Day 4 Shiva, Raavi and insults
Part 1
I AM FURIOUS.
No, scratch that, I AM SEETHING IN PURE ANGER as I write this, and my hands are shaking too. The fact that I am here in my own house and still not comfortable, too angry and too blinded by my feelings right now. This has never happened before, where I, Dhara Patel, had lost my calm. The last time I was this upset and on the verge of a breakdown was when my mother left me, and that time, I was crying, hoping to have her back.
Right now, I am crying in anger, because the one person who literally holds the key to my heart broke me.
Did I ever tell you how difficult it is to live as an orphan here in Somnath? Because India may have progressed with time, Somnath has clearly not and here, if you are not backed by a family, be ready to listen to the sheer venomous words of people who clearly do not have better things to do than destroy one's self-esteem. These past years had been hell for me, and only for me, while my brother was living a honorable life. Apparently you are respected only if you are a male here.
I love my brother, and vice-versa, and we both have had our equal share of hardships in this town, living without parents, working odd jobs, while he collected finance, I handled the house but his hard work was rewarded and mine were looked down upon.
Why?
Because I am a girl.
Dhara Patel is going to be a runaway daughter, a bhagodi ki beti, just like her mother, so everyone better stay away from here and make sure to pass comments on her way so she is often reminded of her bitter past.
Many a times, I swear, many a time I wanted to go and slap each and everyone who has ever spoke this way to me, and more than that, I wanted to meet my mother and scream at her for living me in a hell hole as this. You surely must know what days those were, where no one would invite me to their parties or functions, and no one would speak to me unless they needed some work and no one would let their kids around me because I was a bad influence for them.
Miserable, my days were miserable here, and I had days where I would want to run away, nights where I would cry myself to sleep and did not even want to wake up.
The only one who kept me sane was my sweetheart kaka, Darshan Pandya, if not for him, I would have ran away just like my mother and continued the legacy.
I know, Suman Kaki is one of the women who would keep taunting me and hating on me for no reason, but if it was not for Darshan Kaka and his kindness towards me, I would not have cared an ounce about the Pandya family. And his beautiful values were instilled in Gautam Pandya, and his other sons, who also looked after me and loved me as their own.
Gaumbi and the kids have been there for me more times than my mother was. And Suman Kaki may have tried to keep them all away from me, they did not pay any heed and continued being there for me and the reason of me being soft towards the kids was my love for their father.
But not anymore, not after what happened today. Even kaka would have agreed with my decision if he was alive now and no matter who says what, I am not stepping back into that house again.
It's about seven in the evening as I write this, my bags are all unpacked and laid on the floor, clothes all lying about and Mota-Bhai texted me that he would come home soon. This day has officially been the worst day ever and you know what, all this craze about having a family, that all has now been buried.
After what happened today, I wash my hands off this family thing and I am happy being alone.
You know what, I need some time off to cool down before I write this.
A cold coffee with ice-cream sounds about nice, I'll call Anita and go that ice-cream parlor at the outskirts of the town. Maybe I should call Raavi to tag along too, that poor kid has gone through a lot today.
I'll continue this when I am a little better.
_
Alright
I am a little better after we had coffee with chocolate ice-cream, and I swear, we need to thank whoever made ice-creams and chocolates and coffee and all the things that can bring comfort at difficult times. Also, Raavi was not happy with the turn of events, she did not even try to eat the ice-cream which I bought for her and sighed, giving it back to me.
Time for backstory?
Well, not much here, but since this is about Raavi, I must tell you why I was so affected by this entire charade that happened and to warn you that you do not get to Raavi without first acknowledging Shiva.
Shiva and Raavi.
Yes, Shiva, the Pandya Boy who is very close to me and holds my heart, and Raavi, the girl I personally connect to have been the cause of blunder today and the advocate for my broken heart.
Raavi, I do not know her surname, is Prafulla Shah's niece, her sister's daughter and had shifted to Somnath a couple of years back. She is the same age as Shiva, and like me, she had lost her parents in an accident, which made her an orphan and a girl with no one. Like I earlier mentioned, being a female with no family to back you makes you a punching bag for everyone's frustration which is then translated into taunts and unnecessary jibes.
Raavi, that poor girl, she gets the same taunts I once did, but a little less brutal because her parents did not abandon her like mine. Honestly, I make sure that no one insults her in my presence atleast and Prafulla Maami is a very firm aunt, she is so nasty with her comments that people do not dare insult her niece in front of her. So yes, Raavi has someone to rely back on and I am happy that the girl has a little family of her own.
Where is Shiva in all this?
Shiva Pandya hates Prafulla Shah and her family, and by hate, I mean literally hates them. Their personal feud is something I would explain later, but for now, it is important to know that Shiva hates anything even remotely related to Prafulla maami. And the only drawback about Shiva is his anger which more often than not seems to be his only weakness, often lashing out more than required, and ready to even fight anyone who hampers his peace.
So what happened was, we all had a late start to the day. The late night fiasco for Dev's project was an easy excuse for us to get up late and neither did Gaumbi wake me up, nor did Suman kaki because we all slept late. The kids were on time to go to school and since I had nothing to do, I tagged along with Gautam and sat on the cashier counter in his shop, helping him with the money and accounting. When I caught five errors in the book keeping and accounts sheet in less than ten minutes, Gautam groaned aloud, "Dhara, why don't you work as an accountant here too, that way I can be rest assured that we are being properly accounted."
