Motherhood.

When May 2022 came around, you surprised us by entering our lives.
We heard your beating heart, and although I swear I wasn’t ready to be your mother yet, I cried the first time I saw you.
Everyone was so happy, but can I be honest with you?
I was still confused and anxious about how your father and I would be able to go on our Europe trip with you.
Some might find that selfish, and maybe it was, but the trip was my dream, and your father had it all planned out. And I couldn’t fathom cancelling the tickets, especially after I had put my heart and soul into setting up the itinerary.

2.5 months later, the doctor told us that your heart wasn’t beating anymore. We didn’t know what to do with that information. We were told that you had left us 3 weeks back, and I had been carrying you still for so long.
It was shocking, overwhelming, confusing, and above all, nerve-wracking.
I underwent an emergency surgery, and they removed you from me. We were no longer together.

It took us a while to get over the immense intensity of the incident. Saying goodbye to you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do – both physically and mentally.

Soon enough, September came, and who could have been your parents went on their trip.
We came back and were advised not to conceive for another 6 months.
But as luck would have it, you came back to us the next month!
However, we were careful this time. We didn’t tell either of your grandparents and didn’t even go to the doctor. We waited for you to tell us that you’d be with us for the longer run this time.
And my God, was it absolutely insane when we saw you for the first time again after 8 weeks, and you were pronounced “healthy”!
I cried and I cried and I knew that I had already fallen in love with you.
Your father tried to hide his emotions, but boy, did he fail miserably! I swear I saw his eyes misting.
We told your grandparents, and they were over the moon.

And slowly and steadily, you took over our entire lives.
Were you okay? Were you moving? Were you developing okay? These questions and so many more kept taking over my thoughts.
I couldn’t imagine being without you.
And now, you’re here.

After an arduous 40-week gestation, a 9-hour labour, and a difficult delivery filled with blood and cuts and stitches, you came to us! For real!
I smelt you, I held you, I heard you, I saw you – and I knew that our lives would never be the same.
Even with so many people telling me how tough a natural birth would be, I didn’t care one bit. Because I knew at the end of it all, I’d hold you in my arms.
I cried the moment I saw you, and guess what, so did your father.

Thank you for making me a better person, a kinder person, a more compassionate and patient person, and mostly, thank you for making me a mother.

We know we didn’t do anything, you chose us. You chose me. And I will do everything in my power and beyond to be everything you need and want.
We’ll protect you, love you, and be with you every day from this day until our last day.

Your father has been the sun, the moon, and the stars of my existence, and I never knew there could a stronger bond. But every time I look at you, I know that I would fight the world with one hand if you hold the other.
You’re my centre of everything and you will find a safe place in us, always.
Always.

Humanity is the Only Religion I Know.

April 19, 2021

Monday

Mumbai, India

So it’s another beginning to a long, mundane, typical work week. It’s about 32 degrees here in Mumbai and I’m just stuck to my laptop like a leech to an open wound. YouTube is open in a separate Chrome tab, like always, and I’m scrolling through pages and pages to find a suitable song to match my mood at the moment. While doing so, YT suggests a few songs based on my search history, two of which are the reason for me writing this right now- the first being the soulful sufi Bhar Do Jholi Meri in Adnan Sami’s voice from Bajrangi Bhaijan, and the other being the heart-wrenching tribute to the ultimate God of Gods Shiva Namo Namo from the late Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer Kedarnath.

And why do I mention this, you ask? Because the sheer coincidence of the two songs being recommended together was a pleasant surprise and made YT algorithms look not all that bad. The two very different backgrounds and settings of the songs and yet them being so similar, almost like two sides of the same coin, hit me hard.

Be it history books, albeit very sadly sometimes the people we know and love, be it the society, or the media- everyone everywhere has shown how Hinduism and Islam are two different entities. And this is seen in its harshest form today. Many of us including myself write Hinduism as my religion is all forms and applications. But I find it extremely difficult to identify myself as a Hindu. I cannot identify myself as anything more than an Indian woman. I find it a tedious task going to temples to only stand in long queues and sitting through pujas and yogyas and mantras, and this I mean with absolutely no disrespect to anyone or anyone’s beliefs whatsoever. But I enjoy the beautiful architecture of religious places, the heart-touching songs played in them and the peaceful and calming aroma of incense that accompany them.

