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Striving for perfection in life, in relationships can feel false and becomes stifling. Imperfections make us human.
It was a beautiful day, she sat in the porch of their farmhouse with her laptop. Oh! Everyone says that her life was a dream. A fairy tale woven in velvet.
It has been three years since she married Nikhil – the man everyone loved. The perfect man, who always did everything right.
They looked so good together. She always wore those traditional Sabyasachi sarees. The photographs carefully pasted on Facebook and Instagram. They had had this beautiful pre-wedding photoshoot, where Nikhil was kissing her forehead. That was a perfect shot, taken by Sanjeev Shetty, Delhi’s perfect wedding photographer.
Nikhil always left for work at 9 am. Always. He kissed her forehead just like in that picture, each day before he went to work. It was as if the photograph was replayed, perfectly, everyday.
Now, she sat at the perfect spot of the house, with the perfect gadget to write her perfect story. She had a deadline to deliver her perfect story, to her loyal readers.
She could not write.
The maid got her a bowl of fruits in a beautiful ceramic pot. She perfectly placed it on the side table.
It made her nauseous. All this perfection.
She stood up, went to her room, opened an old suitcase. It had her name written on it carefully. It was the bag she carried had from home, when she first came to Delhi. She opened it, found an old pair of jeans and a tee shirt – those that she picked from Sarojni Market with no labels.
She stripped off all she was wearing, wore the torn pair of clothes, sat down on the floor and wrote like a mad woman in love.
Imperfections felt okay.
She breathed easy for the first time.
Image source: pixabay
Proud Indian. Senior Writer at Women's Web. Columnist. Book Reviewer. Street Theatre - Aatish. Dreamer. Workaholic. read more...
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I huffed, puffed and panted up the hill, taking many rest breaks along the way. My calf muscles pained, my heart protested, and my breathing became heavy at one stage.
“Let’s turn back,” my husband remarked. We stood at the foot of Shravanbelagola – one of the most revered Jain pilgrimage centres. “We will not climb the hill,” he continued.
My husband and I were vacationing in Karnataka. It was the month of May, and even at the early hour of 8 am in the morning, the sun scorched our backs. After visiting Bangalore and Mysore, we had made a planned stop at this holy site in the Southern part of the state en route to Hosur. Even while planning our vacation, my husband was very excited at the prospect of visiting this place and the 18 m high statue of Lord Gometeshwara, considered one of the world’s tallest free-standing monolithic statues.
What we hadn’t bargained for was there would be 1001 granite steps that needed to be climbed to have a close-up view of this colossal magic three thousand feet above sea level on a hilltop. It would be an understatement to term it as an arduous climb.
Every daughter, no matter how old, yearns to come home to her parents' place - ‘Home’ to us is where we were brought up with great care till marriage served us an eviction notice.
Every year Dugga comes home with her children and stays with her parents for ten days. These ten days are filled with fun and festivity. On the tenth day, everyone gathers to feed her sweets and bids her a teary-eyed adieu. ‘Dugga’ is no one but our Goddess Durga whose annual trip to Earth is scheduled in Autumn. She might be a Goddess to all. But to us, she is the next-door girl who returns home to stay with her parents.
When I was a child, I would cry on the day of Dashami (immersion) and ask Ma, “Why can’t she come again?” My mother would always smile back.
I mouthed the same dialogue as a 23-year-old, who was home for Durga Puja. This time, my mother graced me with a reply. “Durga is fortunate to come home at least once. But many have never been home after marriage.”
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