This is the fourth part in a 6 part fictional story series.
Everything in this story is purely imaginary with inspirations from real life.
Any resemblance to any person or occasion in real life is completely coincidental.
4. Histories
Miraa reeled under her realisations, being too overwhelming to bear. Had she not learnt anything from the behaviour of her abusive father? How had she landed up again in the lap of someone so eerily similar to him? What had happened to her promises to herself that she would never allow anyone to treat her as her father had once done?
As her father had once done.....those thoughts took her far back, to her childhood.
Miraa's childhood seemed nothing short of normal to the outside observer. She had parents who gave her her basic needs, who let her participate in any event she wanted to and money was definitely of no shortage at her house. Yet there was no home.
Her father and mother never seemed to get along and were forever bickering and snickering at each other. And most of the time, kid Miraa felt like she was the parent and had to mediate between her childish father and frustrated mother.
Nothing Miraa ever did seemed enough for her father, who would forever say in a bitterly disappointed tone, "That's it? You couldn't do any better?". Miraa would at these times run to her mother with tears in her eyes, wanting consolation and comfort. Her mother would try to shut her up by saying "Good girls don't cry Miraa, don't be so sensitive in life. If you continue like this how will you manage yourself when you grow up?". And these were at those moments when her mother felt patient enough to lecture her, since at other times, all she got from her was one look of utter disgust and disapproval at her teary face and puffy eyes.
Feeling thus invalidated and as though she didn't matter, Miraa had learnt to put up a facade of 'maturity' and to bury her emotions or better, run away from them. It didn't take her long to do this, considering that she was shamed every time she cried for apparently "little things" and she was left alone without any scolding only when she behaved like a 'good girl'. True, sometimes she outwardly rebelled at the treatment she got but the joint forces of her parents, screaming at her to shut up and not talk back to elders, was enough to quiet her down.
All she wanted was their love and their love seemed to be in their approval. So, Miraa learnt early on to please her parents as well as others and was smart enough to understand what people needed at which time. This became ingrained in her so deeply that it soon became second nature, especially with her family. She was relieved that the scolding directed at her reduced dramatically after she took up this facade, but the bickering between her parents continued. And how much ever she had tried, she could not earn the approval of her father, who was more of an immature child at heart, always wanting validation from her for what he did and seeking it in the most dominant and authoritative way possible.
He would buy sweets, candies, gifts and books for Miraa and force them on her, though most of them were not to her taste or preference but which she would accept out of fear of displeasing him and angering him. Miraa would feel utterly controlled by him whenever she resentfully ate the food he forced her to eat or wore the dresses he had gifted (which she hated), but she would also feel helpless to do otherwise.
He would dictate insane rules to be followed by Miraa and change them every day on a whim, leaving her confused. He would rage angrily, screaming explosively and would call her and her mother shameful names at the silliest of things, such as a lack of sugar in his coffee or the fact that Miraa hadn't cut her nails.
He had next to no empathy, feeling as though the world owed him a living and somehow made everything about him and would either passive aggressively insinuate that Miraa and her mother were not good enough or openly tell them that he expected better treatment from them.
He would hold himself, his work and his family to impossibly high standards, which were unrealistic to meet and when eventually the realisation that they had not been met struck him, he would rage outwardly to Miraa and her mother and suddenly shift to directing that rage at himself, calling himself derogatory names, causing Miraa and her mother to run to console him, which he never returned to them in their time of need.
He was emotionally unavailable, showing only the slightest sign of approval and happiness when Miraa achieved something worthy in the eyes of society. He never ever took the time to understand or bond with his child, deeming it to be the duty of the women of the house and entirely unmanly to do so. To the outside world, he was this charming, pleasing, good natured, helpful, polite, sympathetic personality and every family Miraa knew of used to praise her father and exclaim how lucky they were to get to interact with such a gem of a human. But it was only to Miraa and her mother did he ever show his true colours. He had never laid a hand on Miraa or her mother, but the damage he wrought was extensive.
This state of constant disharmony and instability in her home and the unpredictable nature of her father had made Miraa feel overwhelmed many times, pitying herself for her fate. Books were her only friends, as she knew nothing about making friends or keeping them, invariably people pleasing her classmates and acquaintances to nauseating extents, never revealing her true self to them and leaving them high and dry if it ever seemed like their friendship was becoming rocky, making her an untrustworthy person in their eyes.
The world of books, she loved and they were her sanctuary. She loved reading books about happy families and would break down whenever she read them, feeling resentful that she had never experienced it. Those kinds of books helped her escape from her own hated reality and fuelled her self pity.
One fine day, when she was 12 years old, it seemed as though life had blessed her with a second chance, when her mother informed her that she and Miraa would have to leave the city and return to their hometown to take care of her ailing grandfather. This automatically meant that Miraa would no longer see her father on a regular basis and Miraa was ecstatic to say the least. She packed her bags, books and toys with all the eagerness to get away from her home and soon, they had left for their native.
Miraa got enrolled into a new school there and life finally seemed "normal". She made new friends and told white lies and exaggerations about her former life in an attempt to cover up the shame she felt for her own identity.
