Meerasim : Dastaan - E - Ishq

Zindagi Kaisi Hai Paheli

"Jhoothi kahin ki!" Meerab hadn't missed this comment made by Maa Begum as she had gone with Murtasim. 

Family word sounded so dirty, how could she even begin to imagine having a family with this man? A man she partly still held responsible for all that had suddenly gone wrong in her hitherto peaceful life. 

As much as she would have liked to say that what Maa Begum said did not affect her, it did. She had been wrong to think that she would have any allies at this place, a place that felt so cold. Maa Begum was the one who wanted to get her married to her precious sher beta, yet she always stood against her. She didn't even want to think about Haya, she had begun to tune her out as an annoying voice that would be present in the background. 

And what about the way Anwar chacha, her actual baba had put his hand on her head, so lovingly just the way her baba did. The thought itself had brought sudden tears to her eyes, even though she was going to Karachi, did she have any rights of affection, of anger over the people who had been so quick to abandon her. 

Her anger didn't allow her to pick up the phone and call her mama and baba. 

Wasn't her mama supposed to mentally prepare her for the dos and don'ts of married life. 

How easily her baba had said "Main tumhara baap nahi hun."

She was lost, hoping for a sense of some old familiarity to sift in as she entered the house that she had stayed in for twenty years before the door was shut on her. She could practically feel the memories and nostalgia invading and fighting with her dread to keep everything blocked to be let in. The weekly meals of Nihari and kheer, the blanket forts she had made, sneaking into her Baba's chambers which only fed into her curiosity, fueling her passion for becoming a lawyer. 

She felt invisible in the Khan household, rendered incapable of love, discarded as a plaything that no one wanted anymore now that they had their time with her. She could see the efforts that her husband put in at times but due to the broken relationship, she had lost faith in all his actions as well and constantly questioned the attempts he made. One fine day, when it suited him, would he abandon her as well?

It was these thoughts which kept her from fully accepting Murtasim and his love. She could see that he was putting in all these efforts yet her heart did now allow her to acknowledge his love for she didn't want to feel all the pain again. 

Her Mama hugged her and she could feel the tears brimming in her eyes, just waiting to drop. She didn't allow her hands to go around her frame and hug her back. The betrayal felt too fresh. 

"Aaj yeh ghar mujhe bilkul pehle jaisa lag raha hai." She heard her Mama say. However, it all just seemed like background noise that she wanted to shut out. All her torment that she had suppressed in her heart came back rushing like a force, emboldening her emotions to be free. 

She ignored what her mother was saying, just taking in the sight of a building that once held so much importance for her, that was once her true home. The plant on the staircase stood there, just like it had on the day she had left and had never come back. It was like nothing had changed yet everything somehow had. She sought desperate comfort in the corporeal permanence of objects around her, hoping that they would somehow make this building her once, loving home. 

However, it felt like even these inanimate objects were to betray her for as she opened the door of her room, she found it devoid of the things that had made it her room and it looked like no one had lived there, it was just a guest room. 

Had her presence bothered them so much that they had chosen to remove her belongings as well? That frame that she had got made with so much love for her Baba, where was it, where were her pictures?