Realization

Courtesy: Google images

“Would you care to explain your reaction back at the restaurant when you saw that girl?”

“Mom, would you please give it a rest. It had nothing to do with her. I don’t recall making any reactions that you so badly want me to explain”.

“Don’t lie to me Nicolaus, we were in a middle of a very serious conversation and all of a sudden you spilled yourself with wine when that waitress arrived with our food.  And I observed a very cold reaction on the girl’s face when she looked at you. Don’t tell me you are befriending all the downtowners in this city...”

“Mom please, she just looked like someone I knew back in my college days. That’s all...”

“Okay honey. I’m just concerned about your future. You know how much the Andersons family has helped your father in his business. You barely listened to what I said after you saw that girl. Anderson’s daughter Jenna has taken quite a liking for you. I have called her to our residence tomorrow. Would you please stay back and engage her. She’s a doll Nicolaus and I’m sure you will tell me the same after you see her tomorrow.”

“I really don’t have time to play house guest Mom. Why don’t you two ladies talk? Don’t involve me in this. I’m not ready to see anyone right now.”

“What do you mean you are not ready? You are 28 and the most eligible bachelor in our social circle. Of course you are ready to settle down Nicolaus. What’s gotten into you lately? I hope you are not on some dingy drugs...”

“Think what you like mom but don’t expect me to stay back tomorrow.”

 Saying so, Nicolaus stormed out of the house, got into his car and drove all the way to the restaurant they had just come from.

Parking his car right beside the brightly lit “Four seasons Restaurant”, he watched her as she carried out food trays in and out of the kitchen.

Where were you all these days Caroline?

His mind wandered back to a memory that took place 6 years ago.

One late night, Caroline had called him saying there was something she needed to talk to him about. They were both studying at the same university and they were dating from four months.

“Hi baby, what’s so important that you called me to meet you at this hour?”

With her head bent down she said slowly, “Nick, I’m pregnant...”

The news had shocked him but he didn’t show it. He needed to handle this very carefully. There was no way he was ready to father a child at this point in his life. His father was the CEO of a top Marketing Company and a lot of responsibilities were waiting for him back at home.

He hugged her and whispered, “Its ok Caroline, everything will be fine. I promise you...”

She looked at him in surprise and said, “Really? This is fine with you?”

“Yes of course, there is no need to panic. Tomorrow let’s go to Doctor Martha and she will take care of everything. She is a close acquaintance with my family and we can let her do her thing and in two weeks everything will be back to normal. You can attend your classes and we can go back to dating...”

As he saw her hopeful eyes change from shock to anger, he knew he had just said all the wrong things.

“I’m keeping the baby Nick. I don’t need your help. I made up my mind last week itself. Yes, I knew this news from one week. I found courage to let you know today. I hoped you would react to it differently and I almost believed you will help me raise the baby when you said “everything will be fine”. If killing the baby is fine, then I don’t want fine. You get it?”

Anger still burning in her eyes, she backed away from him and said her final words, “Good-bye Nicolaus”.

He had been a coward to call her back and hold her hand and give her his support. Deep in his heart, he wanted to be there for her but the thought of letting his father and mother down made him stop in his track and just turn away.

He had always wondered where she was and whether his child was a boy or a girl. But he had put these issues behind him as he slowly rose above the business ladder.

But when he saw her tonight, that was the first time in six years he was brought back to the ground.

How selfish I've been all these years. Because of me, she left her education to raise a child. We both are responsible and I selfishly backed out. That look she gave me a couple of hours back. I know she will never forgive me. But how selfless of her to not bring the issue up in front of my mother.

Then he saw her coming out of the restaurant with her coat and scarf on. As she waited by the curb for the bus, he gathered his courage and approached her.

“How have you been Caroline?”

“Nick!! You startled me... what are you doing here?”  Her eyes were reacting with his, furiously searching for answers.