She did everything she could to fit in and was enjoying the spotlight of "city girl in a small town" lavishly thrown at her. Her academic and extracurricular performance was excellent, making her the darling of all teachers. The dread of coming back home to the man she had grown to hate and fear, was no longer there. Her grandparents spoiled her with attention, her mother too seemed to enjoy her newfound freedom by going after her passion and Miraa was floating on cloud nine every minute. There was nobody to control her and tell her what to do. She could finally breathe easy and be herself, as she pleased.
Her new school soon gave her a new set of problems, since she seemed to be the prize in the eyes of one particular boy, who tried desperately to get her attention and be her friend. With the innocence of their age, the boy mistook his obsession with Miraa for love and very quickly proposed to her. Miraa didn't want to accept it and yet, had never learnt to grow a spine to say no. She accepted his love and for a few days, everything seemed to go on well. The boy would pepper her with attention and gifts, paid attention to her every small wish and whim and would hold her on a pedestal. Miraa would feel overjoyed and was happy to have finally gotten the sort of caring and nurturing she had unknowingly yearned for since her childhood. But that was not to be.
The boy soon started trying to control Miraa out of the insecurity that she might leave him and would cold shoulder her every time he saw her speaking with another boy. Moreover, the two seemed to be as opposites as opposites could be, hardly knowing each other and never seeing eye to eye on anything.
Soon, the fights began brewing and heated arguments began growing. And Miraa, being terrified at the state of affairs, got cold feet and broke up with him the first chance she got.
The boy haunted her, shadowing her every movement and took every opportunity to show his longing to be with her. Miraa kept rebuking his efforts and had pleaded him to just be friends with her. This had gone back and forth for three years, during which time the mental pressure Miraa felt had started to reflect on her performance at school heavily. Yet she remained mum to her mom and her grandparents, having learnt early on to shut up about her feelings and act like everything was okay.
Surprisingly, her mother shifted her to another school, after she had cleared her exams.
Miraa had no clue how this had happened and felt relieved at yet another chance at normalcy. Unknown to her, Miraa's mother had been alerted by the school authorities of her affair at school, her inability to keep up with their standards and they had further pressured her mom to remove her daughter from their rolls, seeing that she could not cope up anymore.
Furthermore, a few days after her having been shifted, Miraa's mother tactlessly confronted her about her affair, scolded her heartlessly and threatened to marry her off to someone within the family if she continued behaving in her new school as how she had done earlier. This confrontation, done out of the intention to 'correct' her behaviour, only hurt Miraa to the core, breaking her trust with her mother and made her clam up even more about her true self to her mom and her family. She consoled herself that it wasn't all bad, since her father was still away from her, deigning to meet them once a year, reluctant to part with city comforts and named the cause of his prolonged absence to be work pressure.
At her next school, Miraa was terrified of even talking to boys and avoided them like the plague, anxious to not stir up a storm with her mom as she had done earlier. She yearned for love, affection and attention but was terrified of going near any boy she liked. She soon got a new set of friends, who were more focussed on their academics than on relationships and Miraa held on to them for dear life, mimicking their behaviour and trying to turn into a nerd herself. She fared well, being blessed with abundant thinking capacity and an astonishing grasping power. She felt content that at least her facade was accepted by them without any doubts.
Finally when she thought she had managed to pull herself together, came a new fellow into her life. He didn't speak much, next to nothing at all, but for one curious sentence :"Excuse me, what is your name?". She replied in an as normal voice as she could muster but it was enough to turn her world upside down.
'This boy considered me worthy enough to ask my name!', she thought as her stomach plummeted and her mind went into overdrive, imagining wonderful scenarios of her having meaningful, heart to heart conversations with a boy she hardly knew, her imagination propelled her to think of the two of them ending up as thick friends and if possible, lovers.
Desperate to talk to him and get to know him, yet ashamed of her previous affair and terrified of her mother, Miraa resigned to sneakily stare at the poor fellow every chance she could get. The mystery surrounding him, of who he truly was, fascinated her as she spun imaginary weaves upon weaves of his nature, to suit her own needs. In reality he was just another average guy who bunked his classes and hung out with his gang, but to Miraa, he was the most uber cool stud.
She confided to none, not even her own friends, of her rising infatuation with him. She wrote poems upon poems about him and who she imagined him to be in her diary. She day dreamed of impossible scenarios with him in her head. And she was scared to even try to talk to him at school, which she never did, even on her last day as a school student.
Unfortunately, one day, her mother found her diary and accidentally read the love poems Miraa had written. (I don't think I need to describe what happened later...its sufficient to say that her mother had once again tactlessly confronted her about it and made her feel ashamed of her feelings for that boy). In effect, Miraa's relationship with her mother was in tenterhooks. Her only consolation were her friends (with whom she could keep up her facade of maturity and self importance effortlessly) and her grandmother (a simple lady who never asked any interrogative questions, with whom Miraa felt safe enough to be herself).
Her grandfather had been chronically unwell for the last few years and was slowly, sickeningly and surely crawling towards his deathbed. And a few days after Miraa's school days ended, he passed away.