Coming back to the songs- bhar do jholi meri is such a beautiful appeal to the higher power to shower his/her blessings on the poor, suffering souls on earth. The lines “aah nikli hai toh chaand tak jayegi / tere taaron se meri dua ayegi” send shivers down my spine every single time!

And what can I say to do justice to Amit Trivedi’s beautiful beautiful voice singing “amrit sabhi mein baant ke / pyala vish ka tune khud peeya”. It brings me to tears every time I hear it!

It hurts me so deeply to see the things happening around us, to hear people label a religion as good and the other as bad, and to witness basic humanity being a degrading, crumbling mess. I never imagined growing up in a world, in a country where one could be labeled so many things based on what his religion is. We rush to theatres to watch Shahrukh Khan’s movies. We rush to theatres to watch Hrithik Roshan’s movies. We love reading Tagore. We love reading Khaled Hosseini. We dance to Sonu Nigam’s tracks and we feel proud to call A.R. Rahman as our own. And let’s not forget how we go absolutely gaga over the legendary former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Why can’t we do the same with our colleagues, our neighbours, and everyone we meet? It shakes me to my very core to even think of our kids growing up in a world that is nothing but a sham.

I’m Sitasri, I’m a good person, and I’m just another person trying to cover the cracks of humanity with the usless tape of words. I’m not a Hindu, I’m not a Muslim, I’m an Indian and a human being. That’s all I know, and that’s all I care about.

#LongingsOfTheBrokenHeart

#LoveAboveAll

#PeaceToAll

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

This is me.
That is me.
I’m both.

I am comfortable in shorts and crop tops.
I am comfortable in sarees and churidars.
I’m both.

I am married.
I have a full-time corporate job.
I’m both.

It’s either a 0 or an 1 at every level, except one- I am a woman. As a woman, I can do everything.

Neither shorts define me, nor sarees. Neither my husband defines me, nor my job. It doesn’t matter whether I’m a Ms. or a Mrs.
The shankha-pola and sindur don’t define me either.
I don’t have to leave my job to raise a child, when I have one.
I don’t have to give up shorts because society might call me “undisciplined”.
I DEFINE ME.

It is high time that all men and women realize that women are humans too. If men can have jobs and a family at the same time, SO CAN WE! If men can party all night and still be the apple of everyone’s eye, SO CAN WE! If men aren’t thrown stones at for choosing to focus on their careers, is shouldn’t happen to women either.
A man’s character isn’t questioned when he goes on multiple dates or drinks and smokes or when he gets two promotions in one year, then why does it all happen for women ALL THE DAMN TIME?

So question, critique, and protest. The fight is gonna end soon.

Strong women support other women. So on this International Women’s Day, let us know them, be them, and raise them.

Breaking glass ceilings and patriarchy, one day at a time ✌

#womenforwomen #internationalwomensday #influencer #lifestyleblogger #mumbaiblogger #standstrong #fightstronger #inittowinit

I Found Me When I Met You

It’s the 29th of June, 2020 and I’m sitting by the window in my Mumbai apartment, half my mind occupied with the stress of work assignments, and the other half wanting to break free and float away into a world of no worries, very much like the clouds I see gliding past. As I take a sip of water from the Bisleri bottle next to me, the one that I have almost preserved and am unwilling to let go of, my mind wanders back 2 years ago.

2018 had started in the most precarious way possible. I was about to appear for my final two semester of post graduation, I had just lost a few good friends to petty, silly nonsense, I missed my best friend and the one I considered to be the love of my life, I had screwed things up with my people here and there, and I was having trouble with calming my mind down. In short, I had burned down way too many bridges for my comfort. They say that the secret to a happy life is to being in control of your emotions, and I was failing miserably and big time at that. The year went on as months passed by. I got my Masters degree (wow, right?!), left behind hostel life, moved onto a new job, my first real job, almost instantly, and was busy adjusting to the busy, adult life.

