Two parts of me

( story of a confused teenager losing urge and battling demons of addiction , from his own perspective )

Ever wondered who the weaker sex is amongst humans? Physically beyond dispute it is largely the women. But it is this inherent nature of the more emotionally subtle, Seattle, vagabond attitude of men in life that renders them more vulnerable to the perils of a break up. Break up has become more of a cliché these days , a term more generalised than rationalised, more scandalous than catastrophe. But my case was different as I discovered a different part of me on the verge of break up, a more sensitive, inconsolable,impractical and illogical me that was fighting against obvious defeat

4 years back from this day , I was about the perfect school goer. No I was not the nerd who remained in oblivion, I had the most supportive parents ,a goal to fulfill my aspirations in medicine while maintaining my wit in the respect of hardcore science rationalities like physics, I was writing my poetry in full fledge , playing my guitar for the school band and collaborating with one of my best friends ever on a band venture that was the center of all our musical aspirations since time immemorial. But yes I was introverted. That was an issue , I faced from the days when school was nothing more than play timeout of home to the real issues of the world and the time when I was struggling to find a person to share stress that was taking a toll on me . I had many friends, many of whom liked me, many praised my work , but no one to talk to in times of my jeopardy.

Then I met her in the most unlikely ways possible. Yes it was facebook ,where you are probably reading this today. Some night probably she read one of my writings right here and we became interested in each other. She was recuperating from a relationship that was on the verge of a destruction , like a pack of dominos it was about to fall apart. Like many childhood sweethearts,they were together as long as any friends would, but in some places the stigma of relationship serves as that one drop of bitterness that kills the whole broth. I remember us becoming friends and me standing out to be with her . We were strangers in the convivial mob. We had different stories , but life had us on a point of intersection .

I remember my introvert attic contributing to me never asking for her number though we were frank to each other. And facebook was my gateway to find solace with her , in her at the end of exacting days .And when her computer blew up beyond fix I stayed up a night to fix it ,without even knowing what was wrong. From her descriptions. This was the first time I talked to her , and I precisely remember the “PALLADIUM TROJAN” a nightmare amongst technical geeks came up as my guiding angel . I could barely talk to her on phone, I had never talked to a girl on phone at night. And I kept it concise , talked like the Apple genius guy. Later on the messenger we had a laugh about it.

And still more days passed and we headed towards out final exams of school life. She had issues with her mathematics curriculum and no one to fix the errant with so little time on the calendar. And she turned to me. I had already realised I had feelings for her. I had not known much about love , but if it was desire to feel someone’s presence all the time if not physically it was her. I told her on the outset I was no good at maths, and I wasn’t. I just precisely wanted to absorb parts of her life that made her stress out, ironically the role I found no one to play in my life to that day. And to my shock she agreed. At that point of life I was a stranger ,no more than the average guy she met on street but the point of distinction was we knew all about each other, our moments of joy, our everyday fears, even the miniscule moments that made us cry.

And yet she came. The first day I saw her , I knew this was it. I didn’t know crushes /relationships that my friends talked about but I had read about the serious love. And somehow I felt this was it. I saw her standing at dhakuria, scared to talk to her I took refuge at monginis for a few moments to consolidate and pile up all my cojones to walk up to her. And then I did. The rest of the day just flowed and I don’t remember much. The confluent breeze was flowing around on a scorching summer day. I was flying in my tracks, walking on water, my little world was painting red. She didn’t stay long but that day I knew she will come back

A stretch forward to Valentines day .I was at my wit’s end on what is to be done on that day. Never found it special really. And she was estranged by the childhood affection of her life. By that time she was at the most fragile part of her relationship, he was ignorant to her and she had given up . It was hard , she was falling apart apparently, she didn’t let it show mostly but I could feel it . But she had a lot of friends.She went away to spend time with them and forget about the world. I did something totally unlike me. I had retained her address from a meagre informal conversation from the past.

And I went on with it .With a bouquet and chocolates. Anyone who has been around Calcutta on Valentines day knows how tough it can be to cough up flowers on that day. Almost a threat to the florist to get my job done was my resort. She finally came totally shocked at my arrival , I wished her happy valentines day , her eyes were shining like purple shards on the velvet sky . I didn’t extend the conversation much and walked out with my strong suit of concise finesse. That night she later confided in me . She had fallen in love with me.

