She stared out of the train window…. It was drizzling lightly outside… she let the raindrops patter over her hand that she held out…. It felt so relieving… almost as if Mother Nature was telling that she was cleansing her mind and body, heart and soul … giving her a fresh start… and a fresh start it was! A fresh start… a new beginning… an unsullied, unmarked beginning… washing away all the scars and blemishes and rendering her as whole once again…
She had walked away from her previous life (yes! That’s how she termed it now)… a life filled with mistrust, suspicion, fights and brawls, tears and angst… the only thing that she could think of now about that phase of her life when she was happy or rather thought she was, was when … was when… was when… she could not dredge up even one instance… she smiled sardonically… not even one instance that she could recall of being happy in the past… and she had thought when she was in the midst of that bond that everything was hunky-dory, cloud nine, and in bliss… a quote came to her mind… a sarcastic quote –
“And what’s romance? Usually, a nice little tale where you have everything As You Like It, where rain never wets your jacket and gnats never bite your nose and it’s always daisy-time.”
Now that’s probably when pigs will fly and wishes will be horses…
She had undergone a lot during these past few years… but most of all, she had lost a lot… self-respect, confidence, her image in her own eyes, her independence, freedom… nothing materialistic, nothing acquisitive, in that sense… but a lot in the worldly sense… her days and nights were peppered with bouts of suspicion on her leading to stress, spells of despair and depression, fights all the time… for small things, trivial, and insignificant… her peace of mind had literally gone to pieces… she was forced to walk out of that….
Even when she took that drastic discussion of walking out, she was in a quandary …. A catch-22 situation… what would her close ones say… how would they react?? Their common friends… their families… their well-wishers… always praised as one of the best paired couples around… admired and commended by various people who knew them, their virtues extolled and their lives set as an example for others…. An outward act… like the bitter-sweet taste that was left in her mouth… she could neither spill her heart out or swallow the hurt and pain…. But all said and done, it was easier than she expected… when she had to take that final step, the ultimate act of cutting herself off the bond, the cord that bound them together… she had done it… unflinchingly… the fear was there… still there… but the anticipation of a gratis life… of being a free bird… it was overwhelming… and that was what made her walk off without a backward glance….
She looked around at the compartment…. An old woman was doing her daily prayers… “Namaz” it was called… a young lass was sitting on the seat opposite to her sipping coffee… She could see the swirls of the coffee reflected in the young girls’ glasses… people were ensconced in their own lives doing the things which made them happy… or maybe they did not have any choice… who knows? Was it just her life that was all messed up… who knows??She had promised herself that she would not walk down the lanes of these memories again… she would not re-live the pain and the hurt… the shame that she suffered, more than anything in her own eyes… but sometimes she could not help it… the past came rushing back at her with a vengeance sometimes… poking fun cruelly at her for her mistakes… mistakes that she had brought upon herself…
But no more! This was a new beginning… or an appropriate end… whichever way you looked at it…
She would much rather have regrets about not doing what people said, than regretting not doing what her heart led her to and wondering what life had been like if she’d just been herself.
She was not going to be anyone’s puppet anymore… she was going to be her own master and live life on her terms… she owed at least that much to her life and her creator…
She was beginning afresh….
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