This is when my parents, read my mum, decided to surprise me, or rather shock me, by asking something that every 23-year-old Indian girl expects and fears, “Chhele dekhbo tor jonyo?” (Should I look for a suitable guy for you?) And given my experience with dating, I really didn’t have a reason to say no. Or more so, I was hopeful that I’d be rejecting guys left and right and dragging the whole process on for a few years. But little did I know about the guy who was going to sweep me off my feet (pardon the ‘filmy’ me). So we did what every Indian parent looking for match for their child does- open an account on the Bharat Matrimony site. I kept saying “he’s too this” and “he’s too that” and managed to hold off the thing for a few months. But my parents (again, read my mum) being the over-enthusiastic and overtly determined people that they are, decided to meet a guy’s parents, while I was determined to deliberately screw it up.

So, we met his parents and they seemed like nice people (although I didn’t admit it in front of mum, because ego, duh!). They said that their son resided in Vadodara and that they’d be visiting him in a week and then we’d be connecting over a video call. And we did, God bless the digital age.

This is when all my ideas about everything shifted. I saw the guy and heard him talk, he saw me and heard me talk. And before I knew it, it was a month later and he was in my home, wearing a white shirt. We met the following day too, and had our first date. From the way he talked with the waiters, I could see how amazingly soft-spoken he was. Following that, we talked over video calls every day, and every night. His parents and family visited us often and I talked to his parents while returning from work everyday. It almost seemed impossible, unreal even. And with the luck that I’ve had, I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. Five months passed by and we got married. He was the first guy that I had talked to and the only guy that I had met. And when I saw him on our wedding day, I didn’t care about the heartbreaks anymore. Nothing seemed scary anymore. The fact that I’d never again have a first date didn’t matter anymore. Because that was it. He was the one, my one great love.

You know how they say that you need someone very special to forget someone very special? Well, they are right. It is extremely important for us to find and know ourselves, but every once in a while, one person comes along, holds your hands and does the searching with you. It is not often that life blesses you with a miracle, so when you find your miracle, hold onto him or her, and to yourself. Because no matter how bad things are, and how hopeless everything seems to be, there is a time when you turn a corner and find your happy ending.

New Job and Anxiety, an underrated combo

Joining a new job can be one of the most underrated and scariest things ever, especially if it is in a new city. Having moved to the economic capital of our country just 3 months back and zero knowledge about the local language, it was an unusually difficult task to adapt and adjust to the new environment, where everyone is so work-driven and career-oriented that there is basically no time left for friendships and acquaintances. And if you happen to hail from a family of over-achievers, then there’s no way you’re going to get out of feeling bad about yourself.

Before I get into the details of my job and how I’m feeling about it, let me enlighten you about a few things about myself.

I belong to a simple, middle-class family where ethics, morale and honesty were valued up and above everything else. I have always been a good student, with a good academic career all the way from school, through college and till my post-graduation. I worked for several institutions and companies for quite some time; I shifted from Kolkata to Vadodara and then to Mumbai and finally landed a job in a smart-tech startup company which mainly focuses on artificial intelligence, machine and deep learning and tech-things, which are far, far, far away from what I’ve studied for and done all my life. Not just that, but fueling my anxiety and self-doubt and low self-esteem was the amazing, amazing man that I’ve married. He’s the best at everything he does and somehow that has made me feel everything but confident about myself and my capabilities and talents. The facts that he earns a lot more than me, is respected at his workplace, has so many people working under him, goes on office trips and tours and team lunches/dinners, has made friends and acquaintances in his company, can drive, has traveled far and wide across the world, is generally smarter and more confident than me, make me feel so small and insignificant. This has absolutely nothing to do with him and is completely my problem, I know that. It is me who has to work on her self-esteem and self-confidence. Moreover, it isn’t that he doesn’t encourage me or push me to pursue my dreams and my goals, it is only that his wonderful work ethics make me feel so little. Also, there’s no denying the fact that he’s almost 30 years old and I’m only 25. He’s got an MBA degree in operations and logistics, whereas I am an MA in English Literature. He struggled through 3 years of life on oil-tankers and a miserable year in Thailand, while I’ve had it all easy for so long. Considering all the points, I’ve a long way to go still; I’m only getting started.

But writing about it helps me, writing about anything and everything helps me get through all of it, which is why this blog exists.

