"You're right Shweta. I made sacrifices. I gave up my entire life to take care of the two of you and balance my career. And it's tough being a single mother and doing all these things. Do you have any idea how scared I was when I saw you at that medical store buying that pregnancy test? I've watched mothers die during deliveries but nothing scared me as much as you did that time. Do you know why?"
"Because if there was anything I've wanted to do correctly in all my life; it's to parent you both right. To be both your mother and your father. And I was scared that I failed you. That I couldn't be enough. I don't want you to ever go through something as I did. As for it being 'just sex' as you put it, I can assure you it's not. Don't you think I haven't noticed how much you've been moping about that boy lately? I don't want you to get so involved with him or so involved in things like love and romance. Those things can wait until you have a stable job and are financially secure." Seema says, her voice calm.
The girls know this voice. It's the voice of the professional reasoning with hysterical patients. What their mother is feeling has been hiding well and disguised under that cool demeanor. The condescending tone, the holier-than-thou attitude; none of it sits well with Shweta. Those things and the absolutely maddening way in which Indian parents assume that anything their child says is extremely irrational. God forbid any rational argument to take place without being branded as too sensitive and over-emotional.
"Stable enough and financially secure? It's not going to happen until I'm thirty-two! So, you want me to wait until I'm in my thirties before I do anything remotely teenager-like?" Shweta says, her voice rising.
"Teenager-like? Riddhi's a teenager. Your sister was a teenager! None of them ran around with boys and looking for pregnancy tests!" Seema says, angrily. This statement causes Shruti to look away cringing but both her mother and Shweta are bursting with rage to notice.
"Riddhi was there at the store," Shweta says, obstinately.
"Don't be ridiculous! You know exactly what I mean. And all this love drama that you're doing, what is it going to amount to? A good job? You're barely getting good grades, as it is! And you think this tomfoolery is going to secure you all that? Don't you have any dreams, Shweta? Or do you want to sit in a house looking after seven babies while you're pregnant with your eighth?" Seema says, the vein on her jaw twitching with rage.
Shweta's mouth falls open. "Dreams!? How has this got to do with any of my dreams? Of course, I want to be successful and financially independent! But Vaibhav's not a distraction, you know. If anything, you'd have noticed that I scored in the nineties in two subjects more last month! And that was after I met him. But it's not like you notice anything that's good."
"All this is stupid. Must you really act so obtuse? These exams aren't going to count for a penny in your college applications! You need to focus on your boards; that's the only one they see. And considering how you've been moping, you'll barely get by with seventies in your boards!" Seema fumes, her eyes darkening as she speaks.
"How can you say that? Must you always have such a low image of me? And besides, you're so biased! Just because Vaibhav is a boy doesn't mean our relationship is entirely sexual! He's like my best friend! He knows me so much better than you do. And aren't you shaming me for having no dreams? Do you even know what my dream is? Or where I'd like to join after my twelfth?" Shweta says, now shaking.
"Oh, no. I don't. Why don't you tell me about this dream, then? Did you tell me? I don't have the seventh sense of mind-reading abilities that you clearly expect me to have, you know. Kindly enlighten me about this dream that your boyfriend is so supportive about." Seema says, sarcastically. She's glaring at her daughter at the same time.
"Well. It's cooking. I want to join a culinary school, maa." Shweta says, her voice small and now afraid.
Shruti doesn't say a word but her heart breaks at how Shweta's voice is suddenly so afraid. She knows her mother, her extremely sometimes brutally practical nature. Culinary school would end up as a rather unconventional choice and Seema wouldn't hear of it.
Right on the cue, Seema laughs.
"Look how immature you are! Culinary school? Do you think I'm wasting my money on you for that? Your sister's bad enough studying International Relations and you want to cook? I'll tell you what you'll do. You'll take up Sociology at Delhi University, that's what you'll do!"
"I won't! I won't. I will not." Shweta says, her lower lip trembling as she now tries to hold back her tears.
"Don't you cry like a baby now! And don't be silly. You'll forget about this boy soon enough and you'll thank me later for it." Seema says, her voice now steady and a bit calmer.
"Thank you for practically cutting out all my life experiences by your over-exaggerated protectiveness? Why don't I do that now? Thank you, maa. For being such a bully." Shweta says, very bitterly.
"I'm your mother. I'm always going to look out for what's best for you whether you call me a bully for doing that or not. But of course, in accordance to you silly boys who ask you to go to culinary school are better, aren't they? You want to run after things that don't even exist. Exactly like your father." Seema says.