“I didn't know you worked here... I thought you moved back to Jersey to your parent’s home after you told me the news...”

“Well, my parents weren’t exactly supportive with my decisions either. Like you, they were ashamed of me. So after a month there, I moved back to NYC... But why do you care Nicolaus, you must be happily married by now as per your parent’s choice”, she scoffed at him.

“Caroline, I’m really sorry. No, I have no right to apologize. I know you will never forgive me...” After a moment’s hesitation he finally said the words he had wanted to say all night, “I never should have left you Caroline. I should have supported you and our child. I’ve been a terrible boyfriend and now a terrible father too... please can I see our child? I don’t even know whether it’s a boy or a girl. I have no right to ask you this... but...”

Caroline held up her hand and cut him off, “Save the apologies Nick. I don’t need it. I’ve moved on and even though I work part time at a restaurant, I’ve saved enough money to finish my education. Emma and I are doing absolutely fine. I’ve told her daddy is not here with us as he is away on a trip. She is too young to understand. When she grows up she’ll know...”

“She doesn’t have to know Caroline. I want to see her and be with her. I want you both in my life. I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I’m not going to make another one again. I love you Caroline and I always have...”

“You can see her Nick, I will not deprive you of that. But please don’t enter my life again. Life is tough but I’ve learnt a lot along the way. I’m content with how I am. We don’t need you Nick. I didn’t need you back then and I don’t need you now”.

“I know Caroline, that you are rightfully angry at me, but I’m rightfully sorry too and I want to make things right again. I don’t care what my parents think anymore. It’s you and Emma that I want in my life...”

“Let’s not talk about that now. Come I’ll take you to my home. You meet her once and you please leave and don’t ever enter our lives again”.

“Why Caroline... Why are you being so aggressive? I really do want to be a part of your life. I want to raise my child with you. I deserted you because of fearing my parents. I was a coward until now. I’ve come to realise, no amount of power and money gives happiness in life. All these days, I lead a robotic life. I was empty inside. My decisions have made my parents happy but I certainly am not. When I saw you tonight, the past memories that I tried so hard to hide came back to me and I feared they will torture me from inside. But no, I found new hope Caroline. Seeing you tonight after all these years, has given me new hope...”

Google images

“Save your words Nicolaus, because after you see Emma, I’m sure you will back out again...”

 She shook her head slowly and said,” Our daughter is crippled Nicolaus, from waist down. She was born that way. That’s the reason, I never really called you. You left me when you heard I was having your baby. Would you have really come back if you knew your daughter was crippled?”

 She wiped away her tears and spoke, “It’s ok Nick. I love her so much that she doesn’t need a father figure. You don’t have to disgrace your family with a crippled heir you know...”

Unconfined tears rolled down Nicolaus's eyes.“Caroline, please... I’m not a monster to turn my back even after hearing all these”.

Nicolaus took Caroline’s hand and lead her to his car. “Please take me to my daughter and not one more word above that.”

As he looked into her now surprised yet happy eyes, he knew she had found her answer at last.

Shared with: Theme Thursday

P.S:  Sometimes when I least expect it, I end up writing a short story in one sitting. Two months ago I had some characters in my mind. I had visualised a restaurant and a couple seated at a table. I had planned to let the female character tell the male character that she was pregnant, but before she can do that the male character would tell that he had fallen in love with someone else and that he was leaving her. That’s all I could come up with 2 months ago and I really didn’t know how to weave a starting and ending to such a plot. I had almost given up on this story. Today, I happen to stop by at the Theme Thursday blog and the theme was “reaction”. I’m still bewildered, how the word reaction caused me to write up this story. I guess I reacted to it at last!!