The time moved on. At the climax of my school life we went on stage TTIS fest , perhaps the biggest one for schools in my part of the world and we made our presence felt. We made the top 3 . And ended school life with a mark. Everybody was against the notion of a science student at the phase of career development to stand and deliver onstage . But after that event I was getting isolated from the world. I was getting away from close friends. I was becoming a stranger to my conventional world . But I was having the time of my life. I rarely went to school , stayed home almost everyday. I stayed alone. And she came everyday. And each day was festive

By this time I had learnt to cook. I was a guy who was a complete Conan the destroyer at the kitchen, scared to light a fire .But for her I had learnt to cook, earned in blood. Literally cutting and burning myself I came up with her favourite Chinese and continental almost everyday . She loved it though it was nothing special. I had found a friend, a life and a person next to me in times when the world seemed to alienate me .

At the point I had given all my entrance exams, but I was struggling to crack one with flying colours . I was falling apart. I was blaming myself and my time management issues for my failure. But she did manage to console me.Every time , every moment of distress. She even cracked symbiosis Pune but she didn’t go. I don’t know if she decided that for her home sickness but I knew that the fact that she will be with me here was enough , whatever I do. And she kissed me and hugged me and just those lines echoed in my head, “ If I just lay here/ Would you lie with me and just forget the world.” Things were getting intimate by the day and it all seemed normal. The part I always hated was going shopping with her and her friends but the time when I rode back with her and she held my hand and rested her head on my chest buffered it golden .

The day came and I had cracked the entrance. I was now a student of Calcutta National Medical College. It was a moment of rejoice and elation for my family but I just breathed relief that I will be with her. The opening days of college was similar to the rear end of school and I was absent mostly but my life was flying.

One day during the pujas , the major festival in my part of the world , we were scheduled to go out. But unlike most of the time I had known her ,she didn’t return my calls and texts all day . I went to her place and waited for 2 hours consistently calling her. She didn’t receive . Suddenly she texted me that she was going to new market at the other part of town. I followed. The puja crowded new market is a place where you can barely walk let alone find someone but I stood at a place waiting for her call. The heat was taking a toll. I was cramping out .The crowd was eating me up in chirps of delight while I felt abandoned . She never came.

She texted me later . “ She had visited her ex a few days back. He kissed her and she didn’t resist. She felt she loved me and she did an unjust thing. She doesn’t deserve me and she is leaving me”

I said it was but normal for her to behave in such a way to a guy whom she had learnt to love since play days. It seemed her conscience was eating her up . That puja I called her everyday , she didn’t respond. She didn’t return my texts either. Owing to absence I didn’t make friends at college, I had lost my friends from school and at this point my parents were the only people to talk to and my agenda was not one to share with them. Calcutta in those days of puja is lights and mobs and families going out and painting the city streets red and shrieking at the top of voices to make yourself heard and free from day to day stress .

But my world was closing in on me.. My parents knew something was wrong. We went away on vacation . Kashmir is widely renowned as heaven on earth . It was majestic, for normal people seeking time out from work , it was heaven on earth . For me though things were different. Life had taken a time out for me . Networks didn’t work . I had to walk a mile in the army infested water clad territory to call her many a times . she did return a few of my calls , smiling and telling me to enjoy and that made my days. There I wrote.

“When the mountains call and the sky shines red

When the river swirls calling this inmate

When the birds chirp in the snow clad leaves

In the morning dew

I’d still choose you

When the winds are freaking, rain’s falling down

Gold is leaking from god’s own crown

Water’s sparkling in the sneaking streams

And the world seems new

But I’d still choose you

And I’d still love your effulgent light

And I’ve a reason why

While ebb and tide hits nature’s might

Our love won’t ever go dry

 

I came back carrying gifts for her. She denied to talk to me initially let alone accept those gifts . But she did in the end. At her apartment . She hugged me and extinguished a fire that was all around my soul. THAT WAS THE LAST TIME I EVER TOUCHED OR TALKED TO HER IN PERSON.

Days went by and my schedule became calling her for an average 100 times a day , everyday. She hardly ever returned my calls though she did express disgust at my obsession sometimes. One day on the same facebook I discovered she was seeing her ex again for quite sometime.. My world , my life, my love had crumbled upon itself.

