Philosophy Of a Guilty Conscience.....part1
(This short story will surely explain the meaning of the name of my blog "Philosophy of a guilty conscience".)
Dec 1, 2017 It was her daughter’s 18th birthday and while slapping her daughter, the ”philosophies of her guilty conscience “ were at their brilliant display .Even after her daughter disappeared behind the curtains of the room, she was standing there silent in absence of any thoughts , emotions or sensations, a numbness persisted in her mind and body, being a single mom must have made her this strong.
With a numb thoughtless mind she made herself move to a secluded place, which she called her room. Where there was no one to judge her except she herself. Sitting by the side of the bed, she saw her dirty reflection on the mirror embedded on her dressing table . Even though her sagging skin and recently appered wrinkles maintained her in the present, the events of the day were dragging her forcefully to her haunted past. For almost last two decades she avoided engaging in those memories, then why now?, but like a pus filled blister has to burst someday exposing the dirt that was rotting in it for days, today she wasn’t able to control the bursting thoughts of hers exposing her ugly past, Earlier her conscious mind made decision for her but today it lie dormant .
Multiple loud whispers were echoing from every corner of the room “Murderer, you killer, you slut”… ohhh she felt like, her ears were bleeding. She blocked her ears by pressing her fist against them, as hard as she could and in a second, again the dominance of a deaf silence wrapped her existence.
Her lump body fell on bed, like the life force has been sucked out of it. The blank eyes, while meditating on the centre of the rotating fan, projected the flashes of her past. The grand 18th birthday, the lights, the guest, the cold warm ambience. “No stop!!” , Her conscious mind resisted, but the part of her brain that posses the power of decision making, seems to be paralyzed.
Dec 1, 1998, 10 pm to be exact she completed 18 years of her life in this world. Possibly the happiest person on earth, a single child of most loving parents, who cared for her like, she were a delicate china. Huge enormous wealth that her father had gathered over time, to let her enjoy every possible worldly pleasure. A boyfriend, that she was soon planning to get married and she felt that the day was most appropriate to make that announcement. Eagerly, waiting for him she was becoming a little bit impatient as he never showed up till now, as planned was 9pm.she felt exhausted after trying his non responsive mobile, thousands of times in last one hour.
After hearing a screeching Sound of a car stopping in front of the villa, she ran to the terrace expecting ritesh and what she noticed was a news channel’s caravan. She looked as her father getting depressed while having a conversation with those coming out of the van and in matter of 4 to 5 minutes many of them were there. She saw her father panicking. On stairs, while running down to the gate she heard the sirens, “police but why”, she thought. Reaching the gate a crazy frenzy knocked her down. Flashes, literally thousands of them made her blind for a moment , the father pushed her behind himself , many policemen were man handling the reporters ………nikita where do you study? , were you there when…. ?, is it true that you are involved….. ?? She couldn’t make, any sense out of those questions, all she knew was that maybe it’s a dream, a bad dream.
Police controlling the situation hastily took the family inside the house and then what she heard, actually saw, was something made her melt in her own shadow, her throat choked, she felt molten glass is being poured into her delicate ears, the air was absent from her breath, , a watery layer developed on the surface of her eyes blurring her perfect vision, her feet trembled like weak bamboo and for once she thought maybe it’s better if she were just a body, a dead body……………………………….
Philosophy Of a Guilty Conscience.....part 2
“I love you nikita uuhhhh kiss me baby….kiss me … ahhh is this a kiss? Let me show you how to make love….. “ , The visuals of his manhood inside hers and the sounds of her moaning created a nostalgic vacuum around the place where standing was she, alone she, guilty she. The MMS playing was pretty much enough to explain the happenings of the hour. All the eyes except her parents were shifting on her and on the television screen at the random intervals. Definitely she was the star of the day. What undesirably fetched her out of her self-created vacuum was the sound of the television crashing on the shining marble floor and the broken glass choked her throat, when the “how can you do this?” question of her mother’s entered her ears.
The realization of being naked made her run as fast as she could to her room. Confused, how to respond to the situation she took the back door to the ritesh’s house, because it is what her conscience was telling her to do, while on her way to the auto stand the replay of the last few minutes of her life overwhelmed her mind , made her run faster , faster…more faster. She sat in an auto with a nonidentified rush. Without a tear, as she was considered to be strong, confident and intelligent by most of those around her, she directed the auto driver. A blink hope of ‘Everything will be alright’ made her eyes dry, her mind calculating the future possibilities at a rapid rate. When she reached she thought she had returned to her own house, the crowd and the vans. How to reach him, she was desperate to be with him, she took out her mobile, its home, and 15 missed calls. ‘When?’ she thought. Returning to the task at hand she called ritesh, once, twice, finally on third call he picked up.
