With Love, Providence

Raya was feeling drained & hopeless. She was beginning to feel that only divine intervention could relieve her from her chagrin. She felt persecuted & paralyzed, thought that everything else could just wait.

She had been married for seven years now. There had been quite a few conflicts over the years, but both had given sincere efforts to reconcile each time. She could realize that he would put in more effort than what was his innate nature to be a caring husband who tries to ward off all worries & trouble from their little world. Her marriage had not been what she had grown up fantasizing but she had been quintessentially happy. Her life tarried along as if on vacation. They were more like best friends still in school, watching TV, playing video games, sometimes cooking, singing & dancing or drinking & doping. They had even formulated their own yearly cricket tournament. They were drifting aimlessly in a world of make belief.

She sometimes doubted if he was happy in their Bohemia & secretly hoped for a more quotidian, mundane life. But she never dared to ask him, fearing he would affirm & break her heart. She loved her carefree, cheery life. He was often very appreciative of the methodical homemakers & their housekeeping skills. She sometimes felt that he hoped to have a suburban wife who would manage his kids & household & even look after his parents or extended family. And while she was trammeled by social convention to make his idyllic family, he would find some other woman for merrymaking. She felt his upbringing & family background were the only things responsible for his deplorable mindset. She would consistently advocate his goodness to herself. But sometimes his coquetry would exceed her limits of forbearance & she would outburst only to be muzzled by a slap or punch. His treachery was not the only cause of melee. His parents' encroaching in every matter & traducing nature had led to at-least a score of brawls over the seven years. He had never engaged in or encouraged meaningful conversation to sort things out. While growing up, she had fabricated her perfect soul mate & how they would be snuggling & whispering to each other about the whole nine yards for hours every day. Her marriage was wanting in this vital prerequisite.

Moreover, she had never felt safe, partly because she had witnessed how perfidious & sleazy his family was, but more so because she was chary of his infidelity. The idea of being in a dubious marriage just for social conformity or to have her husband buy her the labels she loved appeared rather disconcerting to her. She could not share these feelings with anyone. Her reticence was born out of her belief that a marriage involves only the two individuals & only mutual trust & loving kindness towards each other can strengthen this heavenly bond. What was more frustrating was that their parents & extended families would urge them to make a baby to 'settle down' in every family gathering she attended. She wanted to bring her baby into a world where it would be surrounded by harmony & joy, it would be nurtured by the warmth of it's parents' conjugal adoration. She could not dare to surmise that his family of recidivists would let her harness such bliss in her little world. She wanted to spare her baby from the trauma he had suffered while growing up, watching his drunk father beating up his mother from under his blanket, pretending to be fast asleep. She was getting more & more anxious with each passing year because she felt she was failing to be the life partner he had wanted. She could sense his lack of romantic love for her. He seemed to be desperately searching for his perfect companion elsewhere. She constantly awaited his assent that he would be faithful to her for the rest of their lives but to her dismay, his actions adduced otherwise.

She was not a regular journal writer but sometimes felt an urge to let someone know what she was going through. What follows are the sporadic journal entries during the dawning of the rest of her life.

"I am sure Gullu was discussing some shady motel off the highway. When I came out of the toilet & asked him who he was talking to, he out-rightly denied & began castigating me about how we were always ordering in & how disorganized the house looked. He always seemed to imply that I was a much better homemaker when I did not have a job.

"I had always knew I was not going to retire at an old age from this menial job. Today I caught a glimpse of the work which I feel I am meant for. I am overwhelmed to be aware of our interconnectedness & inter-neural dependence. I am thankful & feel privileged to be born into the glorious time when the connotation of the quote, "What one man calls God, another calls the laws of Physics" could be better fathomed. My erudite interviewers would not be able to dismiss me as a dilettante. I am determined. When you're done with all the strife, when they echo their minds on the streets, you know your heart beats. A solitary call for a change in the tone of it all.

"I was stirred when I heard Ravi for the first time, but had not dared to turn to look who was speaking. It was rather aleatoric that the only empty desk available was the one behind mine. I had not seen such vivid, piercing eyes in a long time.

"I now pee at least 5 times during my eight hours shift or go fill my bottle from the pantry. So that, while coming back, I have to walk across the weary room to reach my desk at the other end. And while walking back, I get an entire minute to gaze at Ravi. It seems he sometimes gets conscious of his puerile admirer, looks up from his desktop & returns a mesmerizing smile. A surge of pristine, profound joy runs over me. Is it love or is it the idea of being in love? Is it the hand of fate that seems to fit just like a glove?

"Two months of fatuous goggling has alleviated my distress. However, I have not tried speaking to him yet, afraid that what I say comes out somehow awry. Neither has he.

"I can't believe we had to come back because Gullu's daddy had feigned acute pancreatitis to have us come over to stay with them. I am utterly disgusted at his parents' complete lack of integrity. I would have never known what unscrupulous, conniving people are like had I not met them. Having missed the chance to ever speak to Ravi had left me disconsolate. However, today, Asha sent me a few snaps from yesterday's project party. Ravi, even with a new haircut, is gleaming in all the pictures. I smiled for the first time today since we came back.

"Our frictions are getting worse. We don't spend time with each other anymore. Gullu now sleeps in a separate bedroom & hardly talks to me. What hurts most though is that he does not wake me up with a kiss anymore.

"Surprisingly, I was more relieved than heartbroken when my colleagues came up to me last month & told me that Gullu had been dating a gauche girl for almost a year now. They had taken a few 'business trips' to places like Goa & Andaman recently. I had asked him quite a few times over the year but he had refused to divulge. The day she came to visit us & decided to stay over for the next three or four nights, I was sure. The confrontation left a few bruises & blood clots in my body which I had prudently protected from hurt & harm even as a child. Also, my iPhone was left shattered to pieces. After vacillating for almost a week, I moved into this small, slightly claustrophobic apartment in a quite frugal locality. But here I have found that one thing the dearth of which was suffocating me during the last 2 years – a little peace. Thank you silence!

With silence comes peace, with peace comes freedom, with freedom comes silence.

Five or six years later, Raya moved into her dream apartment & is excelling at the job she had believed she was meant for. She had chosen an intransigent, erimitic life. Gullu is now one of her best friends, has a lovely wife & has recently been blessed with a baby boy. She had never seen Ravi again though, but still hopes to run into him somewhere, someday. She still feels a profuse joy whenever she thinks of him & cannot stop herself from smiling. Faith, love & peace has healed her completely by now. She has regained the vim & vigor essential to embrace life in jouissance. Her heart keeps reiterating, 'Only you could see yourself, be yourself to free yourself'.

It seems Time was out to charm her ever since the onset of our story. Sometimes she felt her grandmas were her guardian angels carving out her perfect story, every situation she landed up in seemed to be contrived for her highest good. It reinforced her faith in the divine plan, the teleological explanation of the theory of everything. It reaffirmed that we always get what we yearn for, the path leading to it though is often circuitous to ensure that everything is sangfroid, every moment is perfect in its singularity. She firmly believes, her eternal soulmate is watching over, guiding, inspiring, amazing & comforting her with doting, motherly affection. Thus, her story is His panegyrical. In the streets the children scream, the lovers cry & the poets dream, but not a word is spoken, the church bell's overbroken.

With Love,

Providence