I remember landing at Mumbai International Airport late week night hoping to have a bunch of relatives waiting for my arrival. I had last been there on a visit as an adorable, constantly kissed and cuddled plump baby. Puberty had been so granting for me, I was much happier with myself and wanted to see how everyone reacted. This was an era when yearly photographs were exchanged and there was no social media. We still took pictures on cheap kodak cameras and waited for weeks for the film to produce actual pictures to be able to hold in our hands and admire our faces, or sigh if the picture turned out blurred or sideways. We therefore turned out to be such a patient population and probably that's why we are so impatient today. We want Fast food, faster communication and the fastest cars. Sometimes I feel being an Empath gives me the ability to also slow down and listen quietly to what others want. It has certainly made me a better person and helped me alot with my anger management.
It was 11:30 pm when I exited the arrival gates into the hot humid air of the metropolitan city to greet my only cousin there to pick us up. I found it rather disappointing, but despite not knowing, even back then, I could sense he was going out of the way with hospitality to cover up for the absence of other family members. If only I had paid enough attention to my gift of being able to read minds almost accurately, I might have not been that bright and attractive older girl cousin from Pakistan for D. Dear old D, the eight grader who was always willing to hang out with me, but seldom spoke too much. I sensed he enjoyed my company when me and mum visited but he didn't say much, he'd mostly smile, tease a little here or there, but that's it. I had constantly treated him like a little boy as I had recently graduated high school and came for a trip in the summer, so I was always presumably the older caretaker in the group. There was a park near the place they lived, we all would go for a stroll, we would talk and laugh and on the way back I would tell the 'kids' to head upstairs, while I would quickly run to the closest internet cafe. Those early 2000s didn't bestow the luxury of smart phones and 4g internet. We had to go to these internet cafes where we would pay Rs. 100 or accordingly charges to make use of the internet. I always collected money secretly, the miser I was, always had enough to get 15 minutes in the cafe. Weird looking boys and men would dart their eyes and stare, as a Pakistani I was starkly different and easy to make out as the odd one out of the Indian girl clan. Again, I could practically hear their voices in my head, ''Who is she? Where is she from? She's isn't from around here certainly!'' but I would only close my eyes and my mind and rush to the keyboard, typing in the hotmail address back then and composing a quick email to A1, hubster, informing him that:
I was well, but I missed him terribly, especially when it would drizzle and rain the monsoon season of Mumbai, and I could hear the platter of the raindrops on the window sill I slept close to at my grandparents'. I so wished I could open my eyes in his arms, and as the wind picked up speed right after a thunderstorm and showers dampened my clothes, I wished I could have his powerful hands around to embrace my shivering body and his neck to bury my face into and to sniff the scent I called home…..
I would send the email and run back to D's place for dinner and the days ended without any interrogation. My mom was enjoying her time with my grandparents and I felt she wanted to forget the whole M-caught-red handed-with-A2 in the staircase episode. She wanted to trust her daughter and love and hug her. I have to give her credit. It is some part of her empathy which is why I feel I have been able to hear others' thoughts and become an Empath myself and little did she know years later the same A1 would become her son-in-law, my hubster!
Life has weird ways of connecting relations at crossroads. Those were days when I was physically close to D, craving A1 my hubster and marriage and two children later, I slept every night next to the same hubster I cried and craved for, all the while being physically away from D and now missing his friendship. It was all connected. It always has been.As humans we are always overlooking the gifts we have, in a certain moment, time or day. We, or rather I, always wanted more, felt deserved more, felt wronged.
Even though I had been an unwanted/ unanticipated baby, I was adored. Even though I had parents too old to understand me, they did offer me a shoulder and the best of everything they possibly could. Even when they were old, I did manage to convince them to consider A1's proposal after two years.
