Koi Jab Tumhaara Hriday Tod De

Chandini logged out of her email account and sat staring unseeingly at the desktop picture before her. The picture was that of a rock amidst greenery and the mandatory brook. Tears coursed heedlessly from her unblinking eyes. In a sudden flash of rebellion, she wiped away her tears. 

She sat mentally reviewing the email she had just read from an online girlfriend. Another case of trust too hastily reposed… another case of a broken heart… of shattered trust. It was a case of an online romance which didn’t turn sour. It didn’t even gasp out its last unable to cope with the reality of the distance in between. It simply… silently… collapsed upon itself… for there were no rocks in the foundations… only a gooey muck of lies. 

Chandini knew what would happen next. The girl would go into withdrawal and a spiraling cycle of self-blame and self-pity. In her pain she would begin doubting all her friends. She might even pick up fights with her real friends and cut herself off from everyone. Having thus destroyed her support system, she would let go completely and wallow in her pain until her self-esteem threatens to get wiped out. 

Reading the mail had reminded Chandini of her own similar experience. The only difference was, with her it had happened offline… live… in the flesh. There the difference ended… and the similarity began. 

Chandini recalled the heady rush of first love… at the ripe old age of 36. She fell all the more heavily because she had never really believed in love. When she saw lovers in the movies… she felt like closing her eyes. Just to spare the actors the forced display of utter hogwash… which she was sure… was painfully embarrassing for them to portray. She was scornful and incredulous of love. “What utter bullsh*t…!” just about summed it up for her. 

It was as if God… with his utterly infuriating sense of humor… had set her up to ridicule. She met him at a mall… and was now hazy about the progression of events until THAT day six months later. Oh... the day she came to the conclusion that she likes nothing better to do with her time than to talk to him on the phone… or in person… or in her imagination. He was with her every second of every day. No opinion mattered but his… her world began and ended at him. The final evidence…? She SO loved the romantic movies… and wondered at her crassness at not having understood them before. 

Then she knew. She was in love. 

Then came the avowal… from him. It was as if he was waiting for the realization to dawn in her. Or maybe something in her changed on the outside… giving him the cue that it was time to strike. She crumpled at his feet… and was thrilled about it too… she recalled now… cringing in shame. 

The days passed in a whirl… it seemed she couldn’t find enough ways to show her love… nor too enough words to express it in. She was delirious with joy. Months raced past. 

She tried to recall now. “Was it that I was over the first ruptures of love… so I began to notice the lies… or was it the lies that broke the halo..?” 

She wasn’t sure now. Anyway, what the sequence was is hardly the point. 

It is pathetic how eagerly the human mind likes to hang on to its delusions. When she began to see his lies for the lies they were… her first strategy was to cover up for him… and spare him the pain of her accusations. But evidence piled inexorably on more evidence. It began to stifle her. She then turned her rage inward. She blamed herself for being disloyal… for doubting him. Then came the day when there was nowhere to run. It was all there in her face. He had been lying to her all along. 

She got up from her chair agitated… relieving the past. Once again she felt the despair… the utterly humiliating pain... summed up by, “But why did he have to lie…?” 

She remembered now, the process she forced herself to go through. The more deliberate to compensate for the time she had volitionally closed her eyes. She examined the entire edifice of lies… found each stone falsely pretending to be one… resting on another one similarly false. She reached the cesspool beneath the edifice… where she found him… arms akimbo… glaring accusingly at her… hating her impotently for having found him out. 

Even now she vividly remembered the strange detachment she felt the day she called him and told him she wanted to talk to him. When he came… he knew something was way wrong. She coldly laid the facts before him. Gave her proof… patiently heard him out. She wondered now what held her up that day. Why she didn’t scream and shout and tear him limb from limb. She heard him out. He was exhausted at long last… and sat looking her in malevolent loathing. 

She told him to leave. He left. Just like that. No apology… not even an attempt towards one. He left. 

She shuddered now… remembering the last look he gave her. She sat numbly for the rest of the evening and night. When she got up… it was morning. She wondered now what she did that day. She wished she could recall something dramatic that she had done that morning… something symbolic of the devastation of the past 15 hours. Nothing… she did nothing out of the ordinary. Just made herself a cup of tea. 

The next one year was difficult for her. She went through the same process of self-blame and loathing that she knew her friend was going through right now. In three weeks she was a nervous wreck… and then one day she passed out in the office from sheer exhaustion. 

She looked back at the period of recovery. She remembered with gratitude the two friends that held her together in that time. She squirmed when she remembered the way she would turn on them in her rage… followed by utter contrition… followed by requesting them to stop wasting their time with someone as worthless as her. But they stuck by her. 

Then she knew what she had to do. She had to stick by her online friend too… until she came out of her pain. She wished it were possible for her to talk to her friend face to face. It was only a momentary thought. She shrugged realizing it wasn’t possible. She decided she would write emails to her friend… as many as were needed… to get her out of the pit. The thought cheered her up. She logged into her email server again and began to write the first mail. 


…. To be Contd… 

Tags: love, trust, betrayal

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