MaNan: Breaking Free

44|Take two

"But she's is a Murthy baba." Shanno aunty had said with a huge grin. "She'll fit right in."

I'm always going to be grateful to them. I couldn't have found a better place for myself. This entire locality always brims with cheer and positivity. It's exactly what I needed back then.

The people here are also very lively and electric. They like to get together for brunches and garden parties every now and then. I had got invited to tonnes of them when I first came here, everyone showing eagerness to get to know me and include me in their tight-knit community. But I had refused all the invitations, being in no fit state to interact with a bunch of strangers, no matter how sweet they were.
Eventually, as people realized that I wasn't the sort to mingle, they had started leaving me alone.

I am on the path to change that now. A path of rediscovery.

When I came here, I was only an imprint of my past self, so consumed by the grief of losing Jenny that I was living through a haze of hopelessness. It was my lowest low, with no desire left to live.

A big part of me wanted to just die and put an end to the misery.

But there was also a bigger part that thought it was my fault Jenny was dead.

That part didn't let me die.

That bigger part didn't want me to have an easy escape. It wanted me to feel all the anguish in its full force. It wanted me to suffer because I had caused the death of someone so good, so kind.

And so I had condemned myself to live. After all, there is only one hell, the one we live in now.

I told myself I deserved this hell and I couldn't have the luxury of dying.

For a long time after that, I had begun to envy people who got easy, early deaths. The lucky ones passed on early while sinners like me were doomed to life. I don't even remember my first two-three months here. I wasn't eating, sleeping or doing much of anything. I had gotten in the habit of taking long walks on the dark, lonely roads every night. I would walk and walk, aimless. Lifeless.

Now when I look back on those days, I realize its really a miracle that nothing happened to me and I survived in one piece.

One night, in a dark, deserted alleyway, everything suddenly changed.

It was almost one in the night. I had been taking one of my usual walks when I came across a child sleeping on a bench under a streetlight. There was no one else around. She must have been seven or eight and looked heavily battered. When I woke her up, she had given me a terrified look and started crying. I tried my best to talk to her and ask about her parents. But she didn't utter a single word. In the end, I had scooped her up in my arms and carried her to the nearby police station. The cops had taken one look at her and seen something I hadn't; she was a possible victim of abuse. They had called the local child welfare committee. The officials of the committee had intervened without wasting time and a probe was started into the child's family.

Just as I had been about to leave the police station, one of the guys from the committee had jogged up to me and thanked me for bringing the child to the police station.

"It's no big deal." I had told him.

"No, it really is." He had smiled at me. He had a pair of dark, thick eyebrows, a square cut jaw and very kind eyes. He must have been only a few years older than me. "You'd be surprised to know just how few people are willing to help kids like these. Most are content to post awareness messages on social media. Very few actually want to get involved." He had finished with a sad smile.