Sunday, December 03, 2006

The Diary pages

Dear Diary

Today was a very important day in my life. What I did was perhaps unacceptable by other people's standards, but either way it doesn’t matter to me anymore. If being oneself is a crime in the court of life, then I stand to be convicted and would love to face the rope of destiny.

What was my fault? That I fell in love...maybe. But the fact that I fell in love with someone who turned out to be a philanderer was my destiny. I was a matured woman who had finished her degree at IIT Chennai and who worked as a top consultant in a leading firm. I fell in love with my co worker Arvind and it all looked like a dream come true. Perhaps....someone just woke me up to make me realize that it was all a nightmare. Arvind was a Romeo on fly and my love life crash landed immaturely.

My only solace was my friend Krishna who made me laugh among all the sorrows I was surrounded with. If not for Krishna maybe I could have done something stupid. You may wonder that how come someone educated in IIT speak as if without clarity, but remember that the heart and emotions remain common to one and all. Krishna and I used to go to the Besant Nagar beach where we would talk for hours about everything and sometime about nothing.

Every time my mom would begin the topic of marriage I would skip with something irrelevant and divert it. But eventually it failed one day and some people gave a surprise visit to have a look at me. The groom was some computer junkie settled in US and had Green card and everything in place that any normal girl would fall for. Perhaps it’s silly to note that I was still in love with Arvind and didn’t want to get married until I got over with it.

I had rejected way too many proposals by then and one day mom confronted me. She knew the reason for my denial and gave me one last choice. She wanted me to ask Krishna to marry me. That was the last thing I wanted. Krishna was my best friend and inspite of whatever people thought or said, we were friends without anything else on our mind.

Why is it that a woman needs to get married? When a man can remain a bramachaari for life and be appreciated for it, why can’t a woman do the same? Why these double standards? The reason always given is to protect her from the society and to have a support in her old age. I don’t give a damn about society and why waste your life now thinking about something that is going to happen 30 or 40 years later. Is it wrong if I have a belief that loving someone and sharing your bed and life with another is inappropriate?

I have decided to break all the barriers and do what I want. Today is not just a very important day in my life...but for many others as well.

Love
Shreya


As Shreya closed the dairy she smiled. 10 years had passed since she had written this and from time to time she would visit this page to remind her of her purpose in life.

"Madam. A journalist from India Today has come to take an interview about you and the children of our home" reported the assistant. Shreya, the head of the Helping Hands Home for Destitute children put her ghosts of past to rest and was on her way to a glorious future.

31 comments:

KK said...

Wow! Nice post man :) Next time onwards after you post, you can put a comment in my name with words "Wow! Awesome post!!!" :)

Syam said...

that was wonderful dude...am with KK, you can register a proxy on my name too :-)

G3 said...

That was a cute post :) Enjoyed reading it :)

prithz said...

Whoaaaa!!!! Ultimate! Like KK said, next to my name.. u can put.. "total range!"... :D

Aditi said...

i am guessing shreya isnt a real one? but awesome story line .. and a beautiful choice shreya made...
and i so agree with that part abt why does a woman always have to get married
why?

Krithika said...

superb! woman dont have to get married to live a life..wonderful again

Krithika said...

* women :p

nandoo said...

may not be true... u know what happened at Suyam...after these.. its hard to believe...may be it holds good for fiction

Unknown said...

Awesome!! Looks too good... not to be true!!

Heidi Kris said...

:-)

Unknown said...

tht is something worth 2 be noted down by ppl who always fear abt wat will others think abt us..

Hell's Angel said...

tht is something worth 2 be noted down by ppl who always fear abt wat will others think abt us..

Player said...

damm. WTH. I read your first blog and it dint allow me to go back to work. I had to read the second, then third and on and on. You write awesome.

Revs said...

for a die hard feminist that i am this post feels like hot chocolate for my thoughts..:):)
for a moment i was scared that u might say "and finally shreya realised that krishna was her true love" or something like that..thank god!!
great post!!:):)

Sat said...

nalla irundhadhu
but i dont agree...a woman can stay single for the rest of her life...but as per her own wish...not as a result of something that happened or did not happen in her life...Just because someone's love life took a wrong turn doesn't mean they should stay single!...if the person is really not comfortable with the whole idea of marriage then yes!...and india-la idhu rare-nalum nadakathathu illa...my own aunt who hails from small time mayavaram is single to this day...
It's all about how strong willed a person is. avalo thaan....ooru culture brought up-nu pazhi podurathellam chumma.
And the whole funda of loving someone sharing bed/life is not at all true. Firstly, there's not one person who's had only one affair in his/her entire life...there would have been one, at least tht small time crush. matha padi u never know what love actually is until and unless you spend time with tht person...and that means quite an amount of time...we're talking years here!...it doesn't happen out of the blue...so if u think u love someone who hasn't even reciprocated it...it either means u're stubborn to let go of it/ u're plain infatuated with tht person and just dont want to look further. If poeple dont move on from such set backs...it's a failure....it's a failed state...not some kind of offering to the sublime form of love! Staying single out of such situations is an escapist;s solution!