Midnight Ramblings

I’m gonna treat this post as my scribbling pad (BEWARE, unruly ramblings ahead!!).  I just need to spit out some issues out of my mind. Firstly I’m extremely pissed off at my project guide/lecturer who is purposefully making me give a seminar on the same topic (for 20 mins!!) AGAIN... She has my 50 marks so all I can do is just suck it up and prepare for the damn seminar again. Oh, did I forget to mention, she has even criticized that my seminar report has very less number of pages (last time I checked,  22 pages of seminar report is the minimum number of pages a student is supposed to make and my report is a total 24 pages!!). These lecturers I tell you. When you are in your early semesters, they play with your internal marks and sometimes refuse to give you minimum marks just because they caught you dozing in their class or copying in some trivial unit test they conducted in class. And if such a lecturer becomes your practical lab guide, you are sure to become her personal lab rat for the rest of the semester. If you are unable to get the required output in every lab you can bet your bum, that lecturer will have an evil glee in her eyes as she happily marks a big, round zero on your weekly lab assessment.

 But coming to the final semester, you’d think all these childish acts between a student and a lecturer has finally come to a rest. WRONG!!!  The 200 marks project is their final boon to destroy your remaining amount of self-respect and conviction. During the last 5 months of your engineering lives, these devilish lecturers enter your lives and they make sure every day of those 5 months is a living hell. As long as you suffer under their rule, they are happy. Voice your opinion even a little loudly; consider yourself black-listed in their evil minds for the sole purpose of sabotage and torture for the rest of the semester. That’s where I am right now. In this case I didn’t exactly voice my opinion but my project partner did in one of the recent seminar sessions. And as a result, our clearly pissed off guide has started her reign of sabotage and torture on our lives. Two months of this semester is already behind me. Still three more months to go and I’m literally counting the days. Sigh!!

P.S: I apologize for bringing such a hateful topic on my blog space. But this thing was really bugging me and left me all restless, not giving my creative writing side a chance to come up with anything positive. Maybe now that I’ve spit it out of my mind in the form of words, I can actually get back to being my cheerful self again.

P.P.S: um, still a little distraught. Maybe sleep should help. Oh, crap... Just remembered my assignment is due tomorrow (another hateful lecturer is trying to ruin my life!! ).. Oh well, I’d better stop rambling here and start writing (the said hateful lecturer has posed a ridiculous rule which states “no assignment tomorrow== no internal test next week” =|).

Dear Spring

Eyes caught dawn's bright light

Waking from cold winter's night

It was spring again

Dancing in garden

Chirping birds are back with zest

Lovely spring is back

Optimistic day

Ensuring my confidence 

Dear spring, welcome back

shared with: Haiku Heights-Prompt #108

The Happily Ever After CRAP!!

Marriage... A dark phenomenon that I fear would eventually happen in my life ever since I turned 18. Back in the safe years of my early teenage life, during an occasion as such as my cousin’s  wedding, I remember all the aunties pulling my leg by saying, “In a couple of years it’ll be your turn to get married beta”.. And I would be mortified as if those aunties have declared a date for my death sentence. Yet I would be cheeky enough to retort “Please aunty, I’m still 16 and I’ve got a good 10 years before me to LIVE. Let us not remind one another of the suffocations of marriage”. Saying so, I would pat the auntie’s hand sympathetically, purposefully making her feel like she is suffering through her nose ever since she got married. This was a cool technique to escape the “marriage” questions from over whelming aunties during my post-teen years.

But now, things are starting to change and I’m not at all happy about it. In a couple of weeks I’ll be 23 and according to the big Indian ritualistic society, this is the “right/ripe” time and age for a girl to get married and sail the sinking ship of family, in-laws, kids, and other burdensome responsibilities.

Last year, in one of our lively family discussions at home, the marriage topic started to crop up (yet again). Let me tell you, before I reached 20, the marriage topic would rise up in my surroundings every once or twice a year max and that too by my dad just to see me go all resentful. It was a simple matter of dad having a good laugh by making me angry.