As the sound of love entered her ears she broke and wept, silently…., feeling the crowd gathered will notice. She wept hysterically after adjusting her to the corner of an abandoned pillar. Her week legs weren’t allowing her to stand.
Controlling her silent sobs she spoke, “Ritesh I am outside your house I need to talk, how to…..”
The not so complete sentence concluded with ritesh’s voice “return back nikita”.
Ambiguity of, that she may have heard wrong, she asked “what?”
“Return back to your home” , same words came back but in a more rude way.
“I can’t, I urgently want to talk to you…lets our parents meet, we will get married, everything will be alright, as before”, she spoke with a hope.
“I can’t marry you ….no one at my home will be ready nor am I”, a straight reply came.
”what! Common it’s not the time to ….”
”I am serious nikita, please return back to your home and for god sake forget the relationship between us .Atleast after all this shit…”, he sounded someone else to her today.
”How can you? ….you love me na…didn’t you”, she felt a strange desperation and an irritating frustration.
“Our relationship was just a fling and I have decided to get married where my parents would be arranging”, he said without a pause, not even a slight tint of hesitation.
With the hanging up of the phone and with that one obvious thought, the last thin thread of her so called eternal love affair was broken. “How the video got out in first place???”.
She felt a sensation of dead calmness now, no desperation, no frustration, just a complete numbness of her bdy, mind and soul. She kept mobile back into the pocket of her denim and as she walked back to the auto she came in, without any fear of being getting recognized she uncovered her face,
”the girl….from the mms”, a shout followed her.
A overwhelming crowd came running up to her .As her vision turned to the direction of that, on the balcony was ritesh, she looked into his shameless eyes before the camera flashes made her blind….her vision blurred, her body felt limp….while falling, the single silent sound that surrounded her out of those hundreds of sounds was, “I love you nikita, we will have a great life together”.
She woke up and felt relieved that the dream is over, “thank god it wasn’t true”, she thought. Her smile fainted when she found that she had woken up in her uncle’s bedroom, her mother and few other relatives surrounding her but avoiding her to look at her directly. A lady doctor turning to her mother said, something which she least wanted to hear,
“Mrs. Singh we have to take her to the hospital for further treatment, but I am suggesting not to go for abortion, at this stage”
Nikita stood up shocked from her bed.
Doctor replied to the question that her inquiring eyes were asking, “You are pregnant nikita”,
With a motionless body she looked at her mother who was still avoiding a direct eye contact with her. Just after an hour the news of her pregnancy was on the news channels too, extensive coverage, people glued to the story, the girl was a celebrity now.
Finally it was decided to export her to Nepal, where one of her distant relative resided.
She lived in a secluded room and was treated like how she deserved to be, as per her. She was getting all news updates from her aunts over enthusiastic 15 year old daughter rhea, who met her secretly at night when her own parents were asleep…….and in just one month she got every news she would ever had wanted …….how ritesh was arrested, got bail and a huge engagement announced with his father’s fellow politician’s daughter …….how her parents were harassed by police and so called local political goons or so called moral police…. How one fine morning their poisonous dead bodies were found lying in their bedroom……….how it was decided for her to see a physiatrist……and decision of staying over in Katmandu in some other secluded house where she will be incapable of influencing rhea……
On her 19th birthday……………sitting on a park bench looking at her newly born daughter, she thought how her conscience led her life to a path where she never thought she would be ever. She stood up with her baby girl glued tightly against her breasts. Strands of her hairs flowing with the gentle air ,with a deep breath she start walking back into the darkness, to the home where she just had slapped her daughter tia who just turned 18 And from whose school bag she found out a pack of condoms.
She stood up, splashed some cold water on her swelly face, took the tea prepared by her to her daughter’s room , putting down the cup on her study table, what she also kept was the 3 diaries filled with her guilty life, her wasted youth ,the solitude ,the pain ,the courage, some open and close secrets, some confessions . She went to the balcony over viewing into the dusky sky line and with a deep breath suddenly she felt relaxed , the pus was released from the blister that was long rotting …the soothing was in process……her daughter came after almost 2 hours and seated herself beside her mom. Looked her for a minute and put her repenting head on her mother’s shoulder as she tried to caress her head with her feeble hands……the emotional dam was broken down and tia wept , hugging her mother who brought her up with such a hardships….she was overwhelmed as she knew that her daughter have understood the philosophies of her guilt conscience. .darkness of night was eloping their lightened body, making them invisible as one …...one soul…..she and her daughter.
PS : Conscience of a person may feel that sometimes something is right to its core at a point but all pros and cons should be calculated by the mind so that the repercussions that follow doesn’t load our conscience with the guilt it never could shack off. Mind and soul are made for working with each other to make any decision and the decision that only any single one takes in others absence can be DANGEROUS.