Book 1: The Dawn of a New World
Epistle 1: Tryst With Destiny
A/N: Hey there everyone! :D :D Here is the next update. :D :D
Happy Reading! :D :D
4th February 1996:
I don't know how to start this.
I feel lost. Dazed. I don't understand what's happening to me.
Exactly a month ago from today, I was happy. We had our house, a small shop and a farm. I had my parents and my friends who loved me so much. Life was simple, yet perfect. But good things never last, and I learnt what it felt like when your base shuddered the hard way.
Maa told me a day later that we were moving to the city. Baba needed to because he had to earn more if he wanted to educate me well. She would be staying back to take care of the house while Baba and I made a living. I was scared; I did not believe her.
She looked at me sympathetically and ruffled my hair before pulling me into a tight embrace, her tears falling on my cheek and mingling with my own cascading ones. Her arms shivered. I stared at her soulfully once we broke apart, wiping away her tears that scorched my heart.
Her cotton saree hung on her frame loosely, her hair pulled into a bun even though some strands fell away from it rather gracefully. She was beginning to sport a strand or two of grey here and there, I realized when I looked at her closely, her eyes tired and face now developing wrinkles. I was still shorter than her, but her healthy form was more than sufficient to hide away my skinny one.
I asked her if there was no other way that Baba could earn more money, and why she couldn't accompany us, but she shook her head and cupped my cheek. All she told me was that I had to be strong for my father. I had to be his pillar of strength when he needed me the most.
She urged me to remain strong and to keep that innocence in my heart forever; to educate myself and make them proud. I, in turn, nodded my head at her furiously, knowing that she was entrusting me with a responsibility far more tedious than the shoulders of a tender nine-year old could bear, but I could see that faith in her eyes.
Her trust sparked a flame of purpose in my heart and she saw it.
She smiled lovingly and kissed my cheek just as my friends called me outdoors for a game of cricket. It was hard to pretend that everything was normal when your friends didn't know that you were not going to be around soon. That you would become only a fading memory within the days to come.
I don't know how the next month flew by, or why it flew by as fast as it did. Preparations were on in full swing with our relatives making frequent rounds while Baba made several trips to the city in that duration to search for an ideal job. He returned back successful after twenty days, telling us that he was now appointed as the driver of a businessman.
Maa looked happy, but I didn't share the same emotion. I had always expected so much better for my father that it felt... less. Almost humiliating. My father had read my thoughts in that moment perhaps because he hugged me in the next while planting a loving kiss on my forehead. Once we separated, he looked at me sincerely while imparting a piece of wisdom.
"No job is less than the other, Ranveer. Remember that."
I'd nodded at my father solemnly, understanding what he was trying to put across. He smiled at me and I noticed how his tired features had relaxed immediately just as my mother called us for dinner. Dinner was quite a happy affair that night, one of the last that the three of us were going to have as a family.
Ten days later saw farewells being made, goodbyes being told, and promises being vowed. But all that stuck on to me were my mother's parting words from a few hours ago. I can still remember the look in her eyes when she held me in her embrace and had whispered into my ears:
"Son, whatever happens, remember one thing. When people show loyalty to you, you take care of those who are with you. It's how it goes with everything. Do you understand?"
I'd nodded my head in quick comprehension and she continued:
"Remember to stay loyal to the people you love, no matter what. Value loyalty above everything else."
I nodded my head with even more vigour this time as tears now left my eyes freely. My mother gave me a strong look before wiping them away and kissing me goodbye. The train hooted in the distance and she smiled faintly, asking me to remain strong.
She slipped something into my hand quickly, arousing a confusion that must have been evident on my face when I looked at her in question. She gestured me to look at my hands instead.
A new diary now remained in my grip - something my mother told me to steadily unburden myself into whenever I felt weak or alone. I looked at her tearfully as we boarded the train, my hand finally leaving hers as the cruel world welcomed me into its rough arms.
My father and I are now moving quickly towards the harsh realities of the city in the hope of finding a new life, and of returning home someday. I'm petrified, terrified, and more frightened than I've ever felt when I did mischief and ran around the house evading my mother's scolding and slippers.
I look at my father and give him a teary smile, and he does the same. I can see that he's balding little by little with every passing day, beginning to grey a little more than Maa. He's skinny just like me, although taller, the fact accentuated by his oval spectacles and his loose kurta, his slippers no better than my own – the soles on the verge of coming off.
I know that I must be strong for my father because he is counting on it. Both my parents are. I have a lot of expectations to stand up to and a lot of things to achieve from this point forth. But I'm afraid. I don't know how to survive like this where all I can do is breathe and try to ease away my fears.
My heart is already heavy. And so I've taken refuge within you, hoping that my secret remains safe; that you will guard it safely.
Till the next time we meet.
8th February 1996:
Welcome to my world of absurdities.
