Pain-killer For A Killer Pain

“No water around? I am thirsty”. I asked no one in particular, but she replied, “There is a deep-sea”. “Where?” I asked. Staring at the clouds in the stretched blue sky, she replied obliviously, “I am carrying it within me everywhere I am wandering”. I rubbernecked at my cousin’s face and found pain spreading its wings there. On being her philosophical, I was as sure as eggs is eggs that something went wrong with her. “Do you want to share something?” I asked sympathetically. She chose to be quiet. I thought to render her some time to get prepared. “Okay, I am going to buy a bottle of water, should I bring something for you?” She denied and kept lying on her back on the velvety grass. I stood and moved towards the kiosk near the packed parking area of the park. 
She is my cousin, working in a corporate office, where everyone has to face cut-throat competition. Every weekend, when we meet to spend some leisure hours together, she always looks bubbly, high-spirited, and zestful. This Sunday of February, I decided to catch up with her in the park to bask in the sunshine. God knows how much pain she is hiding in her heart today. With water, I also bought some chocolates for her. I recalled a scrap of information that it contains flavonoids which help in making us happy and satisfied. The delectable chocolates melted her heart and she opened it to me. Sam was her friend for the whole year since she joined the office. They were working, eating, laughing together. Every morning she had an enthusiasm to dress up and make up the way to look beautiful for him. Her thoughts before sleeping revolved around him. She used to rewind their talks of the day and became extremely happy for the next day’s meeting. He had a very good sense of humour plus good looks and well-built physic. Everything was perfect until the day his concentration was continuously on someone else. Her eyes persuaded him and his were stuck to a new colleague. The next day she desperately wanted him to like her and unknowingly she moved around him and talked to him in a seducing way. But when she left for home, realised that she was totally failed. She was ashamed of herself. Her body language told her love for him to everyone in the office. The body language needs no language. “There is no pain-killer in the whole world, for this killer-pain. Now I want to quit this job”. I felt my heart drowning, but I asked, “Is that girl beautiful?” ” Yes” She replied with a gloomy face. I showed my best acting and sighed, as if I am relieved to know this. I touched her shoulders and said, “There are ninety percent chances that he is charmed by her external beauty only. This would be infatuation. Give it some time and it will be disappeared”. She was still in dilemma, ” What about the other ten percent? Should I wait and watch all these tormenting scenes every day?” “Umm.. can u get a handsome guy in your office to make him jealous?” My question was the answer of her question. She delved deep into her thoughts n slowly her eyes were a little bit brightening, “Ronit”. We see off each other with smiles, hers thankful and mine sympathetical. She was suffering from the most painful situation of a woman’s life. Her heart was heavy with pain, which she wanted to snatch from her body and throw it like a disc as far as she cannot see it. It would not be let her forget him for a single moment. It also does the crime of producing non-stop tears from her eyes. She had to run to the washroom to hide these uninvited guests from her eyes every now and then. After two days, I talked to her during lunch break but her tired voice suggested that she hadn’t slept the previous night. She confirmed it and said, “There is a strange relationship between us. On my happy days, it comes and hugs me in the night. But whenever I am downhearted it does come but sits at a distance and see me tossing n turning, in bed. Perhaps it gives me more time to find out the reasons and solutions to my problems or wants me to chew over the matter.” I suspected, if anyone would have overheard her in the office, will assume her being insane. I pleaded with her to call me back when she will be at home in the evening and hung up quickly. It was clear that the plan didn’t work. Apparently Sam was not jealous at all. In general, love is the most common cause of jealousy in men and women. A man can’t see her beloved to pay more attention to someone else. He can show his displeasure through violence, rudeness, or in rare cases through a plea. If he was indifferent to her approaches to someone else, then he was surely not in love with her. In the evening she called me and apart from this depressing truth, she revealed an annoying fact that Ronit was interested in her. It was like she went to solve one problem and got stuck in another. With some hasitancy I asked if there was some soft corner for him in her heart. She discarded this notion, ” I like him but he will never be more than a friend for me. I am feeling totally entangled in the situation now.” I invited her to watch a movie in the newly constructed shopping mall with sixteen-screens multiplex near my apartment on Sunday. She was not willing to come but I insisted and she accepted half-heartedly.  