I’ll end by remembering what Robert Frost had most famously said: “…but I’ve promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Falling Out Of Love, And Falling In Back Again

It’s been so damn long since I last wrote something, maybe because I find it impossible to put my thoughts into words when I’m happy. It’s hard to write anything when you’re happy. Call it strange but maybe that’s exactly how our souls work.

So here I am sitting on my bed with no one around to intercept my overflow of emotions. And all I can think about it how important it is for me to thank him for leaving, for showing me exactly who I never want to be, for never having to teach my kids to call him daddy.

Falling in love is like a dream. Yes. But falling out of love with him was like waking up from a nightmare.

I could very well quote Adele and say, “Never mind I’ll find someone like you” but here’s the thing about the thing. I hope and pray to God with all my sincerest devotion that I never do. No hard feelings.

Him leaving was a wake up call. A call to find the lost me. A call to reconnect with all the people I let go of because I was too engrossed in us. A call to let go. A call to stop trying to hold onto love.

And it worked. I found the man I would love to wake up to every morning. A man I would call my own for the rest of eternity. A man I would fight the world for, and with.

So here’s to the both of you.

To the person who walked out on me, thank you for nudging me to find the parts of me I thought I had lost.

To the man who found perfection in all my imperfections, thank you for finding me; for making me believe that ‘no matter what you do or where you go, be in love.’

 

 

To November, My Old Friend.

November 2017.

Eleven months later, December is here.

The last month has been the most traumatizing time for me so far in the 23 years of my life that I’ve lived. Hell broke loose and I lost some of the most precious people in my life. And the reason why I keep writing about all these messed up feelings is because it’s like a vent, a way out of this great big empty.

I hit rock-bottom.

The kind when you start questioning your very existence. Like- you ever feel like you’re not good enough for somebody or that you don’t deserve the good things that you have in your life? Ever feel so low that death seems like a far better option that to just keep breathing? Ever feel the kind of hurt that makes you wanna rip your heart right out of your chest, just so you could relieve yourself of that pain? Ever feel like someone is choking you and you wanna scream your lungs out but not even a beep can be heard coming out of your mouth?

Like every other individual on this planet, I loved someone too. Not the kind of love that makes your world go round or the kind that makes butterflies fly in your stomach, but the kind that you’d do anything to have for yourself. The selfless kind where the happiness of the other person matters more than anything and everything else in the whole wide world.

I have had my fair share of infatuations and casual flings too, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like this guy was the one and only person I’ve ever allowed to be a part of my life. I, like all other teenagers, went out on dates and had fun. But then one fine day, there’s this guy who comes along with a sweet smile on his face, seated on a blue Yamaha RX100 motorcycle, with his face slightly tilted towards his left, and says hi to me. That was the moment of truth; an epiphany shook me. I realized that the person infront of me was going to mean a lot to me later in my life.

That was way back in 2010. Seven years have passed since then. We went from strangers to friends, friends to best friends, best friends to lovers, lovers to strangers, strangers to friends, friends to best friends, best friends to lovers, and finally lovers to nothing. That’s now, the present.

It’s funny to even think what one person can do to your life. One day you aren’t even aware of the existence of someone, and the other day you are out there planning your life with the very same person.

But what if that person suddenly decides to walk away? No reason in sight, just plain desertion.

What if the person you’ve seen your future with falls out of love with you?

What do you do then?

There’s no definite answer to that in all honesty.

What we humans usually do is deny the obvious. And when reality hits, we give ourselves into depression. A tough fight later, we accept the truth and move on with our lives.

But is it always possible to let go of something that was once not just a huge part of your life, but your entire life itself? No, I don’t think so. Becuase I’ve tried over and over again and failed at it. I went to the extent of being an obsessive creep desperately trying to hold on to something and someone that was long gone. From begging him to stay to crying my eyes out, I’ve done it all. But he didn’t stay. After 6 years, he fell out of love. Is that even possible? One day you’re sitting with her and her family and discussing your future together, and a week later you just walk out on her. How does a person with the slightest amount of humanity do that? How does a person who once vowed to be by your side through every up and down pretend to love you for 6 months and just leave when he feels like it?