I look out from my window and see a world of the rich and the upscale. It feels so funny to sit here and be known as the daughter of Harshad Parekh when all I was yesterday was Ishaani. Just Ishaani.
I am not ashamed of the fact that I come from humble beginnings. My mother has spent several days barely making enough for us to eat before managing to stabilize our lives, growing thinner and thinner at an alarming rate until her black eyes finally lost the twinkle I so loved about them.
Even now, she's the same. Tall and thin with her pride on her long nose and self-respect on her crafted features while her hair falls behind her back and her steps remain graceful ahead. She tells me that life will be better now that I have the hand of a father over me along with a huge family who will love me like its own.
I've been around them throughout the preparations of my mother's wedding and they seem like decent folks. They respect me and I, them, even though I can see that something lurk behind the eyes of all the elders who somehow look the same to me – healthy looking and average-heighted, the wives slightly shorter and thinner than their respective husbands.
But I know it's not going to be that easy.
I've learnt to live a life without knowing what it feels like to have a father. But I know what it feels like to have a mother who is barely at home because she gives her day and night to make sure that I have a better life. I know what it is like to see my friends and their fathers' converse, to feel that drowning sensation of misery when you know that you can never relate to anything that you friends tell you about their fathers because you don't have one.
And suddenly, one fine day, I do have one. Maa tells me that he loves me a lot. That he will love me like his own daughter. I like Harshad Uncle because he's kind to Maa and always brings me a lot of gifts. He is healthy looking and average-heighted like the rest of his family with half-mooned spectacles perched on his short nose rather sternly even though he's otherwise. He loves me and cares of me a lot, but I'm happy mainly because he can ease life more for my mother.
The two of them had asked for my opinion on the marriage; about getting a new father and my mother getting a new companion. I'd looked at them stupidly, devoid of an answer because I didn't know what exactly I was supposed to feel on the matter. And then, I noticed how tired and weak my mother looked after always being there for me. After being strong for so long.
I knew that my mother deserved the best because she always made sure to give me the same. I knew that my mother deserved all the happiness in the world that she had been excluded from. She deserved to have better than the memory of my non-existing father. She deserved to live with a man who loved her nearly as much as I did. And if my answer decided her fate and brought her happiness, I knew what I had to do. I said yes.
But every pro has its corresponding con as well.
Maa tells me that I cannot be the person I truly am. I must blend myself into a world where society scrutinizes and accepts you on the basis of how you look and how you carry yourself. I must leave behind the simple Ishaani and become a shrewd, calculative one, and I detest it. I am simple. That's all there is to it. Unfortunately enough for me, in this new world, I certainly am at a disadvantage.
Not only because of who I am and refuse to become, but because of my real father as well.
I don't know why he abandoned us because Maa won't tell me, but he made sure to leave us in a life full of humiliation and suffering. He's the reason the world calls my mother tainted and me, illegitimate. I lost the shield of oblivion the moment I gained sense, and ever since then I've learnt to hear the harsh, ringing words of the society with dignity. Maturity is something that replaces the kindle of childhood, and for the age I am, it is almost misplaced. Mistrusted.
I feel older than the eight year old I've turned into today as I write this. My mother expects far more from me than I can deliver and I can feel the innocence within me tremble as it drains away from me steadily. Maa tells me to be ready to face challenges that I've never faced before, but all I can think is - how much must I face before I surrender?
I really love my mother. I do. But I do feel that she's a little harsh with me at times. She wants me to shoulder the responsibility of a person thrice my age without noticing the fact that my eyes are losing its sparkle more and more with every passing day; my mischievousness abandoning me just like my oblivion. I want to make her life easy just like she does mine, but this isn't a child's play.
Maa gifts me you today to pour my heart into; to find a friend within. And as I fill the first page of your being with my guilty secret, I understand what she means. I'm glad that I have you because I know that I am going to need you around a lot more. I've never had any friend who truly understood me for who I am, or who I could ever confess anything to.
On the exterior, people think of me as a kind, gentle girl - happy going, joyful, vibrant. Somewhere between mastering the art of how to cover my own apprehensions to people being rude to me for the harsh realities of my life, I harbour within myself a darkness that is untrusting, alone. I have several friends to say, but none of them can penetrate through that darkness.
Maybe that's who I am; what I'm destined to behold within me. I absorb the unhappiness around me and give people joy and happiness in return, even if it costs me my own. I am aloof, yes. Lonely, yes. Friendless, yes. But I also trust fate to give me something or someone to hold on to one fine day.
For now it is you, and I already am liking you loads.
Where life is going to take me from this point forth, I don't know. But I've made peace with myself. I'm ready to accept all the challenges that life is going to throw my way.
And on that note, I must leave now because Maa is calling me downstairs!
Till I return again.
Constructive criticism will be more than welcome and sorry for any typos. :D