"Vaibhav didn't ask me to go to culinary school! I just wish you'd just look past the point about me and Vaibhav and give me a bit of trust and freedom. But no, you still want to keep saying I'm turning out like my father! Do you know how much it hurts? That you keep equating me to the man who left us? Left you, maa? I would never do that! It would kill me to hurt you and I never would. But you just keep equating me with him. Me having a boyfriend or wanting to go to culinary school is not the same as our father leaving us!" Shweta yells her voice loud but wobbly.
"Well, you're doing the same thing. Leaving your career for this boy. Being a disappointment. If it hurts you so much, why don't you stop being like him then?" Seema says, coldly.
"You're just after him all the time. It's been eleven years, maa. He's not coming back. So why don't you just stop blaming him for everything that goes wrong in our lives?" Shweta says. She knows she's crossed a line but she doesn't care now.
"So, who do you want to blame? Me?" Seema says, her voice now tense and almost close to breaking.
"No. But I'm not going to blame him either. At least not for this." Shweta says.
"You always take me for granted. You girls have no idea how difficult life was for me after your father left. This love business, you chase and glorify this, girls. But I'll tell you once and for all. It doesn't exist. I fell in love with your stupid father and look where it brought me! A lifetime spent in raising his children. You can fight against me if that's you want. I cannot stop you from taking those blatantly stupid decisions that you girls want to take."
"But I'll tell you this. One day, when you're crying at two a.m. in the morning and your heart feels like it's not a working organ, you'll know. And you'll remember my words. Your father was a man I was in love with for seven whole years before we got married. These are things my own mother didn't tell and I'm telling you now. Shweta, Shruti, this love drama does not thrive well in the real world. If you don't follow my advice; it's up to you, really. But you'll end up like me and that's the only thing I've ever really tried to protect you against." Seema says and she walks out of the dining hall and right into her room.
Shweta and Shruti both stare at each other in absolute stunned silence. They've never heard their mother speak about their father in such a candid manner. Shweta now begins crying and Shruti tries to hold back her tears. She moves towards Shweta in an attempt to comfort her, but Shweta walks away towards her own room, upstairs.
There is a heavy sense of guilt wrapping and coiling around Shrutis's heart, a secret that has stayed hushed for too long.
Her throat closes and she can feel herself close to tears. But the tears don't roll down her face and she simply sits there like some sort of broken mantelpiece. She closes her eyes, her heart trembling with every beat. She's only glad that her mother didn't walk out of the house like their father. She might be very, very mad but at least she was in her room.
She wasn't leaving.
And that gave Shruti a tiny bit of sanctity. But she had to get out of the goddamn room before the walls closed onto her. Get out of the room and get some fresh air and hurriedly, she made her way towards the terrace. Once at the place, she looked around. How was it that she always managed to find herself here? It seemed as though she had been coming to the terrace to think for over so many years now and somehow, there never seemed to be any stoppage in the things that she had to think through. Her cell phone gave a beep, making her aware of notification and she glanced at it.
It was an ex-boyfriend.
He had been nice; she hadn't.
That was why they had broken up. And that was why she had broken up with the seven boys before him. They would date for a few months and Shruti would retreat into her icy shell once they started getting attached to her. It felt like that was too much to take; too overbearing and suffocating. It happened with all of them and she was clever enough to notice a pattern there. But what was she to do about it? Why did establishing a relationship, any kind of relationship had to be so hard?
Shruti ran over what her mother had said. Love doesn't exist; she had said. And judging from her own experiences and her mother's; it had to be true. Even if it did exist, it clearly wasn't for her. What was wrong with her? Why did she have to be so closed off, so cut off, and unable to share what she felt with anyone? Why did it feel as though people were always making plans to leave? Why did she have to carry around a secret that caused her so much guilt, pain, and fear?
But when people got around to leaving, wasn't it better to be prepared? To look them in the eye when they tell you that they don't want to be in your life anymore, isn't it better to shrug with nonchalance and show them how you'd already packed your bags? Or maybe, you had never unpacked.
Never trusting, just waiting for them to give the slightest sign of discomfort so that you could beat them to the door. If anyone was leaving, Shruti had decided from very early on, she would be the one leaving, not the other way around.
It wasn't easy, living like that. With one foot at the door; always ready to leave without looking back. And that was what she had done, hadn't she? Left without giving anybody a chance or a single shot at an explanation. She'd left them, hadn't she? Then why was it that it was still she who felt lonely?
A maddening urge to push everyone away and yet have people around her. A paradoxical existence that demanded pain as its price.
A/n : What do you think is Shruti's secret?
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