I had turned eighteen, two years after my trip to India. I finally decided to take back control of the decisions of my life. If I was not going to be allowed university or higher studies, then I would not settle to marry anyone. If marriage was what my folks wanted, marriage I'd settle for, but with the boy I chose. The boy who had become a young man by then studying to become an engineer. He was taking his life seriously for both our sakes, so he would have something to offer to my father in exchange for my hand. So as 11pm struck on my eighteenth birthday, I took a deep breath and weighed my options sitting on my bed, in my room. Hubster had sneaked outside the elementary school I was interning at and waited until I got off. It was my birthday and I knew he would come up with some plan to meet me. Sure enough as I departed from the building, he was standing right across the street. As our eyes met, our ever so solid but quiet communication was turned on. He turned his face to the far end of the street. I followed his gaze to see his silver car parked away from the building. I sleekly turned my direction and began walking towards it. To any outsider, we looked like two strangers randomly walking in the same direction on opposite ends of the street with no concern for each other. He reached the car first, sat in and turned on the ignition. I silently opened the door behind the driver's seat and sat at the back. This was his foolproof way of getting back into the same community where I had many whisperers to give us away. We never dated like teenagers or young lovers do today, bold and brash, outside in restaurants or movies. Our safest option was his bedroom,at his place, where his ever-so-supportive family would always cover for us, in case anything messed up. The only challenge was to smuggle me into the neighbourhood we shared all the way to his apartment. We had tried this tact once before and it had worked smoothly. I'd lie down on the backseat and he would cover me with random white sheets to pretend he was carrying home his final engineering project home from college, so that it could look big, but not stir any questions in the minds of anyone wiser. Atlast he parked the car right in front of his staircase. I kicked open the door and quickly ran in. Mission accomplished!
His room was on the first right and I quickly entered it. One of the most abashed things I felt was entering and leaving from his place like a thief. It felt so undignified, yet necessary. He didn't involve his family to have his back until absolutely needed. We had become independent at an early age. We felt responsible to clear our own mess if we made any (one of the reasons i could never take his infidelity issues to his family initially.) He quickly followed in from behind and closed the door. In moments like these we never talked, we only hugged, our bodies communicated and our lips met. He only let me off when I pounded my fist lightly on his chest because I was becoming breathless. I could not afford any sort of interrogation at home, so the only material gifts I got from him on my birthday were chocolates, my favourite cadbury ones, that could fit into my purse and a rose. Anything fancier would have drawn attention and invited a host of questions from my already suspicious folks. This was so because in all the time after returning from India too, I had never given up on this relationship, nor had he. We were inseparable and adamant, exchanging letters through anyone willing to risk delivering and everyone who wanted to help us out. We met whenever we could possibly run into each other in the empty staircases, or in the back alley, even if only for minutes. We sneaked glances at each other from balconies and had learnt to understand each other's expressions. This did give us a great deal of advantage in married life, coupled with the fact that I almost always knew what was on his mind.
The only disadvantage were the snooping neighbours who every now and then dropped clues to my family to keep an eye on me. They say love and hate can't be kept hidden for too long and such was in our case too. As I bade him farewell and left his apartment to run back to mine, my sister spotted me from the balcony. She was out there to hang some clothes and she knew I was expected back from work, but from the opposite direction, not from where A1's apartment was located. She didn't need to guess where I was. Sure enough, when I walked into my home, she was all glares. My mom was already informed and she was teary eyed, unable to comprehend why her eighteen year old would continue to act so childishly despite repeated warnings and ultimatum. The hours passed until my father returned home. After dinner he sat reading the newspaper in his room when I knocked and went in. I straight up placed my request. I told him I wished he would listen to A1 once, just give him a chance. I had had suitors early, with formal proposals sent to my parents. It is very common in South Asian society to marry off their daughters young. But it was quite unheard of for them to have a voice of their own in deciding their life partners, and that too at the tender age of 18. He put down the paper and just blankly stared at me. He hadn;t expected i'd be so upfront and open about it and speak my mind. Outside I knew my mom had held her breath not knowing what to expect. Before Dad could respond, my oldest brother barged in and slapped me hard across my face. I was stunned. I became speechless and he started shouting, cursing A1 and all the damnation and shame I brought to the family. My sister and my mother tried to hold him back. Years later, whenever I revisited that horrid memory, it was never the slap that had hurt, what hurt most was that none of my parents had stood up for me. I was their child, their baby, their responsibility, NOT my brothers to dictate and hit. In the west, this could have been filed for domestic or child abuse, in the east, it was considered tradition or culture. But the slap did what nothing else had done for me, it shook me to the core, it opened my eyes to reality.