"Right," I scoffed, shaking my head and scanning through the books, "Killer Ka..." I coughed aloud to cover it before Gaumbi would catch that, "kaki would never want someone like me to touch her precious stores' precious books."
"You know what I want?" Gaumbi asked as he helped a customer with the rice bag, "I want someone like you to always be here, seated in front of me on the cashier seat and I can..."
"You can?"
And then he snapped out of it, like it was a dream and focused back on filling rice in the plastic bag. He was tongue tied to my question and before I could ask him, we all heard the huge roar of Shiva fighting again with Raavi, this time however, the intensity seemed rather more aggressive than friendly. I would have still ignored it if Dev and Krish would not have ran in and demanded us to go separate the two. One look shared between Gautam and me and we ran outside, leaving the customers unattended and to our surprise, we saw Shiva and Raavi now at loggerheads and pushing each other.
"Shiva!" Gaumbi immediately picked his angry brother and I walked towards Raavi, hoping that our gadheda did not hurt the girl. "Kya hua hai, stop it."
"Ye Maami ki behen ki Beti ko toh aaj main...." He screamed, holding the boy who was now flapping in his arms, ready to pounce back at Raavi. "Chod do Gaumbi..."
"Main toh kya?" Raavi was no less, as she pointed her finger at him, "Gunda hai tu Shiva, manners hi nahi hai."
"Manners apne Massi ko sikha, aur mera dimag mat kharab kar... warna..." Shiva warned her and I held Raavi, trying to let them away from each other.
"Warna kya karega?" Raavi screamed back, shoving my hands from her shoulders and took a step towards Gaumbi who had held Shiva mid-air, "marega? uske aalwa tujhe aata kya hai? Jungli..."
And I know, Raavi crossed a line by saying that but what Shiva did after this, appalled me.
It did not just appall me, it ripped my heart in two, and I felt more pain than Raavi did, to be honest because I directed those words to me.
Shiva got off Gaumbi's hold, and with one angry step towards Raavi, he shook the girl hard and pushed her on the ground so hard that she narrowly escaped hitting her head and instead she hit her arm that covered her face and then he said aloud words that I never heard in a long time.
"Tu anaath hi nahi, panauti hai tu, tu itni buri hai ki tere maa-baap bhi tujhe chod ke chale gaye!"
And then I did something I never thought I would ever do.
I screamed at Shiva, shocking everyone, including myself and I nearly raised my hand at him but Gaumbi took my name and stopped me. And there I was, standing in the middle of two kids, hand raised mid-way in the air and panting in pure anger, Shiva was surprised and so was Gaumbi and the other kids but I felt the anger surging within me.
The entire past of mine, those taunts, those jibes, those unnecessary blames and those words came back to me in a jiffy and soon enough tears formed in my eyes. But I did not cry, not in front of the whole world to see a pathetic Dhara crying again.
That Dhara who got affected by the world and its mean comments was gone, she ran away with her mother, and this Dhara would never be the one to cry at the viciousness of the world again, never.
So what made me leave the house in the middle of the day, just like that?
We went home, I was still in a daze and Raavi was crying when Anita picked her up, upset at me that I let it happen to her small sister but Shiva was also clearly upset on my condition. We all went home, Gaumbi picking Krish who was crying in fright and Dev pulled Shiva by his hand and we all entered the Niwas as dead-serious businessmen.
"Shiva, you will apologise to Raavi," Gaumbi instructed Shiva who was standing with his head lowered, still angry since his hands was fisted, "and how could you say such words!"
Shiva would have agreed to apologise, he was even ready because he knew I did not like his actions, not one bit and Shiva would do anything for me and vice-versa. But Suman Kaki who had heard the entire tale scoffed at Gaumbi when he reprimanded him, instead she moved her wheelchair towards the center, where Shiva and Gaumbi were on one side and I was seated on the other.
"What words?" She shook her head, looking proud of her son and I looked at her in disbelief, "Did he say anything wrong? Raavi is an orphan and she should not have called my son names if she did not want to be called back." With me even Gaumbi was startled, he even tried to help her understand the gravity of the situation but Kaki raised her palm to him, stopping him. "Ey Shiva," She said, a huge smile on her face, "kuch galat nahi kiya tune, woh Kagdi ka saara khandan hi waisa hai. Garv hai mujhe tujhpe," I swear, my blood was boiling, rather on the verge of evaporating at her words, "you will not apologise."
"Kaki," I stood up, enough was enough, "aap ye kya keh rahi ho? Shiva ki galti pe usse maafi mangni chahiye, aap isse badawa mat do please."
And then she said one statement which was a slap on my face, without it being one.
"This is my family, my children and my son," She matched my eyes with fiery, and I was taking deep breaths in anxiety and anger, "you have no right to stand here and how dare you tried to slap my son?" She forwarded her wheel-chair towards me, "don't forget that you are parentless too, and just because my family takes pity on you, does not mean you get to boss me or them around, bhagodi ki beti ho tum, aur wahi rahogi."
And after that I packed my bags, all my other stuff and ran out of that house.
"Agar family aisi hoti hai," I had told Gaumbi who tried to stop me, "toh nahi chahiye mujhe koi family..." I let a tear roll on my cheek, "main akeli theek hu, main akeli hi theek hu..."
I am getting teary eyed simply by writing what happened just a few hours ago, and honestly...
Wait, someone is knocking on the door, could be mota-bhai. I guess, this should be it for the series, no more family, no more drama and none of this bullshit family love.
_
TBC, there is a part 2 for Day 4
Do share your views.
yeah that's exactly what I felt after reading this.