I bought two tickets for a comedy movie so that the strokes of laughter can work like a pick that will produce some melody when rubbing with the strings of a guitar. At this time her brain was also full of six tense strings like a guitar. She came in traditional Indian “salwar kameez”. I know why we remember this dress only when we are sad. I said, ” Thank God you didn’t take “chunni”, otherwise you would have looked like ” lady Devdas”. She replied, ” In this condition, I should remain in “Kop Bhawan” instead of a movie theatre.” ” Okay madam Kakeyi Ji, let’s go inside otherwise we’ll miss the first scene.” I knew she had always been fascinated with the first scene of the movie or the first line of a book. In her opinion, the initiative was the most difficult step of any activity. The comic scenes made everyone laughing except her. In the interval, I ordered Cappuccino, her favourite, and some cheese sandwiches. She looked at the families and remarked, ” Why people are so much overjoyed. God knows they are really happy or just pretending to each other. It seems I am the only sad person in the whole world. There is no problem in anyone’s life except me. Laughter, smile joy hate my face only.” I diverted her, ” Leave them and tell me how will you deny Ronit. Choose the way, which hurt him less.” “Oh! I was to tell you that we went to a cafe near the office yesterday. For Ronit, it was a date initially, and for me the culmination. I told him every bit of truth that made him sad obviously. Let’s see the upshot tomorrow. Either he will keep a distance from me or he will be converted into an opponent working together but pinching like an enemy.” She further said, ” From this incident I learned a lesson, that how do you feel when someone loves you and you have not the same feeling. Now I am in the shoes of Sam. So now on I have no complaints. I think I got my pain- killer.”
The next day I was desperately waiting to talk to her. In the evening, she sounded calm over the phone, which made me relieved. I was glad to hear that Ronit was not angry with her. Perhaps men are stronger than women in hearts’ matters. Unlike women, they strongly believe that they will meet someone else. Women usually lack this positiveness and close all the entrances after the heartbreak. She leaned to manoeuvre her relationships with her colleagues very well. I shared my problems along with my other friends’ problems with her. Sometimes when we realise that others’ problems are bigger than ours’, then only we feel obliged to God. I had this feeling while watching the movie based on the life of Sarabjit Singh, who underwent imprisonment of twenty-two years in Pakistan. The sight of the filthy atmosphere and torture tormented me for a long time. The same happened to me when I read the novel My Feudal Lord. Our next weekend meeting was in a theme-based restaurant. The setting was a glimpse of the rural culture of the Purvanchal region of India, the decorated well, the chakki, the doors made of bamboo sticks, the walls pained with mud, overall a different aura. She was beaming in a floral maxi dress. “Bati-Chokha” and amazing “Chutney” was being served on the plates made of the banyan leaves. My vivacious cousin was back in her form. I wholeheartedly prayed for her happiness. I believed sooner or later, she will meet her Mr. Right, and there will be mutual love, not one-sided. She was savouring the food and said, ” He is going to Canada.” I gaped at her. She read my face and assured me, ” It will be easier for me to forget him when he will be not in front of me.” I was surprised, how sincere she had become in just a few weeks. “Listen,” she said again, ” I want a baby through IVF. Now don’t judge me, please. I am not insane. I just don’t want to spend my whole life alone.” I knew she was still not ready to replace him with any other man. She turned over a new leaf and took bold step. In urban areas, some couples are happy in live-in relationships and they don’t want children. On the other hand, some find themselves not capable of handling spouses and heading towards a single parent. Consequently, the population is balanced.

Suman Yadav