The Kumar Redamancy

The Effect

She tried.
She tried so hard to love Ankit.
She had to. Because she knows how it feels to love someone who doesn't love you back.

It's like drowning but you don't fucking die.

And Ankit Agarwal loves her in his own narrow way.

The vacations abroad that he keeps suggesting. The semi-endearing way in which he seeks her approval. The way he looks at her for help when her father in law questions him. Ankit wants her to not work simply because he wants her to be comfortable and enjoy the life he can offer her.

Ankit is the ideal prince charming Vidushi wanted in her life. The money, power, and adoring eyes. Ankit has it all.
Vidushi should be happy because Ankit is all she had wanted.

But there's a little problem in her fairy tale life.
It's not all she had thought it would be. Gold and endless marble tiles don't fill the boredom. Or the longing. Or the ache in her heart.

Her heart that once wanted Parth so much that she lost track of everything else. Even her goals. She did despicable things for him. Stole. Lied. Almost got expelled.
She lost herself in Parth and it scared her. She was supposed to chase money and not this man.
She couldn't find happiness in life without money. All her life she'd been told money would make her happy.
Parth wasn't sure if he loved her.
And she wasn't sure if she loved him more than she loved herself.

In the end, she only had herself left. And the idea that only money could make her happy. It was all thanks to Parth that she'd snagged a husband like Ankit and the life of a lavish kind.

But now it bored her. Because she wasn't living.
She was only going through the motions of life. Without passion.

She envied Sanyukta. Born into riches. Raised in stability. Sanyukta has it all. Always.
What Vidushi had was the consolation prize.
A boring life of a housewife.

That was why she turned to the bottles and the small rolled up sticks.
Smoke burned her lungs and the liquid burnt her throat as it went down.
The cigarettes could give her cancer.
The alcohol could cause so many problems.

But neither of it.
Neither of it could break her heart.
Not like Parth.
Not like Life.
Not like her own broken twisted mind

The drinks and the smoke are only telling her she's alive
because nothing she does makes her feel anything.
And she'd rather feel something than nothing at all.

Smoke and Hangovers are better than people.
People come and go.
People change.
But the smoke and the hangovers stay until you die.
And death? Death is the most loyal of them all.

Death is forever.

She coughs at the thought. It's her third cigarette and the smoke swirls around her.

The thought of death bothers her.
And that means there's still something worth living for.