The Unforgettable Desire

The clock struck three. She hadn’t slept all night; the pain had spread in her limbs. Starting from her right hand wrist, she could feel a physical presence of the pain within her bones that seemed to travel to her shoulders to left hand and then to her legs. She was lying, facing towards her left squeezing her left limbs as much as possible for a little relief, at the edge of her double bed. It was the same bed that had felt her body circling in her sleep, covering every inch of the mattress every night when she had began sleeping alone five years ago in a room that she called hers. If someone asked for proof, she’d point to a wall in the room where her name was angrily scribbled in blocks with a pencil as opposed to her brother’s personalized creative decorations for his room. She was swaying her body, back and forth, lying in the same position.    The speed of swaying depended on her fluctuating belief that it can make the pain go away, as if swaying her body were witchc...

Of course this kindergarten like colouring isn't anything like the charming book cover we sneaked at! When I saw a book named World’s Greatest Love Stories in my house library, I giggled mischievously. It was a hard bound book, with an elegant purple jacket on which ‘Love Stories’ was written in bright pink italics. I giggled because I thought, “Haww! Papa bought love stories.” Not only did he buy it, he placed it in a shelf where I could access it. I wanted to read it because I was not supposed to read it. When I picked up Romeo and Juliet in school library, the librarian took it away. She stared at me before smiling and saying, “Choose another book, this one’s not for you.” Disheartened, I thought, “It’s not for me because it is about love.” Somehow in the collective consciousness of my friends and me, Romeo and Juliet had settled itself as the greatest love story. You see, I did not want to read love stories because I knew what they were. Rather, I wanted to read them...

I have no idea what has become of me. When I was eight years old, I had heard the news of Sushmita Sen adopting a baby girl. I was pretty sure that when I’d be twenty-five, and definitely single, I’d adopt a baby girl too. That was perhaps the very first dream of my life, the very first goal before the idea of being an astronaut or every other fleeting career goal occurred to me. Motherhood wasn’t the goal. The goal was to be successful enough by twenty-five to be responsible for another life single-handedly; and maybe, be an inspiration to some eight-year-old girl who hears about you. Today, I am a twenty-four year-old who is one day old at resigning from a short term job that she took up to feel financially independent in a field related to the only two hardcore relationships in her life – writing and literature. As much as the fear of commitment drives me away from dating people on a long term basis, it also drove me away from jobs that included actual writing and literature ...