But now, even dad talks about the topic quite seriously and I have a strong suspicion on my mom who has a tendency to speak her words through my dad whenever she wants some info to sink into my mind. I barely listen to my mom’s constant chattering and hence my dad’s words has become her weapon to disrupt my lazy, headache-free life.

“This is the right time to get married, it’ll be difficult to find better (young!) Boys once you start crossing 25”, one of the most common dialogues spoken by my mom whenever the marriage topic arises. And I obviously would scoff at her, “Oh please mom, you got married when you were 26 or something, stop preaching something that even you have not done. It’s not like the moment I turn 25 I would become a grandma!!”

And she would sigh and explain slowly as if she is teaching basic math to a very slow person, “But our generation was very different form yours. Back then, especially in Brahmin community girls got married late and men usually married when they crossed 30 years of age. But now, even, boys are standing on their toes to get married at an age of 24 to 25. If you cross 25, you will have to look at men who are nearing 30 or above because, younger men would definitely be looking at girls who are 21 to 23 years of age”. (Even typing this is making my head hurt!!)

This would leave me shouting at the top of my voice, “it’s not my fault if all the men have suddenly turned womanish and sissy and wants to get married so soon” and that would make my mom shake her head and irritably sigh and say stuff like “I don’t know when you’ll start to think maturely” or “I hope god puts some sense in your head soon”.

According to me, marriage is like a drug with a lot of side-effects. At first it’ll be filled with all the goody-goody feelings which would arrive due to the intense camouflaged effects such as expensive gifts, many initial dates at expensive restaurants followed by even more gifts and jewellery. No girl would ever completely agree to live a life without any of afore mentioned materialistic life-style. Well, there are of course a lot of totally selfless women out there (my respect to them, Period.), but let’s just stick to the typical cosmopolitan Indian woman!

And let’s not forget all the wonderful sugar coating done by the groom to be. A simple “wow, you are making me spell-bound, you look simply wonderful” is enough to make a woman’s heart melt and in turn make her swoon over the guy.

But if I happen to think logically, this whole arrange marriage thing is like a stage, all getting set for some serious drama with a lot of fake dialogues. Come on, meeting up with a man you have never met before just because his family is rich and well to do and of course same caste as yours? And listening to the man’s hobbies and his career and his dream just because you have no other choice but to talk and know him coz your parents think it’s a good idea? Okay, in a way it’s not all that weird. But in a lot many other ways, isn’t that such a pain in the ass?

I feel that there are only two things why men go for arranged marriage: sex and parent’s happiness. Parent’s happiness may not be so mandatory, but sex is. May be that’s why many men today are standing on their feet to get married so soon? So that, they can end up having legal sex!! And what’s in an arranged marriage for a woman? S3- safety, security and sex. (I will be lying if I state only men go for arranged marriage for the sake of sex!!).

 Yeah, talk about safety and security. An unmarried man can lead a very safe and secure life throughout his existence, but can an unmarried woman live in the same way in our so called Indian society? NO. The society treats an unmarried woman with deprived respect. It goes to the lengths of calling her a prostitute or even a black witch for that matter. It’s just totally disgusting and ugly but this is the kind of society we are currently living in. We may be all technically forward but ethically, especially when it comes to treating a woman right, our society sucks even today.

A scene from the movie Monster-in-law

So when once the initial drug effects of this so called arrange marriage wears off, the side effects start to creep in. At first a woman would be like, “wow, I’m marrying this wonderful man, his rich house and his cool English accent” and once the initial honeymoon effects wear off, the woman gets pregnant, followed by one, two, three or more kids’ (count in all the labour pain the woman has to go through!!).The woman would wake up one day and while she is in one of her daily process of changing her son’s diaper along with cooking breakfast and fighting with her other son to eat up his veggies and forcing him into his school uniform and to add to the baggage, she has to endure all the fuss thrown in from her dearest mother-in-law who is a superior being when it comes to house-hold and looking after kids, and that’s when... that is when she will realize “wouldn’t life be much, much more peaceful had I lead a single life till now? God, what was I thinking?”

