Samira could feel her heart racing. Her throat dried up and attempts to swallow her own spit felt like she was trying to gulp down thorns. Her head felt light and dizzy. She looked at her right hand shaking violently as she grabbed the low iron rail fence. She took a moment to calm her nerves and took three deep breaths. As she extended her left hand and grabbed the rail, her head started throbbing; as if the body was trying to send all the blood to the brain so it functions more efficiently and thinks correctly. Her body seemed to be losing all energy and she had to put in a lot of effort just to lift her right leg over the railing.
Now she had one foot on the edge of the terrace of the 23 storeyed building, and the second one on the other side of the iron fence. Her sweaty palms were holding on to the railing with every iota of strength left in her body. This was not the right time to doubt the decisions she had vowed to undertake, she reminded herself as she sat down on the wobbly iron fence. Cautiously and slowly, she lifted her left hand and took out the neatly folded piece of paper from the back-pocket of her jeans. She held the letter from its edges as she did not want the sweat of her palm to smudge the ink. “What if the fall makes my butts bleed and the letter becomes illegible?” she thought to herself and dismissed the bizarre idea of blood spurting from her bottoms like a fountain.
“This is going to be the last memory which I will share with the world. These words, strung together, are going to be my eulogy. This is what I will be remembered for.” she said to herself fighting back tears as she started reading her last ode to the world.
Hi (one last time),
I am aware that I will be called immature, weak, stubborn and careless after this final act I do, especially by you, pop. But this is the last disappointment I will be giving you, I promise. I want to state it clearly right at the very onset of this last letter I am leaving behind that I do not hold any person responsible for what I am going to do. This decision is mine and mine alone. It is not because of any kind of physical or emotional threat from any person.
If you were to ask me the reason behind this decision, it is not one but many small things that have snowballed into creating an avalanche of emotional turbulence in my life. I am treated like a caged bird, the cage being my home. There is no lack of love, no domestic violence against me; I am loved and cared for just like a domesticated pet, I am to do what I am told without having my own say in things. I have lived whole of 26 years of my life doing exactly what Pop wanted me to do. Right from choosing which subject I would study to which kind of clothes I would wear, even at home!
Being a girl, I always thought it would be easier for my mother to understand the kind of problems I was facing; the curb on free thinking, the high expectations in both academic and social fields simultaneously and the curfew timings from pre-evening just to name a few. But expecting Mom to interfere in these matters was pure stupidity on my part. She had faced the same problems when she was growing up in her ancestral house in the small town in Madhya Pradesh but she was blind to see my struggles and fight. But the problem is that the life of the generation before us is filled with hypocrisy, starting right from women’s rights to right to individuality.
However, I do feel that I myself am to be blamed for this discriminatory treatment. My parents were always harbouring such a mindset and I was just too meek to stand against it as I was growing up. I agreed to and did whatever they wished from me without questioning them or telling them how it made me feel. I never stood up for my beliefs, my thoughts, my decisions, which in turn made them think that I was happy and content with the life THEY had chosen for me. But after college, when I started working and met so many different people from all spheres, my life started to feel like a train-wreck. These people were bustling with confidence. They were independent and strong individuals, who had developed their own thought-process and took their own decisions after weighing what was right, wrong and best for them. I have never been able to do this. When I started to demand more from my parents, when I started demanding for my own individuality, they were taken aback. For 24 years of their lives they had moulded me to form a perfect little girl who would do as told, was educated, had a good job and would probably be married in a respectable family. When I tried to argue with them, they felt I am defying their order and going against their authority. The hypocrisy is so deep rooted in their psyche that they develop a feeling of denial towards it; denial to accept that this behaviour might be hampering my way of living and my mental state. This denial is now leading to them alienating me. I am virtually a stranger living in the house of my father.
I am growing tired of the battle I am fighting daily to keep a happy face while staring at the blank faces of my parents. Then go to my office and continuously think about not going back home and taking the first train out of this damned city, and deciding against it. I feel claustrophobic even when I am out in the open. In the middle of this entire conundrum going on in my head, it is almost impossible to focus on any real things. This is leading to a fall in standard of my office work, my relationships and my happiness. If there is one thing I have always tried to stay away from –it is mediocrity; and mediocre is exactly what I have been feeling nowadays. I am not ending my life today; I am ending the mediocre woman’s life that has been staying in my head and body for the last couple of months. Do not hate me for what I have become and done. Please remember me for who I was when I was still your Simmu!
With immense love, regret, anger, angst, shame, humility and respect,
Signing off
She wiped the stream of tears that were flowing uncontrollably. She folded the paper neatly and stood up, still holding the iron rail with her right hand. She kept the letter in her back pocket and lifted her left leg over the railing. Now both her legs were a few inches from the perimeter of the building. She took a peek at the ground below her, the parking lot was empty with just a few cars scattered around, none too close to where she would fall. Being a weekday and school hours, there were no kids playing in the compound.
Samira could feel her heart jumping in her chest, almost ready to break the ribcage and burst out. Another moment of delay would have definitely led to weakness. She took a few inches further towards the edge with her knees wobbling and a very strong urge to vomit rising from the pit of her stomach. She looked up at the creator whom she was heading to meet. She should have simply taken the train to another city.
THUD!!
