird mental flashes force me to think of a possibly positive future for myself too. In my childhood, I was ‘famously’ reclusive, and in my post college life I was ‘infamous’ for the same. Now I am a mix. I love my friends and family, but contrary to the common belief, my favorite moments are only with me, sometimes on a sofa with running TV and beer or sometimes on a strange road with a guitar, strolling aimlessly. I may get those moments back, with no one on my side expecting me to be responsible or sober or social. 

Even then, I have decided not to ‘see-off’ Vedantika at airport and publicly I have blamed my vanity ego for that much criticized ill-decision. But I am telling you here, where none will pay heed, I simply cannot watch Vedantika go away. My life is a chaos, only she could be the savior. As they say, every realization has a price, and sometimes it is more than one can bear.