A box of Chocolates

A circle and A Square - Part 7

Kriti took one last look at her room. She had packed everything. In addition to her clothes and laptop that she had brought from Gurgaon, she was also taking along a few of her childhood belongings – the tattered yellow quilt, 'pikshu' the white teddy bear, a couple of old soft pillows and a bunch of colourful printed pajamas from her college days that still fit her. These petty things dating back decades, which meant nothing to anyone except her.

Initially she had thought she'd stop by their erstwhile apartment in Gurgaon, pick up her stuff, do a proper 'farewell conversation' if there was such a thing and fly down to Pune. But then she discarded the idea.

The apartment in Gurgaon wasn't theirs, it was and had always been his. Her stuff that remained there – clothes and make up and his gifts over the years, honestly she didn't need any of it to survive.

He could donate them, courier them back home, or burn them in rage for all she cared. As for the 'farewell conversation', he had already been served the divorce papers so it wasn't like she was going to break a news. Kriti would most certainly have given him a respectful closure, something that everyone in a relationship being ended by the other person, deserves, but given their history and his sly nature, she was afraid he would yet again trap her into a cobweb of lies.

Back in her school days, she was extremely popular for her many talents. She was a prolific speaker and an equally brilliant writer. She used to write a biweekly column for her a local magazine, which grew so popular that she became a sort of teen sensation in her school and beyond. Kriti didn't fancy anyone in school, but many boys - seniors and peers, had a crush on her. Compared to that, Dishan was just another name in a crowd of 2000. Beyond his classmates and teachers, people hardly knew that he existed. Somehow, every year he managed to wiggle his way into the top 3 students in his class, but that was his only claim to glory.

At 16, girls love attention, and in turn those who are willing to give that. Kriti fell in love with Dishan because he pursued her relentlessly even though there were many others who liked her just as much. He lied about many things just to be around her and then jokingly called it the 'Grand conspiracy of the stars'. Every Friday, he bumped into her on his way to his badminton classes, a game that nobody ever saw him playing. But instead of confronting him for his lies, 16 year old Kriti found it cute that he would do anything to win her heart.

It was Dishan who first spread the word about them being a couple while they were still in school. It was still too early, as they were just getting to know each other and Kriti hadn't even said the three magical words to him. At first it did take Kriti by surprise, the suddenness of it all. For her it was a new phase in life and she was eager to explore the experiences that came with it. But she wasn't ready a long term commitment yet, far from it she didn't even know if what she felt was infatuation or love, if it would survive her remaining time in school or frizzle out before that. But once word got out, and the news started spreading like wild fire, she felt kind of obliged to accept the relationship. She could have stepped aside and confronted Dishan, she could have asked him why he didn't ask her before announcing to the world that they were seeing each other, she could have sensed that this was the beginning of a never ending series of one-sided decisions that would be forced upon her, but SHE DID NONE OF IT.

And then as soon as she accepted it, she started losing her friends one by one - first the guys because Dishan would get jealous if she spent more time with anyone else but him, and then the girls because she was not just left with no time for the guys, she was left with no time for anyone. For all the attention he gave her, he demanded every ounce back with interest. Gullible Kriti let that happen too, dismissing his clingy behaviour as 'boyish possessiveness'.

The first year of college was one of the worst years in Kriti's life. She had moved to a new city, where she knew no one, she was taking a course (engineering at her father's behest) that she didn't like and she had lost most of her friends from school. The only person she could still hold on to was Dishan, even though she didn't particularly enjoy their long distance calls or their rather drab discussions that had zero novelty factor.

But eventually she began warming up to college life, and started relishing the freedom she had here away from her parents and Dishan. For the most part she was free to do whatever she wanted to, and hang out with whoever she liked, as long as she picked up Dishan's calls and responded to his messages within 5 mins. Kriti didn't even realize when Dishan evolved from being just her boyfriend to a controlling guardian who kept a tab on all her activities but gradually she grew tired of all the answering she had to do. Plus the more people she met, some of whom really wowed her, the more she lost her fondness for Dishan. It wasn't because she was immoral as Dishan had made her belief, but because their relationship had no spark to begin with. Dishan was neither creative, nor poetic, and was in no shape or form an inspiring man with a kind heart. All he had was the gift of numbers and the ability to crack exams.

She almost broke up with him in third year...almost....

A month before the finals she told him she didn't want to continue anymore and stopped taking his calls, and for that one month she felt free like a bird. But that summer when she returned home for the vacations, she was in for a rude surprise. One evening Dishan's parents came over for dinner and over a casual discussion expressed their wish to have Kriti as their daughter in law whenever they decided to settle down in the future. The only reason why that evening Kriti couldn't stand up and tell her future inlaws that she wasn't ok with it even if her parents were, was because she was too shocked to react. Unfortunately they interpreted her silence as a 'yes'. She should have confronted Dishan and asked him if he had manipulated his parents into approaching hers, but she didn't. Instead, once again she let him ease his way back into her life like a limp shrub too weak to resist the wind.

But this time the damage was irreversible, because once their relationship became official and the parents got involved, she couldn't get out of it, no matter how hard she tried. Sometimes they would scold her, sometimes threaten her, sometimes ridicule her and when all else failed , they would resort to emotional blackmailing. What she didn't know back then was it wasn't the parents but Dishan with his insecurities who masterminding this whole game to keep her tied to him.

And this is how despite having a severe panic attack on the night before the wedding, Kriti was married off to Dishan.

Kriti could have never seen her past as clearly as she could now, had she not had the sessions with her therapist because Dishan had messed up her mind by seeding lies in it. Without her doctor's analysis and diagnosis, Kriti would have never known with certainty that Dishan was a psychopath who suffered from acute insecurity, was a pathological liar, was egocentric, displayed manipulative behaviour and was incapable of true love and empathy.

BUT deep down Kriti had always known that she didn't love Dishan.

When you take a right decision and look back at it later, you feel a sense of relief.

When you take a wrong decision and look back at it later, you feel a sense of dread.

Kriti was familiar to this feeling of dread, she had felt this lump in her gut so many times, like her body telling her something was off. She had felt it as a deep sadness when she saw other happy couples, felt it as guilt when she was attracted to other guys while still being in a relationship with Dishan. She had felt it as claustrophobia in Dishan's presence and relief in his absence. She had felt it as self doubt and confusion...and yet every time she had shunned that voice....shunned it for the fear of what people might think about her, shunned it because she didn't trust her instincts enough, shunned it because that was the easy way out, shunned it because her parents told her to, shunned it because it would have taken courage to stand up for herself , shunned because she thought all broken things could be fixed and shunned it till she could not shun it anymore..

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Its easy to blame it all on Kriti and say she deserved what she got for shunning her inner voice for years. But aren't  we constantly conditioned by our society to embrace choices that are not ours, to live by the rules, to stay in toxic marriages, to choose everything else over our happiness and to drown our inner voice??

THE END..