I didn’t give up . Continued calling her. My schedule permitted only the scanty night hours. And the first year of medicine can be strenuous .I resorted to cigarettes . One to two to packs. It kept me awake, the rush of dopamine in my head gave me hope against despair. I wanted her to explain why? If not comeback. She didn’t have an answer. I wanted to see her one last time. It didn’t happen.

I was getting drunk. Snapping regularly.My mother had to get a psych consult . And I landed up on anti depressants. SSRI anti depressants , cigarettes and alcohol, my life was getting worse. In my moments of weakness I had a few old friends and folks turning back to save my ship but I had strangers too. I confided in them. In tears , in sweat , in blood and vanity. In my altered conscience I had leaked out intimate secrets of my relationship to people who didn’t mean well. This enraged her, estranged her even more. And the last time she called me In tears , she blamed me for maligning her for life and telling me I never loved her. I had no fix to my life. I had made a few friends in my attendance compensatory regularity during the final days of first year medicine. Drugs and hallucinogens were my other allies.

I had people to talk to by this time.Maybe I always did. I just couldn’t convey to them. My old friends wanted their friend back. My female friends understood my pain but not my logic to cling on.I was getting desolated even more. One day I was on my depression meds alcohol and marijuana and walking by the rail tracks. A train came behind. I couldn’t hear or see. I just saw a vivid image of her and life spent with her infront of me. I kept on walking. I was pulled out. Saw death staring at me in the eyes in the 2 minutes the train passed by. I was ill the few days following. She knew but she never returned my calls even then..

Days passed. Life was miserable. Ironically education never was. I still thought she somewhere deep inside loved me. One day I got some abusive messages from her on my facebook inbox. I was convinced it was her boyfriend. I lashed at her. Later on the guy snapped at me on the phone abusing me. I wasn’t backing down either. I was always the guy with a sound logic. But I made the illogical choice . I was against the rational part of me.I went to see him at a public place. The little skirmish that followed led the police to intervene . It was the worst day of my life though it didn’t take a serious turn.

After this incident she told me she never loved me. She called me a bas*ard and a mistake, the biggest mistake of her life , but a necessary evil, because I helped her rediscover her true love.

I wasn’t hurt , I was devastated. I never came out of it. I hated myself. It was as if a part of me had retaliated. I wanted to kill it. I had contemplated or neared suicide many a times. Life wouldn’t let go so easy.

 

A YEAR LATER :

I had become hideous. My life had become useless , attempts to end it had become puerile . The worst part was I didn’t know. Why the thing I loved most in the world had alienated me in a couple of days, why I became a mistake from the love of her life, why I became a guy she never wanted to see again from the guy she wanted to have a family with. The answers never came. I searched for an alternate reality. A hallucination that would give her back.

10th of august that year I sent her a gift. On her birthday . A courier . She denied it. She denied even knowing me. I was running a fever about 103 on the therm but I had stood up to record for her. She threw it to vain. A few days from that day I was scheduled to one of the biggest days of my life. The biggest gig of my life,the dreams I had seen with a childhood friend to make a mark in the music circuit was finally coming true . But I could never make it. That day broke me further. Amidst the fever and the body excruciating out , I overdosed on sedatives , alcohol and hallucinogens. I wrote :

“ Falling in the gravity tide, holding on all tight.

Nerves feeble in torment can’t hold me upright

They said god is almighty always , does it right.

Then why didn’t he empower me to hold on now and forever

I will always miss you today

Forgive me as I could never say

I might walk miles down the road

But I’ll always love you the same “

I passed out for the night. My heart seemed to stop but hey it doesn’t end so easy.

 

I wrote a note to her. Posted it on facebook. Parts of it:

I’m sure I’ll see you someday. I mean it’s been 2 years. I don’t care. Maybe tomorrow the wait will end, maybe a mid 40s visit to my clinic with your children ,may be late in the gates of senility .For me you’d always be here with me ,even Park street and Lake Gardens seem a barren wretch without you, you’ll continue to live in my words , my imagination. For you just watch out and stretch the eyes of imagination if you ever want to reach out for me, cause I will be right here waiting for you.

P.S. I will always love you

 

Time moved on. It didn’t heal my reality. Merely scarred it and salvaged it to change. My childhood friend had now made his music dreams a reality and made it big. I wish him all the best for life. Meanwhile I was back at the start. At the worst of my skills.Thanks to a few good friends and folks at college and the guidance of my mentor Tamoghno da I somewhat resuscitated my music . Started playing my guitar and piano, teaching it, writing once again. But I was never me again. My stories had become whining. Nobody could take my absurd life ambitions to be rational anymore. My logic was at it’s apex destructive , and not yielding ,but we don’t love to be loved do we?