Okay, now before all the happily married women who are reading this would start arguing with me, let me just say, No, I’m not blind. I can see having a family with a good husband, nice kids and loving (yet, sometimes fussy) in-laws seem like a picture perfect moment in any woman’s life. I agree. But still, my feminist/ free-spirited/ independent side of me tends to disagree.

What about a woman’s dream? Her career? Her growth in the ladder called “success”?? Does a man quit his job to look after the new-born baby while the woman goes back to work? It’s always we women who have to sacrifice our dreams isn’t it? Ok, having kids is also a dream come true, but come on, all those years of attending classes, buttering up to the lecturers to get good marks, sucking up to our bosses at work to get an early promotion... you think only men do all this? Even we have done all these and one day when we get married, a whole package of new circumstances rise up in our lives and it’s us women who have to adjust and compromise in order to make ends meet at the ‘happily-ever- after-family-strategy’!!

This all sounds good for a woman who has seen early success in life.  You know... that first bench girl who used score out of out in every test that people like you and I struggled so hard to scrape a pass. For such ambitious women, getting married early and having kids early is a piece of cake. They can always get back on the career wagon whenever they please as they will surely receive a red carpet welcome from the major IT industries.

But what about women like us? The last time I saw a “first class with distinction” on my marks card ended six years ago, on my tenth board exam!! Now all I see on my semester marks card is a mere pass on a second class level, which I don’t mind as long as I stay above water and a get a degree certificate. Yeah, I know how my near future is being drawn right now... I can see myself scouting in front of every IT companies just for an entrance test and IF I’m lucky, I’d land myself a JOB in about 2 years. Such is my fate for sporting second class marks cards on my resume.

Keeping this resume as a fly-swatter, mommy dearest and other aunties in my family dare to come to me with the abhorring dialogues, “So what if you can’t get a job. Get married and lead a head-ache free life.  You don’t have to earn. We’ll make sure you are given to a well-to do family!!”

Arrgh!! Its dialogues like these that make my BP rise above my head. According to them, if a girl has scored averagely in her education, the simple solution is for her to get married and be a bionic mom or something.

“So what if you don’t have a career life;

Get married and become a house-wife!”

The other day, I was having the same conversation with my friend and he said, “You girls have no worries; regardless of the marks your score you can easily get married and settle down. But for us guys, we have to earn first to get married later”. For which I very rightly said, “Huh! Don’t act like all the women species get married coz they don’t have a job. In a couple of years, if I don’t land in any IT job, I’ve decided that I’d work in a coffee-shop rather than succumb to the poisonous ivy called marriage”.  My friend sarcastically retorted, “Then I guess marriage is off the cards for you!!” making me retort (for some unknown reason) defensively, “I never said I never want to marry, I will only succumb to the inevitable once I’m happy with my career, which is still a long way for me.” Making my friend to roll his eyes and say, “let’s see how far you’ll go to keep your word!”

I don’t know what is going to happen in a couple of years, but right now, my independent integrity is pumping my blood from my heart and is pushing me in the right direction. Well away from the web of marriage that is!!

P.S: You might wonder why I’ve failed to mention the possibilities of the love marriage... Well that topic is a total path waverer and I simply don’t want to elongate this post with further ludicrous stuff!! 

Color For My Eyes!!

I must admit I’ve lately been deserting my blog space more often than ever. I thought being in the final semester of engineering course would render me with lots of free time which I could utilize for developing my writing skills. Clearly I was wrong. Dealing with projects and seminars everyday has left me drained out of any energy left to come here and write to my heart’s content.

