The Best Friend.

I saw you crying in the balcony. A newbie you were, fresh to the corporate world. The girls teased you for not knowing to dial an international number. But that was not all and that was not the first time you were talked about behind your back. I came to you and asked why you were crying? You wiped your tears and gave me that beautiful smile, tears still glistening in your eyes. I pushed the coffee mug to you and held your hand. You told me how you felt about everything that was happening. I apologized on behalf of everyone. I made sure they did not say a word about you again ever. They stopped giggling behind your back, over your mistakes. Slowly, you made friends, I smiled. You were not afraid to make mistakes anymore, you learnt from them. I supported. You enjoyed the new life and shared your secrets with me I was happy that you trusted me. You gave me your shoulders when I needed one to lean on. Being the conservative girl that you are, you never accepted to change the way you dressed or your hairstyle. You were not ready to change anything about you because you liked being you and did not bother what others thought about the way you looked. I admired your courage. I liked the fact that you love being you.

Then there came a day when your parents thought that it was time for you to get married. All you saw was a passport size photo of the guy and you were all set. I was surprised yet I was happy for you. You met him and there were things you did not like about him. Still you decided to marry me. You told me that you were seeing the better side of him. I smiled. I am not the kind of person who understands this concept of seeing the better side of a stranger. Slowly, you accepted him with his flaws. You had to, because you strongly believed that if not him no one else. You thought you were dark and short, getting old and so there will not be a man who will see you beyond your skin and age. You believed that a man cannot see that beautiful smile or the long lustrous hair beyond everything the beautiful and welcoming heart or the innocence in you.

You weren’t able to deal with your insecurities when there was a tiff between your parents and his over dowry. You were afraid of losing him. The man who did not stand by your side when he should have, which generally a man in love does! You fought with your parents to give the dowry his parents asked for. You were happy it was all settled. Well, yes you bought your man for the price his parents tagged on him. I smiled and just hoped you used your brain once. But all you did was to cry in the restrooms it was not just the walls that heard you cry but also me. It pained to see you cry. You were convincing yourself to like him. You were convincing yourself that you will be happy if you marry him. Unfortunately, life might work that way, love doesn’t. Soon you started hating him and his way of life. But you were trapped in the relationship only because your parents thought you should live with him, the cousin who was younger than you was married and was expecting a baby, because the world thought you should marry him and it was time for you to get married. You married him. I wished and prayed that you could be happy with him.  

You lived the life of a slave. You paid his parents in the name of dowry to buy him but you slogged in the kitchen. The princess of your parents was a servant maid at her husband’s. You also worked to pay his loans and his parent’s medical bill. You did the things you called cheap. You took bundles of files, sharpeners and pencils from the office stationery to impress your sister-in-law. So she will not accompany you while you go out with your husband. You lost the smile and the naughtiness in your eyes. You spent the break timings with me but most of the time telling me about your family and how you wished your husband supported you at least once. How he did not let you sleep although you were sleepy and tired of work and household.

Then there came a day when you started behaving weird. You stayed away from me. You didn’t want to take the stairs because lifts were more comfortable. You denied eating oily food or anything spicy. We skipped our walks around the pond and spent most of our times together in silence. I figured why and I waited for you tell me. After 5 months, you tell me that you are pregnant, Pregnant before your first wedding anniversary. It hurt that my best friend, a soul mate that I considered you to be did not tell me this good news the moment she heard it. I did not confront because I was happy for you. I smiled like I did when you took all those illogical (to me), highly rational (to you) decisions.

You killed our friendship when you gave me the reason on why you did not tell me about your pregnancy on the day you heard it. It was because your parents thought I might jinx it. It was because I am not married while you are. I don’t get a proper alliance while you did. I might feel sad and jinx you. What hurt more was that you too believed that I would have. That was probably the last day I was emotionally involved with you. But then I wish you had understood that I consider myself blessed for the way I live my life. I get to make the decisions that you wouldn’t dare to think of. I live my choices and my dream. I stand by what I believe in and give a shit to what the world thinks about me. I wouldn’t think before slapping the man who cannot stand by my side and support me or call me to bed before knowing me and my dreams. I am a woman who is violently chasing her dreams and I don’t see a reason to jinx the life that was forced upon you. I can live the life that you live on any given day but girl! You can never live the life I live.