Celia said...

I agree with @sat.

I dont like this 'poove unakaaga' logic. Love as such is mutual and has to be nurtured together. Indha one-side love ellaam filmla mattum thaan nalla irukkum.

Chumma, edho oru dagaldiya nenachukkitu irupan sonna, adhu semma tamil-film fantasy. Also, love failure naala, social service pannaanga solradhu is not nice.

Harish said...

@KK
Inda dakaalti velai thaane venaangaradu...ippadiyae en blog pakkam varaama escape aagalaamnu plana?

@Syam
Neengaluma :-)

@G3
Thanks yaar

@Prithz
Etanai peru pa idu maadhiri kelambi irukeenga

@Aditi
I wondered the same

Harish said...

@Krithika
Its better to do whatever we like rather than doing for the sake of doing it.

@nandoo
Agreed its fiction. But tell me...how many cases have we seen like Suyam Uma?

@Dasi
Why is that?

@Heidi
:-))

@Brinda
Perfectly said....

Harish said...

@Player
Man...i read ur blog. I guess if this comes from you...then I am really doing good :-)

@revathi
U know what...i was tempted to do as THAT is what happens in most of the cases. Well...truth is stranger than fiction

Harish said...

@Sat and Celia
I remember Newtons first law. There has to be some force for anything to be in motion. Anything and everything that happens because of a reason. In this case I accept that it is naive that Shreya didnt choose to marry someone else after being in love with one. But tell me...are we all alike? We arent right. In this case this character is someone who lived in an utopian world of "Orutanukku oruttai" which is REALLY impossible.
And so in case of her dreams shattered she chooses to do something else.
I am sorry to say but in 80% of ppl the aspirations are limited to becoming a manager or CEO of some company, marry, raise kids, roam around and then kick the bucket. If someone among us has an ambition to serve ppl because of such an unworthy experience.....even that is fair. I guess most of us go thru this phase as this protagonist did but we choose to compromise....i thought why take the beaten path.

Sat said...

Still can't agree with this Harish
Service to the society you are part of has no connections whatsoever with our personal life's mishaps. Saying that one's decision to take up service as a result of a heartbreak is in no way fair to the person involved or the people they serve. If such an idea happens to rise in our mind just because we failed in soem aspect of our life, it will not be something we can be true to. We'd only be living a lie and that in no way is good. Serving others can't be someone's medicine. That's as good as taking advantage of the person's own not so fortunate situations. I'd say it's rather very selfish. Rather not have soemthing like that. Why do most people not take up serving others as a career option or even be involved in it in someway or the other?...the generation today is ready to donate money but not time...because they do understand that those people deserve the amount of truth and commitment that not everyone can put up due to their own personal shortcomings. It's only fair to be true when you give as much love than do it out of your own selfish reasons. Rather not give such love. The story is fictious...and the fact that the protagonist is right or wrong is debatable though it's someone's individual choice as the story finishes off on a note which justifies the action. It's the idea I am arguing against.

reborn said...

Man or woman ..mariiage makes sense only if they complement each other... but most of the times it happens for the sake of it ... and they end up living together ..unhappy for lifetime !!more so in Indian set up ... nice story...

Anonymous said...

As always unga kadhai azhaga ezhudhi irukeenga.

KC! said...

enna achu, action packed-adhane ezhuditrundha...ippadi panta?

The Boss (:D) said...

nice post... but the end was predictable.. i mean, ippolam evryone brings this kind of an end to a story like this, to take the feminist track... just y cant a woman get married? so wat if her love dint see the light of day? y shud she resign to a life without love? she cud find it again

Harish said...

@Sat
The fact is that this thing could have been ended easily as "And she remembered that she had to pick her kid up from school today". Now pratically that is far more realistic and sadly true. And there everyone would be out baying for my blood as "Die moron", "See ya in hell" or "Sad...but true".
Let fiction rule for sometime.:-)

Harish said...

@Reborn
Thats the point

@Skm
Thanks yaar :-)

@Usha
Maybe I am seeing very soft movies now? Gotta change yaar..

@Boss
Simple. This is one ex of a protagonist. This story could have any ending. Its just that the ending chose itself in this case :-)

Gayathri said...

I loved the beginning. Ending was cinematic.

Unknown said...

@Gayathri
Perhaps....for me this has been a realization

Sat said...

Sorry to drag this on Harish; the pick the kid up scenario wud not have been 'sadly' true...it would have been good!...i would have been proud of the protagonist had she done tht instead of running and hiding behing a shield called service! (and i wud have commented kudos harish...that was one helluva character u had created!)...in fact the protagonist is not a feminist; not even a strong person. coz strong people do not look for weaker alternatives; they get over the hurdles and solve the problem on hand.

Unknown said...

@Sat
There we go again. "strong people do not look for weaker alternatives". Its the way we see ourselves as strong that matters. Different people have different choices of solving things in their own way.
Any form of art progresses when there is debate over it. As for satisfying everybody through a medium is concerned....well...it is an art that not even masters as Maniratnam, Akira Kurosawa, Speilberg couldnt achieve...I am after all a poor blogger :-)