It wasn't her grandfather's death that shook Miraa though, since she, having never felt any deep connection with him, couldn't really mourn his passing. It was the subsequent death of her grandmother, mere weeks after his death, that shook Miraa to her core. Not only had she lost her one safe space and caring connection, but also she was faced with the reality that she and her mother had to move back with her father, for her college.
It was at college that Miraa had met Vasuki, who was then a final year student. They weren't even of the same department or clubs, their meeting being purely coincidental, at one of her lab classes, where he had come to assist the professor in charge of that lab as part of his project requirements.
Miraa had kept her head firmly in her practical experiment and it was Vasuki who was at first smitten by her. He hovered around her every chance he could get, trying to make small talk. Miraa went along with the conversation just to be polite, all the while feeling annoyed, irritated and strangely uneasy while being in his presence. Vasuki had slipped his number into her notebook, ostensibly for the purpose of helping her navigate her way into college. Miraa was too naïve to understand his true intentions, the doubt of him and her having no departments in common never crossing her mind.
It was in fact, to clear a doubt regarding her lab session, that Miraa had started texting him. And it became very clear early on, that Vasuki never ever intended to be a college senior with her.
He peppered her with attention, drinking in every reluctant word she spoke, managed to accidentally on purpose bump into her every chance he could get and openly flirted with her. Miraa secretly liked this attention but still felt uneasy about him. One thing was clear though - she had gotten an admirer and she wanted to keep him.
Slowly but surely, Miraa developed an attachment to him, to the point of missing his texts and calls if he ever missed making them. Her mother knew nothing about this, being too preoccupied with her dad and her new job, taken up to support Miraa's college education. And it gave Miraa all the leverage she needed.
Vasuki made so many sweet gestures, from walking Miraa to her classes in the morning, coming to her bus to wave her bye in the evenings and staying with her till she boarded her cab on the days where club activities or extra classes made her stay back at college till late evenings. He even had an unbelievably patient ear to listen to all of her troubles with her family, including the deep sense of estrangement she felt with her father and her lack of trust with her mother, which Miraa found herself telling to him.
He sympathised deeply with her situation, giving her all the advice and empathy he could show.
At the rare times when he did speak about himself, he would describe his wonderful family, how he was their only son, how his word was law at their home, how much he enjoyed spending time with his parents, how his parents had worked hard to rise from poverty and give him the education and quality of life that they had never experienced, how he sometimes felt discriminated due to his background at college, how he had overcome all odds to land a place in their prestigious college and how he planned to make his parents proud of him, once he graduated. He made it especially clear to her that she was the only girl he had taken a strong liking to, in all his years at college and how he had never seen an angel like her before.
Miraa unsurprisingly grew infatuated with his personality, which seemed so perfect! He was charming, pleasing, good natured, polite, sympathetic, helpful and seemed to be a gem. He agreed with whatever she said, never admonished Miraa or scolded her, always letting her be childish self, which Miraa loved. She finally, finally felt she had gotten the validation she had been craving since her childhood - to feel loved.
Her gut instinct though, was trying to pull her away from him. It repeatedly made her feel uneasy when she thought of him, the reasons unknown to her. Miraa attributed it to the anxiety she felt since she was doing all this behind her mother's back, whom she had told that Vasuki was a girl and a college senior.
One day, as they were chatting, Vasuki popped the question to her. He typed eloquently:
"I've loved you ever since I met you Miraa... and I know you love me too... your actions towards me signal that clearly. But I want those beautiful words from my angel's pretty lips. Miraa Kumar, do you love me? Do you love me enough to become Miraa Vasuki?"
Miraa was stunned as she read this. On one side, she felt guilty knowing she had developed a liking for Vasuki but didn't know if it was love for him. On the other side, she felt guilty that their chats had developed into something so serious so soon, within weeks!
Anxiety creeping into her, Miraa typed "I don't know Vasu", foolishly hoping that her confused response would make him think that she was clearly not in love with him and hence make him end his advances.
Vasuki had persisted, replying: "Don't think of your family or your society Miraa... think only about what you want. I want you to be mine Miraa and I know you want to be mine... it is so simple dear, just tell those three words! I will take care of everything else and handle all the danger we might face. I only need to be fuelled by your love." and on and on he had persisted, pushing her.
Miraa was easily pushed, spineless as she had always been, and reluctantly replied with "I love you", her mind rejoicing that she had finally gotten someone who seemed to pay attention to her, her heart celebrating the newfound source of affection while her gut was screaming at her to get the hell away from him.
And the rest, was history, Miraa mused, coming back to the present.
'I seemed to have been running after boys who were bad for me.... just like my dad... why though..', she continued thinking, as she opened her system, getting ready for the next lecture. It was thankfully the weekend, meaning half lectures, meaning she had no more classes other than the one about boilers that had previously taken place, which she recollected only after powering up her system. Feeling disheartened that she had opened her laptop for nothing, she decided to check her mail for assignments.
Only though, there weren't any new assignments.
There was just one email, from Vasuki.
(to be continued)
//All images have been linked to their sources unless otherwise//
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Musing:
unheeded lessons repeat until learnt
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