Blisters On That Feet
I have loved the rain since childhood and perhaps, along with that, the stories my mother used to tell me to soothe my restless eyes into sleep. After I moved to Bangalore for my higher studies perhaps the only thing that ever truly embraced me in Bangalore was the rain. It wasn’t only the soft rain No it was the craziest of storms, the stubborn, abandon winds that screeched as though nature herself had chosen to bring down the entire city with her. As a kid, my mother would read me stories of ancient kingdoms, powerful emperors, grand wars, fierce battles and bloody uprisings. I was raised with those reverberations in my ears. But every now and then, she would also tell tales of love of longing of two souls torn between passion and pain. Back then, I was innocent. Naive. I used to wonder how love could hold so much intensity, how it could cause such waves of destruction between lovers.
But I only truly understood once this venom called love sank its teeth into my heart. Only then did I realize what it costs to be a lover what it means to be someone's beloved.
Perhaps I was never meant to step into the other campus of my university. Maybe it was just my cursed fate that, despite being granted admission there, I was never really accepted. But then again, isn’t misfortune the true signature of a lover? What’s the point of anger, or even sadness, when your face wears sorrow like it was born with it?
Today, after what feels like a lifetime, I visited the Jayanagar campus. From afar, everything about that place brought her memories flooding back to me. As I neared the building, my heart began to race wasn’t this the place? The one where her footsteps must have once fallen? This building ( a group selfie she took with her classmates and later she posted on Instagram during the summers of 2017)
I wish If only I had known then If only I had sensed, even for a moment, how swiftly those halcyon days would escape me. With the rain drenching against the window, I pressed my head to the bus window. For the entire journey, one question tormented me
What was my mistake?
Why am I deserving this endless punishment?
Was there something I could have fixed?
“The rain intercepted my chest in my ribs through the roof of the bus where my eyes folded into a thousand silent glances. Like a weight of a heavy weighed broke my bones torned my muscles in this unrequited love”
In the fast-paced life of Bangalore, even in these fierce, praise-worthy rains, people find no peace or comfort. Just earning a daily living has become a huge task. And in today’s world, inflation has reached such heights that it seems to have started conversing directly with the sky.
So, if someone doesn’t work if there’s no income then by evening, their children and family at home will be forced to fast not out of devotion, but out of helplessness. While my head resting against the glass of the last seat in the bus, all I could see before my eyes was that little boy and his father. I had overheard them from a distance, standing at the university campus, inquiring about the fees.That child his hair falling freely over his eyes, long, soft, and silky flaunting them in a way that reminded me of myself.
Those kinds of hair used to be my favourite too.
But my hair they didn’t stay with me for long. Maybe only until the end of 12th grade. Perhaps it was the burden the cruel, invisible pressure of this venom called love both physical and mental that crushed my scalp and my spirit alike. Anyway There was such visible restlessness in that child’s eyes. I felt my breath catch as though it had been wounded when my gaze fell upon the worn-out slippers of his father and the tired, cracked feet that carried them.
“Bhaiya, where do you want to go?” The conductor’s voice pulled me out of my drifting thoughts. He was asking for the ticket. In his broken English, he said
"Bhaiya, what girl are you lost in? I have been calling out to you for a while now Do lovers wear a signboard on their forehead or face that announces their shattered love to the world? And yet somehow, the world always seems to know knows how to distinguish between love and life’s other responsibilities or maybe, it doesn’t. Who knows Maybe it just pretends to. Another evening in my life, drenched from head to toe in the rain, I finally reached my room.
Fever once again wrapped itself around me, giving me yet another reason to curl into my blanket. This wasn’t something new for me I had become used to it. But today The heat of the fever wasn’t burning through my muscles or bones it was wounding my thoughts, scorching my soul. Yes, that same father and his child the ones I saw earlier, studying the fee structure, their hopes breaking like a spine under the unbearable weight of reality.
And now, that poor man wanted to take the help of an education loan, clinging to that last straw of dignity.The blisters on that father’s feet had somehow become the wounds on my own heart.
Why is it that in this world, some are handed abundance,
while others are left begging at the mercy of fate?
If the One above (The Almighty) had filled every person’s share of life with equal wealth,what loss would it have brought to His treasures? these thoughts haunted me all night.
Turning from side to side, questioning a world that sleeps soundly while someone somewhere is bleeding silently in the dark. Ruhez , now that you are no longer a part of her life, she was thanking God grateful that you once chased after her, and even more grateful when you finally let her go. She raised her hands in front of me, offering a prayer of relief as if your absence was her long-awaited salvation. Maybe that was my final encounter with her best friend the last fragile thread of connection. It happened by chance, on an ordinary day, in one of the city’s big malls. If I was the one chasing after her then what was she doing with me all that time?
Her meetings, Her way of showing love, Was it all a lie? If that affection wasn’t real, then why did it feel so true? And then, despite knowing everything,her best friend still took her side stood by her without question. It’s true what they say Until a person’s own heart is wounded, they never truly understand the cost of love the weight of betrayal the price of emotions traded in silence. If she didn’t like me If she didn’t want to be with me She could’ve just told me herself. What was the need for this sudden silence this sharp, cold end to everything we shared? That entire day, on the road, I kept thinking Should I call her just once?
Should I write her an email pour my heart out?
But then her best friend mentioned her engagement, and in that moment, I laid down my weapons. I gave up. Because how do you fight a war when the one you are fighting for has already left the battlefield? Why isn’t there room for persistence in love? Why is it that in love we surrender so easily, even when our hearts are still burning? Out of all the things said and heard, what crushed my heart the most was when I learned from her best friend how she had dismissed my love as nothing more than fiction.
A made-up story. A fantasy. And now The way they talk about her fiancé, it feels carved in stone unchangeable, untouchable. Truly, nothing can be said for the people of this world. Because after everything that happened, after all that she knew her best friend still had the audacity to laugh, to shamelessly say
“She’s loyal. She’s kind. She has a pure heart.” They built bridges of praise in her name while my heart, my mind and even my blood burned like venom coursing through my veins. Time kept moving and I let it all go, left everything to the will of the One above (Almighty).
I thought like people say that maybe time would heal my wounds. But perhaps, even the dark fate written in my destiny couldn’t bear to offer me that mercy. As the days passed, I slowly destroyed myself piece by piece. Because this city this very place still holds her presence. And how could I ever forget
each moment I spent with her? Those very bus stops where I would wait, sometimes for hours, just to catch a glimpse of her. Those rains where we walked together, without an umbrella, just hearts getting soaked. No my heart isn't made of stone to forget all that so easily. I can't. I never could.
How can I forget
when the anxiety attacks,
born from her betrayal,
still haunt the movements of my body?
I woke up in the morning with a mild headache
the fever had slightly cooled
but I was once again Once again,
memories skinned me alive, stripping me bare
leaving me with nothing, belonging to no place, to no one. Once again.
And no this wasn’t anything new. The darkness of evening had already settled on the window of my room while I lay sleeping the entire day away. I had no idea where the hours disappeared. No memory of how the day slipped through my sleep. If only my life was as brief and peaceful as the time I had spent with her. I have become so helpless now I can neither fix my own shattered life, nor can I offer help to that father and child. If only, like in the movies, there was a real saviour in this world someone who would come and rescue the broken, the abandoned, the helpless. But even in love, the one who gives their all is left begging at every door for mercy dragging behind them the thorn of helplessness and shame, wandering this world with nothing but bruises from every door that slammed in their face.