You left me feeling lost. You left me with this endless feeling of helplessness, the kind of helpless one feels when he/she is thrown into a sea with his/her hands and feet tied. And it’s so profound, this feeling of nothingness, that I haven’t eaten or slept properly in a month. I never knew this could actually happen to me. I had seen people lose faith because of a broken relationship. I had seen people lose their sense of self because of a heartbreak. I had heard about people killing themselves because someone decided to walk out on them. I always thought of such feelings and actions as that of sheer stupidity.

But as I grow older with each fleeting minute, I start to understand why people drink their nights away or smoke their lungs out or throw themselves off of buildings. I get it now. Scars heal, wounds don’t.

Where does the Good Go?

It’s not very often that I come up with something that I am actually proud of. But I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those seldom thought of write ups that I can proudly call my own.

What is hope?

For me, it is the ability to hold on even when everything in life goes south. My life, at the moment, is pretty much like that. I am at the verge of giving up. I am not really sure as to how long I can put up with this charade of being fine with everything happening in and around my life. It is with utmost difficulty that I get up every morning and put on the best kind of smile I can get my hands on and drag myself through the day.

Today is like any other day. Except that I’ve been shoved and pushed with my back up against the wall by the one person who was supposed to be there through thick and thin and everything in between.

I can only question, where does the good go? Where does the love go? And perhaps most importantly, where does the friendship go?

How do you get through that? How do you live life knowing that the person you counted on for everything, the one you trusted with your life, turned out to be the very person who just gave up on you. And for what? He doesn’t seem to know, and neither do you.

Days like these make it a tad bit more difficult to keep holding on to faith- faith in your own self, faith in the goodness of the world and people, and the general faith that things are eventually going to get better.

For a music lover like me, it’s songs that sometimes help me get through the day. Mandisa’s Stronger, for example, tells me that “when the waves are taking you under, hold on just a little bit longer, He knows that this is gonna make you stronger, stronger. The pain ain’t gonna last forever, and things can only get better, believe me this is gonna make you stronger, gonna make you stronger.”

I am, to be honest, not that spiritual a person. But dark days bring out the deep-seated, very deep-seated, spirituality in me. You know, like you actually feel like maybe, just maybe, things are going to work out in the end, if not today or tomorrow, but someday.

Oblivious to me, love, I never knew, was so relative a term these days. One day, you love someone and the next, you’ve already fallen out of the spell. Even with all the gloominess covering the planet, with all the death and destruction everywhere, love will find a way, or so I believed. And it’s strange how the person who once made you believe in this weirdest of theories is now the one who has walked away, and for what? No one knows.

Now that I look back at the paragraphs I’ve just written, I find it really stupid that each paragraph seems to be so out of link with each other. One’s about hope, the other about love, and one seems to be about the world. But I guess that’s why blogs exist, for you to be able to write whatever comes to your mind and go with the flow. Such random thoughts put together with sometimes no meaning whatsoever, that’s the beauty of the human mind.

But it’s interesting how “I” runs through it all. I, like every single individual out there, keep thinking about myself and myself alone. Has the world gone so down-hill? Have we lost all humanity?

With the recent Paris bombings and Chapecoense’s plane crash, I still keep worrying about one person leaving me behind, not bothering to look back. There’s a wider spectrum, waiting to be found and discovered, the one where we think less about our own selves, and more about the collective good of others.

When I started writing this, or when the thought of writing something occurred to me, I had thought of blurting out in words how I’ve been hurt recently. Spite and anger and hatred and sheer pain had consumed me. But as it turns out, I still have people around me to love me for me, for who I am, and how I am. And with this, I vow to spend more of my time focusing on bringing a smile to someone else’s face, because I know how it feels to be lost, in a hollow enclave without hope or faith, now more than ever. It’ll be a better use of my time I suppose.

Like my last article, I don’t expect many to go through this entire thing. For someone to dedicate all that time and effort to read this most ordinary of write ups, I cannot possibly think of anyone like that. Now that I know how my blood bleeds blue and smells like ink, I intend to keep the tap open.

Life is a beautiful thing, . It’s a gift that we get only once in our lifetime. And as long as we’re alive, we’ve got to keep fighting, and swinging till we’ve got nothing left. Life is a game and as Kenny Rogers points out, you should know when to hold on and when to let go.

