Nowadays I have become nocturnal. Kudos to my knee condition and physiotherapist’s unique advice for doing knee exercise for 15-30 minutes at the interval of every four hours that make me waking up whole night. I find easy to do such medically prescribed exercise in night. In night there is less distraction, I count religiously all sets of exercise and feel satisfaction over the progress of my knee movement and muscle around it. My treatment is in last leg and I am sanguine that very soon I shall start running, jumping, dancing and doing all sort of fun which involve healthy knee.
I do not sleep whole night; this has become a well known fact among my friends. These days, generally I receive phone calls at midnight as according to them midnight is my morning and day is like night for me!
Today morning around 7 o’clock when I was going to sleep, I received a call from one of my best friends. He was apologetic to call me at odd hour.
‘No issue dear’ I laughed, what happened, anything serious?
For sometime there was no response from his side, it appeared he was sobbing. I got upset, repeatedly asked him “what happened”
“we broke up, she left me” saying so he started crying like a kid.
I was completely at a loss, not knowing how to react. My friend was in relationship with that girl since 2007 and they were a great pair. I had a very good time with them when last time I had visited Delhi. Last week I came to know from our common friend vijay that he had some trouble in relationship but it would end up in such a mess I was not anticipating.
I tried to comfort him. “Ok dear, take it easy, sometimes such things happen in our life, don’t worry, tell me what happened, why you broke up” I wanted to know the reason.
“You know, I am a cursed soul, a completely cursed soul”-
“No you are not”- I replied “ya dear, I am a cursed soul so is she. We are doomed to depart. Nothing worked out here. We are destined to depart”.
He kept on telling such sorrowful sentences for some times. I did not broach this subject and he hung up after five minutes.
After that I called our common friend Vijay I and asked about the ‘break up ‘episode.
Vijay laughed when I mentioned the word ‘cursed soul’ and his explanation about break up.
Vijay explained: “see when he entered into relationship, he was telling the girl that he was more cursed than girl and girl was telling, ‘no, no, I am more cursed than you’. Then sometime later, both come to the conclusion that both are equally cursed, but recently girl started saying that he was more cursed than her and he was telling that she was more cursed than him, hence, break up, ha ha ha”
I could not resist laughing on this funny explanation. Vijay has knack of finding such funny and nonsense reason for every such issue .
Anyway, this ‘coursed soul’ word still roaming in my mind. I remember last time when I was in Delhi I stayed with Vijay in his flat for fifteen days. It was 2 BHK flat and there were four flats on that floor. Vijay , being quite introvert rarely talked with neighbors. When I asked about his neighbors, he was completely clueless. He knew only one neighbor, old retired bureaucrat who was living with his wife in the adjacent flat from last seven years. Others two flats occupied by the renters so he did not feel necessary to know about them. When I insisted the importance of knowing your neighbors, he laughed at me saying “dear this is Delhi not your Dhobai (my village)”.
“But you must know about your neighbors”- I retorted “ok, if you feel so strongly about it, why you don’t you go and enquire about them and inform me. Overall you are my best buddy like my brother”- he challenged me. “Sure, I will do it for you “I replied smilingly.
Next day, I came to know that out of two flat, in one flat a Maharastrian family was residing the head of the family Jatin was working in Reserve Bank of India and in another flat one girl aged around 23-24 yrs was living. I saw her locking the door of flat in the morning. I met Jatin in the morning when he was walking on the floor, he had pleasant personality and I really enjoyed talking with him. In evening when I was coming from the market I saw the girl who was living in front of my friend’s flat. I greeted her and told her that she was my friend’s neighbor. She reciprocated my greeting and we started talking. From chat, I came to know that she was from Jharkhand, working in a MNC, living with a friend from Punjab who was a model and they were in live-in-relationship. I found her bubbly, out spoken, confident and mature. She appeared gun-ho about her live-in-relationship and newly acquired freedom in Delhi. I was smitten by her lively spirit. From that day onwards, we started spending evening together at the balcony of the flat. We talked a lot, about movies, actors, politicians, poor infrastructure of Bihar and Jharkhand, rigid patriarchal society, blah, blah. But whenever I wanted to know about her parents or sibling she would change the topic or one or other pretext leave the discussion and go inside her flat. I realized, she did not feel comfortable asking about family or personal question, so I refrained myself from doing so.
On Saturday evening she invited me to her flat for coffee. I politely refused because I did not want to go to her flat without my friend vijay. Perhaps she understood my hesitation and invited both of us on Sunday morning at 10’clock at breakfast. When I conveyed vijay in the night about her invitation for breakfast, his response was lukewarm. In his opinion, keeping any relation with her would prove headache for him in future, so he decided not to go to her flat for breakfast. But he insisted I must go there. In fact she was our matter of talk, he too was very curious to know about her completely without being involved with her.
On Sunday morning at exact 10clock, I switched the bell of her flat. I did not get any response for some time. Hesitantly again I pressed the switch. This time I heard the sound of walking, thanks god she is awake, otherwise I was thinking of returning. She opened the door, and I entered inside. The inside view was quite queer. Everything was sixes and sevens,. Broken glass and broken wine bottles were lying on the floor, there was puke on one corner, cigarette packs and wrappers of namkins were spread over the sofa and whole flat was dirty. I saw her, her face was swollen and there were bruises on her face and hands. Her partner was half naked sleeping in the room. She was very much embarrassed. I did not know how to react in this situation. I just asked her about the bathroom and entered into it. In bathroom, I saw the undergarments of her and her boyfriend was lying on the marble and in one corner two used condoms filled with semen were kept. I felt like vomiting. Immediately I came out of bathroom.
“How you stay here and what kind of life are you leading?” it was disgusting. Perhaps last night she had fought with her partner. Her swollen face, torn lips, bruises all over her body was giving evidence to it. She was in tears. Whiningly she said to me “ I AM CURSED TO LIVE IN HERE”. There was pain in her eyes, excruciating pain; I felt her deeply wounded soul. I excused myself from there and came back to Vijay’s flat.
I did not know what was her problem, what was her term and condition with her partner but it was sure that she was unhappy deep inside and there was no peace in her life.
I discussed her case and her sentence “cursed to live in here” with Vijay. He took it lightly. he said : “do not worry dear, she might not have reached organsm last night ,so she felt like living there in curse, next day she will be satisfied with her partner everything will be ok, he he he”
His remark was quite funny, He always finds out funny facts about “cursed life”. Why I cannot accept or digest such thing in lighter vein like vijay.
When an individual says or feels that he/she is a cursed soul or living in cursed situation that is the extreme state of grief, zenith of depression. I do not know how these people will deal with it. But whenever I feel low, I remember Pollyanna and play ‘glad game’ and feel light, fresh and full of positive energy.
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Ramanuj Dubey
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