Amidst The Chaos

~•~ Ghosts From Past ~•~

IRA SHASTRI

I used to call this place home.

Now, it's just a heap of stones and bricks. I was born here— spent eight years of my life between these walls. Until those perfectly arranged bricks started to crack. Slowly. Painfully slow. I couldn't see that coming. How could I? I was eight when she told me to run away with my infant brother in my arms. That night cripples me to this day. It haunts me in my dreams. The warmth of my fond childhood memories is long gone instead it's replaced by the night which destroyed my entire life. Shadows and screams are permanent residents here.

My safe space is now a grave. A Grave of my candour, my father's laughter still echoes through these cracked walls. They are turned into agony now, my mother's cheeks. Those pink cheeks once flushed red when papa flirted with her. That day, those pink cheeks were painted with five red finger marks.

I feel suffocated here.

There are ghosts in between these perfectly arranged bricks from my past. Whom I'm not letting in my present but soon I have to face them all. Soon I have to make them regret turning my home into a wreck. Soon those ghosts will be haunted by their own actions. They'll wish they hadn't been born.

Their life will be living inferno, They scream for death but death will be so far fetched from them. They will start looking for death as their shelter. They will preserve their death abode as saviour from their haunting past. They will curse the day they had to be born. They will crave for death, beg for it but just like them. I am no Saint. I am the ghost they created. I'm the fire they ignited. Now the same fire will devour them before burning them.

The rage inside me won't settle until I see them turned into ashes.

I am standing in front of that door. The door knob feels obscure to my palm and why wouldn't it? I came here after twenty years. I was dying to come and feel the warmth of this home. The warmth I left my home in but every time I was reminded that it wasn't warmth I left this place in but Wreck.

I tried to open the door but I couldn't. The knob rotated but the courage in me died before it could open the troubled threshold. Behind this door there isn't just my past. Those ghosts live there. Still. They are there in my room. I can feel them. I'm still not ready to see them. I will set foot in this house when the ghosts are hunted down. This is the last time I am visiting this house. I will uproot those ghosts lingering in these cracked bricks. These bricks will shine from the sunlight and this will be my home again. This will no longer be a graveyard of my happiness but a garden of memories. Memories aren't haunted anymore but loved. Cherished. Echoes louder than my buried past.

The cracked window glass reflected my face on it. The thousand pieces they made of that Ira is nowhere to be found in this one. She is lost in time. She who vanished sent me. The storm , the wreck , Ira Shastri.

Six months ago.

“So Ms. Ira, why do you think we should hire you in our college as Assistant professor?”

“As you already know sir, I have cleared my Net exam and am working on my PhD thesis right now. So I believe all the criteria you wanted your new faculty to fulfill, I'm doing that. Also I have been working as a JRF with JNU for 3 years now. I have 5 years of teaching experience.

The Certificates are clear examples of my knowledge in this field. While working on my PhD I have published 5 research articles with various reputed colleges and Universities. I was the visiting faculty of BHU for a year.”

Don't let them see anything Ira. They all are here for reading your face, not CV.

“How come you have worked with Jawaharlal Nehru University and Banaras Hindu University? They both are in different states.”