I walked back to my room while all the adults kept on with their loud argument. I sat in the dark and wept quietly. Sara Crewe from A Little Princess would have been so proud of me. Even in the darkest hour, I pretended that I had A's arms around to comfort me. Just as I hugged my own shaking body, my eyes flew open. I weighed the pros and cons of sitting there, defeated, ashamed, cursed and invigilated for the rest of my life against standing up, opening the apartment door and running over to A1's. I decided to go for the latter. I have no idea where I got the adrenaline from, but just as the argument voices died down and everyone returned to their rooms, I wore my slippers and slipped from the main door, shutting it with a bang behind me. I knew my family would rush after me, I had no idea what my already angry brother would do, but I knew I had to be in public if I had any hope of saving my skin, or better, near future hubster, so he or his family could protect me. I found my way into his doorway within minutes and I sat down crying telling everything to his family. Within seconds my story ended , my family was standing in their doorway demanding to see me and take me back. FINALLY! I had single handedly forced the two families to sit and meet with each other, regardless how inappropriate the circumstances might be.
Eventually my folks made promises not to harm me and took me back to my place. They had been exposed to A1's family and it could easily escalate into a police case if anyone would even hint that domestic abuse was in play and an 18 year old was locked up by her family.so I knew for that night my skin was safe, my life was spared.
In the following weeks, A1's family seeked permission and brought a formal proposal to my place and my mom put her foot down to consider it for real.
January of 2007 was like a dream come true. My parents accepted A1' proposal and agreed to give my hand in exchange for a formal engagement. We got married shortly after that. By our 1st anniversary we were holding Baby S and Baby M came a few years later. Trouble in paradise began when my insecure self saw my hubster, my A1, being wooed away by female peers at work. I felt lost and scared like a child who had lost her favourite toy. I didn't know life any other way but loving hubster. He had been my nucleus since before I turned 14. Nearly a decade and half later, I hated realising that I was no longer his centre of gravity. In that moment of dismay, D had entered into my life, or rather re entered from my childhood, it was such a beautiful way of God to remind me that everything is really connected. We never meet anyone in our life by chance, everything is planned by Him. He brought D to my life, attached and then detached me from his friendship to make me learn a very significant lesson. I will always love D, but one day when I was having a silent conversation with My creator on the prayer mat, He put a question in my head. Could D ever substitute hubster? NO, NO WAY, he NEVER could! So why was there attraction? My God answered beautifully, because there was more thrill than genuinity in our friendship. So, likewise, could any office peer ever substitute Empath for hubster? NEVER! There was only thrill and excitement of being wanted for him too. I wasn't wrong to feel the pain, I certainly hadn't imagined the conversations he must have had with the other woman, but was it all worth my sanity and peace of mind? NO! I had been a total fool to have felt any competition, there wasn't any to begin with.
It was all connected. D's entrance and exit from my life had been spectacular yet abrupt, hasty yet needed, so that I could realise, it was all always connected, like the layers of an onion, the layers of my life had been interconnected too, at the bottom. Each time I peeled, I cried my eyes out. I was glad I had an abundance of aqueous humour in my eyes, like a never ending supply. As I prostrate in front of Almighty again tonight, I thank Him, for everything He bestowed, He saved me from, and the important lessons He made me learn.
Hubster still snores indifferently next to me at nights when I wish to snuggle while D probably snuggles into his wife miles away from me. Both are men that make their wives feel safe and loved, in different mannerisms but equally commendable.
We are not what we fear of becoming, rather, we are what we choose to become.