Evanescing The Facade

5. Embracing a good sleep

"There's enough fire inside you to put the hell in shame, but you are pretending to be water for someone who is too afraid to handle the dragons inside your belly. Stop crushing the things that make you. Embrace the flames."

Mishti was a girl who would rhythmically maintain her calm even when her heart is flaring inside, for she feared pique would drive people away. She was scared to be stubborn, she was scared to retaliate because she was scared if she does, she would be left alone...again. Abir was a knight in shining armour for the suppressed child, he promised he would teach her to ask for what she wanted, he would teach her to fight and she believed, she blindly, whole heartedly believed in every superfluous promise he made. He promised she would never have the fear of losing him but the truth was, every minute just added on to her nasty plight. Every day she woke up with a fear that she would be abandoned again. He did leave her, not once but twice and it was tearing her apart. Love, for Mishti wasn't flowers and chocolates, it was yearning and begging, it was the feeling of ripping every part of her skin that might rebuff the little love she gets, it was both cause and cure of her panic, it was a confusion and it was a fear that it was too beautiful to exist.

"And I miss those days, when sleep was more welcoming and not just a means of escape. I want to be embraced in solace and not engulfed in desperate need to skedaddle dinkum oil."

The entire family was taken aback with the raw vulnerability in Mishti's voice while she articulated the unsaid truths of her uncanny and poignant existence. She was tired of surviving. A halcyon nap, with her head in her badi maa's lap and her soul drowning in her euphonious voice, chasing away the baritone of callousness for some hours was all she wanted. So, with the slight effervescence of animation left in her drowned spirit she was ready to beg for a few hours of solace.

M- I don't know if I have the right anymore but I beg you, please let me sleep with my head in your lap badi Maa, just for a few hours. I haven't slept well since days. I want to sleep peacefully just for some hours. I won't ask for anything else, ever again but I need your lullaby. Let me sleep today, I promise I will go far away from your lives tomorrow but please just for today take me in your embrace.

She chanted like a verse from the hymn we hold between our fingers. Her slouched shoulders indicated how vanquished she felt. And the shrouded pearls of despondency that were hidden in the opaque of her eyes, were now freely falling down her cheeks. It was time for the facade to fade away. The mighty Mishti couldn't be strong anymore.

Rajashree Maheshwari who was a woman of grit and substance, the matriarchal anchor of the family never felt so defeated. Her heart broke for the little child in front of her who was begging for a sprinkling of composure. The little girl who was the luminescence in their lives was drowning in absolute gloom and they failed to hold her.

Vishambhar Maheshwari within is poised frame was a broken man right now. His daughter was yearning for calmness, his strong daughter was tired of life, she wanted to go away. And he failed to protect her from the pain.

Abir was prised out of his trance when Mishti said she would go far away. Mishti wanted to leave him?

He rushed to her side and forced her to look into his eyes. He winced at the sight before his eyes, there was a night sky of broken dreams below her eyes. 'I haven't slept well in days' Her deep black orbs held a nebula of desperation, a desperation to be loved unconditionally, a desperation to live in peace. Yes, she was yearning to live, for now she was dying every second.

"It isn't what we say or think that defines us, it's what we do,
Darling you promised a picturesque landscape of life,
A cascade of gorgeous turquoise dreams,
But I feel myself wrenched in a swamp of grim.
Darling you promised me the tenderness of hibiscus and roses,
But I feel myself hugging cactuses.
I bestow all the love,
Then why is it never reciprocated?"