Shades of Life

Her Family

I came back home after my office time was over. After the meeting with Varun sir, my day was pretty dull. Everyone at lunch asked me why the CEO called me, I told them that he welcomed me to the company and gave me a pep talk. Everyone believed me except Aarav who looked skeptical while others were jealous that he never called them when they first joined.

If only they knew how he gave me an ultimatum.

Just remembering his hard voice with blank look gives me goosebumps. I get that intimidated by him mostly because of his job. No matter how he is or how he behaves, he is my boss. The power that he has along with his personality makes him intimidating.

I freshened up and gave my mom a call. She called me during the lunch break but I couldn’t talk because of others presence. She talked about how my relatives are being manipulative and trying to get money from my dad. Same old, same old.

Usually it doesn’t affect me that much but maybe because of the fact that I’m far away from my parents is making me emotional right now. My family was just like any other family. My grandfather was a lion of our family. He held that much power. He treated me like a goddess. Even when my uncles had kids still I was his favorite. But he passed away when I was in 10th grade because of Cancer.

It was devastating and the saddest thing was I was so immature at that time that it took me years for the fact that he is no more to hit me like a brick. I was devastated when it actually hit me and mostly because that’s when I realized he was the only one who treated me like a princess. He was the only one who made me feel so special.

My grandfather was a big deal in our area. There were so many workers working in our theatre and our rice mill, all of them used to come to our house of some work and I would sit on my grandfather’s lap when I was a kid and order them just like he used and they would adore me.

Sure, dad loves me the most but he is not the kind of guy who sits and shares about his emotions or feelings. My dad was always driver towards politics and business. When we were a joint family, my dad was busy in his work while mom was busy with my aunts and grandmother’s politics in kitchen. I had friends and that’s how I grew up. Everyone loved me and adored me.

After my grandfather passed away, my dad built a new house beside the old one. There was one road in between since our old house was a very huge site. My two uncle’s got the old house while my dad’s elder sister who lived in other city, which is more like a village moved to our city. My dad helped her build a house in the boundary of our old house. That’s how huge that site is, house is just on one corner, the whole site is a garden which is not maintained that well.

My dad’s elder sister (my Bua) has 4 sons and trust all four are Idiots. That’s just what they are. Her first son came to our house when I was kid and stayed with us because he fell in love with a girl whose family didn’t like it so they sent him to our house. Slowly because of his sister’s crocodile tears, my dad involved him in his business. After doing a lot of business my dad settled for a dealership shop for Asian Paints. He was working with my dad there. After few years, my Bua’s third son also came and sat in our shop. My dad didn’t mind it and it was his first mistake.

Both brothers after learning what is there to learn about this business from our shop, disrespected my dad and created a drift in our family and opened another shop just few streets of our shop. And you know the worst part was, they did it right after my dad got his ear surgery.

That time was horrible for us.

Vishwa had cheated on me like a year and a half earlier, though I was studying and keeping my grades high I was never motivated in my life. I never thought about what I would do after Engineering. But when those two deceived my dad and I saw him in the most vulnerable state, my whole spectrum about life changed. Both of my uncles and my grandma took their side and helped them.

My dad, my mom and I were left alone which gave us a view that who actually cares about us. My mom always told my dad that those two had some plan up their sleeves and that his mom and sister are not that good as they act in front of him but my dad never believed my mom. He used to argue that my mom was jealous or she was wrong but when this incident happened he got silent.

I grew up in a joint family. My Bua loved me so obviously I was close to her and her sons, I adored her husband but after this my parents didn’t let me near them. Emotionally, it was confusing and I was hurt not that elders cared about my feelings, that’s when my friends came in. My best friend Mona was the one at that who was with me. She was the one who kept me sane the whole time.

After that incident I knew that I had to go something productive so from my third year I started preparing for MS but before I could take IELTS or GRE I got a job on campus selection. Since I am the one child, I didn’t want to leave my parents and go to another country. I know my relatives will hurt my dad and I wouldn’t be able to live happily in other country when my dad and mom are suffering here.

I think the fact that I got a job all on my own was the first in my family and that made my dad happy. He was genuinely happy after a long time. He always used to tell me that we have achieve something in our life and I should never relay on family property or family money. I should make my own and when I took the first step towards it my dad was more than happy.

When I was doing the job, my mom told me that my last uncle, my dad’s second brother was in a lot of debt because of that he drank and smoked and had a healthy issue. He had kidney problem and jaundice. My dad got very scared since he was his brother. It took a while but he got better but he didn’t stop drinking or smocking. He is very stubborn.

To a responsible person, when life hits them hard they get scared and try to life in a proper way and try to rectify their mistake at least for their kids but my uncle was a hopeless case and still is.

For me, I started having a lot of stress thinking what would happen since my parents were getting aged. I heard a lot of news about people who I’ve met once or talked once or my close friend’s friend’s father passed away and my anxiety would kick in. I struggled with it a lot but as my project work started I forgot about it and left it to god.

Later I found out that my uncle lost nearly 2 crores of amount for gambling, horse race betting. He literally spent that much many for fun. It got worse when his money lenders would come in front of the house and create a scene or bank people came with statements but would go back because of dad’s words. My dad was Municipality president so he is well known in the city. It boils my blood that, that uncle wasted that much amount gambling and drinking and now my dad has to worry about clearing his debt.

Now that’s what’s going on, my dad has his own debts to clear but because of this uncle now he another thing to worry about and not to forget his blood pressure and diabetes.

My family is a mess.

I calmed my mother down and told her to take care of dad and herself. I am begging my dad to get a dog cause since I’ll be here and my dad will be outside working my mom will be all alone at home. My aunts are all snakes, they act all happy and good on the outside but are jealous witches in the inside.

My whole mood was off so I had my dinner and took my phone and Bluetooth earphones and went to the terrace.

One thing I love about this apartment is that they have a garden on the terrace not a nature one of course. It is very nice to just sit there and look at the night sky. I actually went up there on my first day here and instantly knew that when I have a bad day I would go there for peace.

Wearing a hoodie and full pant, I went there. Thankfully no one was there, it was school night and most people who live in this apartment are families.

I started walking from one end to another listening to my favorite music. Music is therapeutic for sure. It’s a good distraction. After a while, I felt tired so I stood at the corner watching the moon, it was so beautiful and magnificent. I looked down expecting to see the front lawn and big swimming pool but was surprised to see a very big balcony. There was a pool and a bar. There was a fire place and sofa around it. Everything there screamed money and class. Must me the penthouse. I heard from the manager for this apartment that owner of these apartments live in the pent house.

I scrutinized my eyes to see someone sitting on that sofa, I could see that person was sitting there and drinking something. Must be the owner, I thought and shrugged looking around seeing the architecture and designs near the bar. It was all modern and beautiful. I felt someone’s eyes on me and moved my eyes to the left to see that person was looking at me.

My eyes widened when I saw who it was.

Varun Mehta.

Fuck my life.