But the question still remains- and how do you know when to let go?

Winter is Here

As she gathered all the courage she had, she felt the walls closing in on her. With one final dash of strength, she let go and took the leap. The last thing she felt was the air pushing up against her skin, and the next thing she witnessed was the encompassing darkness.

It was a normal day for the twenty five year old Sheetal. Just like every other day, she got up at seven, and was done with her morning rituals in no time. As she took a bath, her mom was busy preparing her breakfast. Hurriedly she got dressed and took a bite or two off the plate and like a gush of wind, she ran out of the house lest she misses the eight o’ clock bus to her office in Noida. Sheetal’s mother went about her daily chores while her father, now a retired army officer, was engrossed in the newspaper. Neelam’s brother was married with a one-year old. The house hardly enjoyed any quiet with the constant wailing and crying of the baby, who kept the spark in their little family alive. The other member of the family was Sheetal’s grandmother, a lady of whooping ninety, who had been a huge inspiration to Sheetal in everything she did.

She was, in short, the darling of the Agarwal family.

It was the second of the eleventh month and a bright sunny day. Winter hadn’t set in quite yet, but the air was chilly with the hints of its arrival that was to happen soon. It was an usual day, except that it wasn’t. It was Sheetal’s birthday and no one seemed to remember that, not even herself. After the retirement of her father, Sheetal was the guiding star that kept the family going forward, especially with her brother, the only other male member of their family, living in Kolkata because of his job.

Sheetal had always been a bright student, right from her school to her university. She was a kid who would do well in life, or so everyone believed. The scene in Sheetal’s office, where she worked as an assitant to the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, was the same as her home. She was ‘little miss sunshine’, brightening up people’s lives, the person who was rumoured to have a solution to every single problem that happened in the staff’s professional and personal lives alike.

She was good at her job. She was ‘the’ perfect assistant a boss could ask for. Although what she really wanted to do was write, write about everything that happened around the world, write stories, and basically just pen down whatever her heart desired.

As five o’ clock neared, people started arranging things on their desks and making preparations to leave. It was around six in the evening when the janitor came to switch off all the lights and fans, and do what a janitor does. On seeing Sheetal still sitting infront of her laptop, Hari kaka inquired, “Aren’t you going to go home dear?”, to which Sheetal replied with an indifferent “hmm”. Hari kaka, seeing no point in continuing the conversation, left quietly and asked her to switch off the lights when she left.

Now was the time Sheetal dreaded. It was just her and her thoughts.  There was nowhere to hide. All day long, it was work that kept her concealed from her overpowering thoughts. But who was to save her now? That’s right, no one.

Life hadn’t been as smooth for the 25-year old as the world perceived it to be. Right from her very childhood she had been living under the shadow of her elder brother. No matter how great she performed, she always fell short of her parents’ encouragement. Be it something as trivial as painting or something as serious as her grandma’s love and affection, she always remained the second choice.  And with the nightmarish sexual abuse that she had encountered, there wasn’t a light at the end of the long and dark tunnel. Then along came the best part of her life, her 14-year long schooling in a convent missionary institution. Those truly were the best days of her life, where though she couldn’t live upto her potential, she was finally good enough. She had humans arround her who accepted her for who she was. The long-craved acceptance she had been searching for her whole life, she found it. As school ended and time came for her to part ways with her soulmates, her girlfriends, she starting keeping more and more to herself. The usual charm and vibrance that had for so long characterised Sheetal and made her who she was, was fading. In a desperate effort to cling onto the few remaining friends she had left, she wanted to attend college away from home. But as fate would have it, she wasn’t allowed.

The next three years was initially difficult for Sheetal. She couldn’t adjust to her life in college. And just when things were going downhill for her, she found a couple of people she could be herself with. All was good with the world again. Again as those three years came to a hault, she found herself uprooted and yet again had to fight to find the perfect soil to plant herself in. What she found was nothing like she had imagined it would be. The place she ended up in was dark and evil and full of unhappy vibes, where no one cared and no one bothered to look back. It was a machine where everyone only desired progress, even if it came at the cost of someone else’s dreams and happiness.

