The last vestiges of daylight are disappearing fast into the twilight and with the dim dank world closing in on me I gradually feel myself being pulled into the darkness, heavy lidded and slipping away. As the memories begin to fade away there is a moment of absolute clarity, the kind most people attribute true awakening and attainment of inner peace to. At this moment I feel a deep sense of contentment with my life and an accompaniment of heightened senses, and though I was skeptical my life is indeed flashing through my mind.
The cosy feeling of
being nestled in a cocoon of love and tenderness was my first memory of this
world, the place where I was most cherished and protected, I remember wishing
to be forever a part of this oh so welcoming home of mine. They would talk about
nothing but me, with so many hopes and dreams already in their eyes, it was as
though through me they would get to relive their lives in the most magnificent
ways and realize all their unfulfilled dreams. I felt like a princess in a
fairy tale, there wasn't much left for me to wish for in life, but being human
I succumbed to the temptations and asked for my people to love me just the
same, exactly the way I was eternally. My juvenile mind had not yet learned the
ways of this world and hence could never have wrapped my head around what was
to come next.
After this pampered
phase of my life I was jolted out of my comfort zone, I didn't know why but
there was pandemonium around me and all the fights, screaming matches were
getting to me, even as I remained clueless as to what it was all about. For
days on end my mom’s crying would pierce through the grey clouds of my deep
slumber, leave me deeply disturbed without any inkling of how to comfort her.
Gradually I picked up on the gist of the arguments and a picture began to shape
up slowly out of the swirling mass of confused thoughts that had been wrecking
havoc in my head over the past few days. A doctor’s appointment and something
about a boy had been at the center of it all. Gradually my panic began to ebb
but I was worried for my mom and her health as I had heard time and again of
how she needed to take care of herself, eat healthy etc. My knowledge of
doctors had been very limited as they popped up infrequently in family
conversations, as far as I knew they were magicians who could fix any problem
and hence I relaxed back into the creature comforts of my existence.
The visit to the
hospital was a jarring experience imprinted in my memory forever, what had
started off as a routine check up quickly morphed into a never ending nightmare
that continues to haunt me till date. When we entered into the pristine
compound of the hospital I was assailed by the all too familiar yet still
overpowering smell of clinical disinfectants. Around us people were bustling
about taking care of patients, listening to grievances and administering both
advice as well as treatments. We left behind the chaos and moved to a cooler
dimly lit corridor with a slight draft where a nurse ushered us in with a
hushed command. Once inside the doctor’s chambers there was a frenzied
discussion with the doctor and a quiver of questions shot at him by my family,
but I missed most of it as my attention had drifted to the occupants of the
ward who had been moaning and complaining continually, I guess that was my
first brush with human suffering. I came back to where my family now sat quiet
and resolute as though a grave verdict had been passed looking expectantly,
even as my grandma handed over a fat wad of notes over to the nurse, who drew
us away and began preparing for something in earnest.
I had been so
engrossed in the sad state of affairs and the painful stories of the varied
occupants of the ward that it took me a while to realize that we were now at an
operation theatre and then there was a sharp stinging pain, the feeling of
being disembodied and then a disconnect from my reality as I had known it when I
was brutally ripped away with some sort of metal tongs and discarded along with
medical waste. I was already unnerved by the experience when it dawned on me
that my family was no longer around me; I had become truly and hopelessly lost.
I remember waking up to pungent smells and an assortment of scattered rotten
objects around me, I who had had a plush and cushioned luxurious lifestyle so
far was now lying near a garbage dump. I started feeling dizzy and disoriented
as though I was slowly losing all sense of who I was, when rallying all the
strength I had left in me I brought the world back into focus. There were loud
sirens of police vans as they sped away to prevent some crime from happening I
reckoned, recalling the bedtime stories, but some time later I saw money
exchanging hands and the supposed guardians of society brutalize a minor in a
shady corner. The world of goodness that had been introduced to me was slowly
coming apart in front of my horrified eyes.
My mind was still numb
from processing the reigning chaos I had been abandoned in, but there were more
horrors in store. It was as though life had decided to burden me with all of
its truths and reveal its true colours in such a short span. Then the world
around me vibrated and I tumbled down to the moist earth, and all at once I
found kindred spirits there lying in the soiled earth, in the so called dregs
of our society. The ground was home to others who had been attacked, their
spirits crushed, they had all been subjected to grave injustices at the hands
of this society; like me they too had been abandoned, all illusions about
humanity lost in the face of tragedy.
As I lay there now
fully aware of the fate that lay ahead of me, I resented my family for ripping
my chance at life from me just because I had made the mistake of being a girl.
All those hopes and dreams that they had led me to believe I was entitled to,
had been destroyed within moments of finding out what I would grow up to be. I
had never asked them for anything but their betrayal had still come as a shock,
because in the months that I was growing up, I had been showered with such love
and care and their eager anticipation for my arrival had lulled me into a false
sense of security. When I was ripped out from my home with extreme force and
left to die in a dustbin at the side of a road my world had come shattering
down, left me with a bitter taste.
But as the waves of
resentment and anger receded, another idea germinated, one that was far more
dark and twisted than would have been expected from someone who had not yet
even been born into the society I had heard so much about. I thought back to
all the undesirable elements I had encountered and the pain and suffering I had
witnessed this society inflict on its members, and realized with a weird sense
of exhilaration that I did not want to be a part of it anyway. That maybe what
I had considered as backstabbing on the part of my family might actually have
been the best thing to happen to me. Because I now knew beyond a trace of doubt
that the utopia that had been heard so much about and looked forward to being a
part of from the sweet confines of my mother’s womb was just a myth … real society
was a horror that I no longer possessed a desire to be a part of. And with this
conviction came that rare moment of clarity, when your entire life flashes in
front of you. But what for most people was joy at having lived a full life,
came to me as relief that I had escaped the tumultuous journey that would have
been life in this often barbaric and unjust society. That is the last
discernible thought that I am conscious of as I slip into the bright lights and
welcoming warmth of what I suppose is the afterlife, and I leave behind this
bit of me to rot and become one with the world I am leaving behind.
