The Last Love Letter

Chapter 4

There is no rock bottom in love.

Subah had believed in this idea completely. It wasn’t a quote from a famous person but something that Subah, a painter, had scribbled in her dairy in one of her contemplative moments when she had still been in college.

But she’d been proven wrong. Reality was different from her expectations, and the man she had loved and trusted with her life turned out to be a cheater.
She had faced him, saying, ‘Together is forever, you said...’
He had looked up, his arms still around the woman Subah hadn’t known existed until that moment, and said, ‘Did I? Let me rephrase that—together is just a moment.’

She’d raised her hand to hit him but had left the room in a rage instead, screaming.

Subah’s rock-bottom moment had happened when she was in love. It was an irony that she couldn’t come to terms with, so she’d decided to tear that page from her diary and throw it away forever.

It had been three years since that day. Subah was twenty-five now and had never again allowed a man to get close to her. There were many who’d tried, and some had persisted for months, but she had ignored them all. Her life was dedicated to painting and running her NGO, Help Forever, through which she helped broken women put their lives back together. She helped spread awareness, raise money for specific causes and arrange free vocational training at leading institutions for the deserving women. She helped them reclaim their lives and stay away from men. In all, she had helped more than a hundred women, and her efforts had been praised by the Delhi government and many other corporations and media companies.

‘Subah, coffee.’

‘Thank you, Bala.’

Subah put her paintbrush and palette away, pushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen over her face with the back of her hand, and collapsed into a cane chair. She looked at the unfinished painting. She had not given it a name yet.

On the canvas was what looked like a puddle on the road, in which was reflected the image of a woman who held a rose in one hand and a baby in the other. The painting was in different shades of grey, except for the eyes of the woman, which were bright red. The woman’s eyes spoke the language of the fire that was raging in Subah’s heart. But the painting was a work in progress.

She picked up the coffee—a well-deserved break from working all morning. Her studio was in a barsati on the roof of her two-bedroom DDA apartment in Vasant Kunj, where she lived alone. Her father was in the United States, employed by an IT firm in a senior position, and her mother was with him. Subah saw her parents twice a year. Once when they travelled to India, and the second when she visited them in the US. She loved spending time with her mother, but had never liked her father. He was another reason for her immense dislike of men.
Years ago, after her college graduation, when a few of her friends were hanging out, not prepared to say their goodbyes yet, she had confessed her feelings to a close friend.
In fact, it was her friend who had initiated the topic. ‘I love my dad and mom—they’re so understanding. Guess I’m very lucky. You never speak about your dad, Subah. Why?’

‘Well…I think it is because I only like my mom.’

‘And your father?’

‘Let’s talk about something else, okay?’

Subah was so frightened of her dad that she kept her feelings about him to herself. Her frustration about the ill treatment her mother received was kept locked in the innermost part of her heart. In fact, she had not mentioned what she thought of her father to anyone, not even her mother.

On the other hand, her greatest worry was that slowly, without wanting to, she would turn into her mother. In time, she, too, would have a husband, someone who would turn her into an inanimate object, an accessory to be used only when required and neglected when not.

‘Why? Are you afraid of your father?’ her friend persisted.
‘Look…’ Subah thought for a while, and then something snapped in her head. ‘I hate my father, okay? And I’ll always hate him. He…he is a typical, old-fashioned Indian man. Do you know he’s never been there for my mother? She raised me and my brother entirely on her own. He always comes home late at night, drunk and foul-mouthed. And he doesn’t respect my mother one bit. Forget about respecting her, he doesn’t even acknowledge her presence. The lady of the house is not allowed to make a single decision related to the family, however small. I’ve seen my mother spend her entire life either waiting for him to return home or mustering the courage to seek approval for a matter related to the family. All his life, my father has taken my mother for granted, using her for housework and making her feel insecure and insignificant. As a kid, I saw this neglect and lack of love break my mother, even though she never complained.’
As soon as Subah finished, her palm flew to her mouth and covered it.

Why did I say all this?

What will happen now?

Due to her loud monologue, a few of her classmates had gathered around and were staring at her. Their expressions were unreadable. Did they feel sorry for her or did they think her complaints were unjustified?
Then, after a few seconds of pin-drop silence, her friend clapped and the others joined in.

‘Subah, the first step is to communicate. Because only when you communicate can your innermost feelings, your fear, be diluted. I feel sorry for your mom. But something tells me that you won’t be like your mom.’

‘Perhaps…’ She looked at each of them, and that was all she could muster the courage to say. After that day, whenever she met her friends, no one brought the topic up.

Subah’s brother, Rohan, had died in a traffic accident when he was just eighteen. Though her mother never mentioned it, Subah thought visiting India reminded her of Rohan. She seemed more at peace in the US.

#romance