Vanishing Into Despair

It’s her birthday today, I keep refreshing my Facebook messages, hoping she’ll reply. But she doesn’t. She hasn’t in a long time. There are no pictures to tell me what she’s doing, no updates and absolute radio silence.

This story isn’t about me, it’s about two people who meant the world to me.

I met her on my first day of college, she’d walked into an empty classroom, same as me. We quickly bonded over missed lectures, her spontaneity and my fascination with her life. She was as dramatic as someone could be. She was an atheist, something I’d never expected from someone who comes from a conservative Muslim family. One day she met a boy, Zakir.
Within a couple of months, they started dating. They never labelled it though, which I’d always found fishy. On her first birthday with him, she dared this shy boy to get her a bra. On another day he went her brought her food in the middle of the night and stood under her house, because she was craving a McDonald’s meal.

On the third day, she looked at me in all seriousness and said, ‘One day, I’m going to marry that guy’ and I believed her.

In 2014 they’d been together 8 years. They intrigued me as a couple. One minute they’d splurge on each other like money was never a problem, another minute they’d fight like cats and dogs. One minute he’d love her like she was the only person in his world and another he’d be as distant as he liked. I knew it was a love for the ages. They needed no label, they needed no validation and still they were the only couple who seemed to last.

2 years ago I lost touch with both of them, life moved on and one day her name flashed on my phone.

A short conversation later, I met her to catch up. What she told me that day, still haunts me. She got engaged. But it was to a man who wasn’t Zakir. I couldn’t control my tears when I saw her’s, something in me was sinking. Zakir took it upon himself to save his distant cousin’s reputation, when she was mistreated, abused and divorced. He married her and moved to Dubai. She couldn’t bear this and got engaged to a guy who lived far away from this country. Her last words to me were, ‘I can’t be 8kms away, knowing the guy who’s made me fall in love, is never going to be with me’.

She moved away and I still keep hitting a button, hoping things would magically refresh themselves.
                                                                                                                                - Desha Seth

Know When To Walk Away.

In the recent past, I had stumbled across two very interesting set of people. This encounter stressed the need for healthy relationships in my life once again.
Some people can just self-invite themselves into your life. Neither do they know what it takes to be your friend nor do they have any genuine interest in knowing or understanding you. All though I cannot truly understand their intentions behind such uninvited walk-ins, I guess they just like to see a long list of friends in their social media.They start to call themselves as your friends and expect you to love them back like a good friend. They get hurt if you fail to meet their expectations as a FRIEND. They do not know what a good relationship demands. Two people can never become good "FRIENDS" over a couple of drinks. Relationships that are born out of selfish intentions will have to see an unexpected and an early death. It takes time, understanding, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, knowing each other, love, care, genuine emotions and connections, interest and compatibility for two people to become  good friends. These people will always be under an impression that they are favoring you by just being in your life. Imagine some stranger just walked into your house, unpacked bags and started to share your living space with you. You might even accept and try to make a good partner. But what if this uninvited guest just didn't like your way of living and starts whining ? Find faults with everything that you do and say? Refuse to accept you for what you are? How long will you try to make a good partner or a loving and a caring roommate ? Why should you be the one who is always yielding? Know when to walk away ?
Then there is this second set of people. These people are born with a great ability. Ability to change their views and opinions as per their convenience like how we change our footwear. Sometimes we prefer flats and sometimes high heels only our comfort matters at most here. For these people everything is their convenience and comfort in life. Their relationships, opinions, how they feel about others everything. They can stand by you at your hard times only if it’s convenient for them and they can treat you like a stranger if that is what is convenient for them. They can easily understand you sometimes and can misunderstand you with the same ease if that’s what their comfort demands. They can even go to an extent of using your emotions and confrontations against you to defend their inconsistent attachment. They are only capable of loving themselves. They can never come out of their comfort zone and be emotionally available for others. Do not make them one of those people whose opinion matters to you in your life. Their relationship with you is always driven by your phases or their phases of life. They are not the people you can count on all the time. They cannot hold your hand during all kinds of storms in life.
People can carry any kind of disposition, but it's our responsibility to choose the right kind for us. It is very common mistake to let a wrong person get close to your heart. It's not only waste of time to invest emotions into unhealthy relationships, but these investments can lead to a greater emotional stress. Our mental health is our responsibility and no relationship should be worth enough to loose it for. Quality of our relationships define the quality of our life. Don't be in those relationships where your intentions are not self-understood and your explanations are often misinterpreted. Invest your time and emotions into relationships where there are meaningful and fruitful conversations, love and concern, where there is no pressing need to have that last say, where you cannot wait to re-conciliate, where you make desperate efforts to break the silence and cannot fall asleep without wishing each other a peaceful sleep. When arguments become part of life, when hurting each other turns into a every day routine, when the pain caused from constant wrangles stops affecting both, make time to revive your relationship. Do not keep that wheel moving too long, understand that journey will not yield any destination. Know when to walk away.
                                                           - Sandeepa Kolli

BajiRao Mastani - Story of Love

BajiRao Mastani - A Story that made me furious, glorified wrong kind of love, intended to show love winning religion, cultural and socioeconomic differences, but landed as a story of betrayal, at least to me. Mastani - Woman who hopelessly falls in love with BajiRao and decides to chase her love. She knows that her chase will leave BajiRao’s lawfully wedded wife Kashibai in an endless anguish of grief, but She chose to love no one but Baji Rao, not even her own conscious or the inner voice, let alone Kashibai. I find it hard to call this Love; I rather define it as a state of helpless mind losing control over self. BajiRao - A brave and honorable warrior, a leader bound up in protecting his country and its people and Kashibai’s long wedded husband. He falls week at keeping up to his moral scrutiny when a stunning woman expresses her desire to belong to him amidst a full court. Therefore “Falls in Love” with her. BajiRao conveniently forgets his commitment and the promise he made to his wife, his dearest friend and closest confidant, KashiBai. My mind refused to accept BajiRao's Love; How can a man who has a complete blind spot concerning his long known wife's pain and agony can love and be loyal to a person whom he had known only for a few days? Kashibai - A warrior’s wife. A man whom she trusted with her life and with her child proven to be a most unfaithful person in her life, she felt betrayed. She witnessed her 5 feet 10 inch tall stature of trust and pride melting down and she was helpless. She probably never again in life can even attempt to trust any man, she felt hopeless. She did not lose her husband alone to Mastani but her pride and her ability to have faith. Despite all those cards going only against her, she chose to stand by her love, by her husband. She was strong enough to free him from the bonds that were tying him to her. She knows that she can rightfully impose any exemplary punishment, instead she accepts “The Other Woman” and welcomes her with a smile on her lips and warmth in her heart and makes her a part of her life. I call this is Love, a true love. It had all the beauty in the world. Her love was limitless; it was not selfish or needy. Her love was more powerful than Baji Rao’s sword which won him 42 battles. Her love was more beautiful than Mastani’s art that won for her Baji Rao. Kashibai’s Son hated Mastani. He fell deeply in love with that “hatred for her” and kills Mastani’s little boy for that “love”. Unfortunately, I failed to find any difference between the kind of love that Mastani had for BajiRao, BajiRao had for Mastani and the Son had for his “hatred for Mastani”. I could not justify their choices as they all stood by their Love, But the kind that gives pain. It is a dangerous weapon capable of shattering trust and destroying lives. There is no convincing justification for the devastating effects of such love. Love is beautiful when it is selfless and intended to give or it is beastly, ugly and scary. One such beautiful love was kashibai’s, She gave it all when her love demanded, but went unspoken, unmentioned, unnoticed.
- Sandeepa Kolli