Those two years became Sheetal’s best teacher in life. As she bade the place goodbye, you couldn’t see sparkle in her eyes any longer that had for so long lightened up the darkest of rooms.

Be it friendships or love, life had been terribly unfair to Sheetal. She had experienced the haunting reality of her boyfriend’s death, and had been rejected way too many times to have faith in the thing anymore. Apart from a few, none of the people she thought would stay did. Nobody. Life have had more downs than ups for her.

After her two years away from home was over, she managed to find herself a decent job with good pay, which brings us back to where we were before the narration of Sheetal’s past. Her dream of being an independent writer was still on hold with no hopes of seeing the morning light.

Were you waiting for something to happen? Because let’s be honest, a story with as linear a plotline as this isn’t worth anyone’s time.

It might seem like she hasn’t been through anything of such importance to have a story written about her. But do we really know what goes on inside a person’s mind? One might even say that there are millions out there who face worse and survive. That is absolutely true but isn’t it quite plausible that the extent to which one might bear with something varies from person to person? The saturation point for everyone is different. It was low for Sheetal.

Sitting in her cubicle, all alone, she suddenly realized what day it was. The clock had just struck twelve. She was twenty six now. It was then that she decided to gift herself a heart filled with hope and confidence.

The next day Sheetal handed her boss her two weeks’ notice for resignation and with a calm smile on her face, which was glowing, she cleared out her things and left. It was then that everyone was reassured that she was destined for greatness. Her walking out and not looking back was not ordinary. It had something extraordinary about itself.

She didn’t look or ask for anyone’s permission or approval anymore. Sheetal applied for a job in the armed forces. And her dream of writing, you might ask? Her journal kept it alive.

It was sometime in the year 2025 when terror struck the borders. Sheetal, along with numerous other officers, were sent to the border to look into the matter. Things didn’t go quite as planned they soon found themselves under attack. With very limited resources, supplies and ammunition, the troop had two choices- they either had to fight their way through or fall back and wait for rescue, which was immesenly dangerous as the attackers could very well defeat them and cross the border into their Nation. So they made the brave choice of fighting. They gave it all, until Captain Sheetal Agarwal of the BSF Special Forces were captured in an unfortunate turn of events. The officers could either give up and lose one of their greatest officers, or fight back and save the other millions of lives at stake.

The tables had turned.

The soldiers didn’t have to make the choice. Sheetal made it herself. She knew what she had to do. She wasn’t as valuable an asset to her country as the countless innocent lives which were either safe or in grave peril, depending on the decision the Army took.

The terrorists were sure that they had won the game. They didn’t think even for one split second that the oh-so-righteous Indian Army would agree to give up their soldier.

The tables turned again.

As the terrorists waited for a reply back from the Indian Government as to what their Army’s next action would be, Sheetal who was armed with grenades and explosives, stood with her back to them, looking over a large precipice, a deep gorge. From the little knowledge of Urdu that she had, she had made out from the terrorists’ words that just below the gorge were more men hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike. As she mumbled a few words, with the pain of the ropes cutting into her wrists, she took a deep breath. As she gathered all the courage she had, she felt the walls closing in on her. With one final dash of strength, she let go and took the leap. The last thing she felt was the air pushing up against her skin, and the next thing she witnessed was the encompassing darkness.

The whole place blew up in flames and as the Indian Army on the other side of the border saw it, they realized what had happened. It was their motto, the principle they lived on- Death Before Dishonour. They knew Sheetal would die before becoming and being reduced to a mutilated corpse at the hands of the terrorists.

The attack was subdued.

The Indian Army won.

The news channels and newspapers, all spoke of the undaunting courage and bravery of Late Captain Sheetal Agarwal. As her family and friends and colleagues watched the news saying that she’ll be awarded the National Award for Bravery, tears flowed down their eyes as their chests puffed with pride.

Somewhere in the neighbourhood, a voice of a mother could be heard, probably addressing her husband about their daughter, “Don’t let her go. Your brother is a boy, he can have sleep-overs, but not you. It’t not safe for girls nowadays. Girls are fragile, they aren’t as strong as boys are.”

The baby stared at the old woman’s face as Sheetal’s grandma shed a tear, falling on the book that she was reading to the kid. A cool breeze flowed by as the news came on- Winter is here.