Okay, regrets aside, I got a mail from blogadda the other day, welcoming me to participate in “My sunglasses, My Style!” competition. And this is just what I needed right now.  Busy or not, here I am, encouraging myself to share my views in this awesome quest. So, who doesn’t like to wear colourful sunglasses and strut among friends and show-off?? I love sun glasses for some of the following reasons:

1.  They fit you just fine whether you are thin, chubby or fat or short, medium or tall. Ergo, regardless of your size and height.
2. They bring about a subtle class of authenticity and coolness to your over all personality.
3. A little colour in front of your eyes does miracles by bringing you happiness as they let you view your surroundings with a series of lively colours.
4. And to top it all, they keep your eyes healthy by protecting from harmful sun rays and dust particles.

From the past few days, I found myself surfing the gkbopticals website in search of two cool sunglasses which I’m required to write about here. Let me tell you, it wasn’t an easy task. Gkbopticals has got some of the coolest and unique collections of both sophisticated and economically wearable sunglasses and almost all the sunglasses can be bought online with some mouth-widening discount prices. So it’s totally worth it if you want to buy a cool sunglass from this website. A guaranteed value for your money!

So fighting with my inner conflicts regarding which two glasses I should write about here, after much speculation (given the chance I’d have written about 5 sunglasses which are currently spinning around my head prompting me to buy them all!!) here I am, presenting you with two of my top favourite sunglasses or “goggles” as I fondly like to call them:

Out of some of the top brands such as Ray-ban, Prada, D&G, Versace, Oakley, Vintage etc, I have chosen two sunglasses from the brands Prada and Sundrive respectively.

“Prada”... Any cosmopolitan girl’s dream brand. Even though I’m not into fashion to a point of drinking and eating fashion, still when I hear the words Prada, my head starts to spin as I visualize all the cool accessories, shoes and dresses that are being designed under this dream brand. And so, it would be my dream come true if can own a pair of sunglasses from this awesome- sounding brand.

PRADA SPR 03M 7S3-6S1

PRADA SPR 03M 7S3-6S1 sounds just like the pair of sunglasses that I would like to someday be a proud owner of. Its white framed, square in shape and the colour of the lens is brown. The white frame with brown lens combination is what attracted me to it in the first place. The white frame gives it a cool, classy look and I can just wear it on any outfit, be it a pair of jeans and top or a cotton salwar suit. You don’t need to own a Prada dress and Louis Vuitton shoes to own this fabulous sunglass!

 But still there is the “price” factor!! Although if I were to buy this at the gkbopticals which is currently giving this away for a discount of 25%, it would still cost me about 10k, which is about the same price as my Samsung Galaxy Fit mobile phone. Since I’m still a student and as I hail from an upper middle class family, if I were to ask my mom to buy this for me, she would definitely tell me that I need a psychiatrist coz according to her, owning a fashionable sunglass that costs 10% of her monthly salary is just plain ridiculous. But there is no harm in dreaming right? :P

So keeping the cost and economy value in mind, I finally landed on the “Sundrive” glasses. Sundrive is a budget designer brand. You get cool, hip sunglasses at a really good price. And what’s more, since gkbopticals is sporting a discount, I found some sunglasses under this brand that costs just about 1000Rs. Cool right! :) 

SUNDRIVE 49139P C3

So my next pair of sunglass is the SUNDRIVE 49139P C3. It’s a thick-framed, oval shaped, purple lens coloured sunglass. The purple has a subtle hint of black to it and it’s not too flashy. I just love the colour and also the overall design. I can wear this on a daily basis. Since I ride my awesome two-wheeler “Dio” to my college every day, this is just what I need to protect my eyes from the sun. The thick frame protects the side of my eyes preventing the unwilling dust to get into my eyes from the sides. This looks cool with any outfit. And accessories can be simple or gaudy, depending upon the person’s interest. I don’t wear too much accessories as long as I’ve got a watch on my wrist and my lucky purple ring on my finger.

So I conclude this by thanking Blogadda for coming up with this lively competition. And can’t wait for the results!! :)

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com brought to you by GKB Optical Sunglasses.