Breaking news from the evening standard gossip at the ladies hostel was Nina Thomas and the Malayalee professor Dr. Gopal.
Everyone wanted to know why Dr. Gopal threw Nina Thomas out of the class, but no one bothered to ask me.
It felt odd when everyone is talking about you and you are completely excluded from the discussion.
But what was I going to say even if someone asked me?
That my own uncle did this?
So far madness was the only illness I didn’t seem to suffer from. But with an admission that ones own family is doing such heinous crimes was surely considered the classic sign of a mentally deranged person.
I was already wearing the crowns of ‘flirt’ ‘prostitute’ ‘pezha’ etc. Didn’t want to add yet another crown to my already burdened head.
I couldn’t face anyone, so I went to my room and lay down. My mind wasn’t calm and I couldn’t read. Staring at the ceiling too became tedious after a while. I wished I could do something to while away the time.
But that was the problem. I didn’t know to do anything. Every free moment I had, I was busy reading. I wished I had learned to do some art and craft thingy, like knitting or Crochet. Then I remembered Amma sitting down on my bed and knitting the grey colour scarf for the love of her life.
What makes a woman do such a thing?
How can anyone keep loving someone who is destroying her own family? How can my own mother love a man who was out to destroy her own daughter’s life? I wanted to take the biggest rock I could find and smash Amma’s head.
I was that angry.
I could almost see the entire women folk of India pointing their finger at me and crying for blood, if I had done such a thing. Every single person would have felt sorry for my mother and her bad luck of giving birth to a monster child like me.
After all my mother carried me for 9 whole months, gave birth to me, nurtured me and I the ungrateful, mean, nasty daughter wanted to kill her?

How horrible!

Who was there for me?
Who among you would have spend a minute and tried to think what would have made a daughter wanting to kill her own mother?

“Aparna, shall we go for dinner?” I heard Shylaja ask
She said Aparna’s name loud enough so I would know I wasn’t invited. They didn’t want anything to do with me. They didn’t want to jeopardise their future by associating with me. So many students fail each year because they crossed the path with the professors. Everyone wanted to be in the good books of professors.
I couldn’t blame them.

But the feeling, the one where you are stuck in a quick stand and all you wanted is to breath, have you ever felt that?
Do you know how it feels?
Do you know how it feels, when you are punished for something you didn’t do? Not once, not twice, not thrice. Over and over and over. And the worst part? It is your own family that is making you drown and there is nothing you can do.

4 thoughts on “

  1. Dear Sarah;

    Been following your blog for sometime now – I should say, it is a bit disturbing the way the story goes…

    I hope this is just a story & nothing to do with your biography.

    Keep going!

    – Santosh

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