I was doing average at medical school. I was never the straight A student again. Neither the research minded wit. My parents had lowered their expectations to support me from giving up. At least making me appear for the exams.

About 2 years of not seeing her. One day near my birthday I thought I saw her . Near my home. It was a crowded street , A noisy cauldron , a lifeless air. But I knew I saw her , I smelt her , I felt the air touching her had also gently caressed me. I asked her if it was her and if the world was too short by text?

She said “IT WASN”T ME” .

It broke me down. My research proposal had been recently rejected . My music wasn’t getting up to the mark at all. Education was running average. For one moment I thought the best part of my life, the gold from my pedestal dreams, the purple haze breaking reality of my sky , the crimson end of my endless dark horizon was within my hand’s reach . The borders of sea and oceans transcended over time had finally been breached. But she negated my reality. It was the end of the world for me. I was sure life wasn’t worth living this way. It wasn’t worth fighting against me, against time, against reality for something that was never mine.

A beautiful dream had ended with a long standing nightmare. I overdosed on meth and fentanyl . My parents were out of town so I was alone at night. I collapsed. I could see her holding my hand for the first time, singing wonderful tonight for her on my birthday, kissing me saying she will be with me in times of distress telling me she doesn’t need symbiosis. Her crimson aura, her purple haze was fading out , In the distance I could see her with her boyfriend, their parents, happy in a life free from me. They have children , they have a life, they have love to hold them together. But where am I? I didn’t mean to be in some other part of the world while my world slowly became someone else’s reality. I closed my eyes.

Next morning I woke up. I was breathing. I couldn’t feel my heart. Wait! I couldn’t feel anything. I had a sensory paralysis. Soon after a sense of parenthesis all over my body. I was taken to the emergency diagnosed with major depressive disorder and spinal cord injury due to fall on the neck. The symptoms went away after few weeks. Now I can feel myself again. I know that the worst of pain in life is still better than no feeling at all.

I was on the verge of recuperation . I had realised that I’ve to make something out of life , do something for the world before I leave. I have to stay and hold on tight for the ones who still care . I have not done enough for her to remember me let alone the world.

The story might not be one for the average teenager to relate . But it’s my reality. I have been there. I have been that. I see myself as a human being again. I see myself as a musician who will live to grow old and play his couple of widely heard singles on his measly old acoustic guitar and grand piano. I see myself as a middle aged busy physician who gets a 30 minute lunch break to take a stroll out of his clinic and grab a bite. And then I might as well see her in reality. Maybe not the reality I imagined for myself ,but with her children in her world of isolation and still that effulgent smile that can heal the deepest evils that live

The story tells about a time when the whole town became a haunted hole for me. Every room of my old squeaky house seemed to reflect and reverberate our story our parable of despair and love when two strangers estranged by love and life learned to love again. Sure it might be a phase of life for her to dull out into obscurity for her prospects of a contended , happy and above all well established life . The time that followed her departure I waited days and nights outside her house ,some part of me told me to buck up and go home, take a stand in my super busy life but I found my solace there. The bars and restaurants became anathema for me.

I looked at women but never saw love and when I did I sooner or later realised I saw her in them only.She had become more than the average overrated teenage love, she had become my sole addiction, my only friend in distress, the perpetual guardian hand I somewhat lacked and above everything the woman of my life. Now I learn the steep hard way to live without it . The joyous , sparks of the city streets became blinding lights for me. But near death and disabled life told me that I don’t need to find her in my world because in life we are set forth in revolution and if love is true it does comeback for once even if it can never be yours again. For me it’d not be a moment of desperation to win her back but to see her in bloom. The smile on her face ,her prosperity will be mine to share.

Over the years friends like Agniva,Anirban, Soham, Boon, Archisman , Arka, a mentor and brother like tamoghno da and many others who stood by me , I just can say thank you. And for the ones I lost in time, in ignorance, in trance, in addiction like Soumyakanto , I’ll see you another day. I can say I too had a love story and a disastrous one in convention. But what she took with her was a part of me and one day when that part is shining in the skies of the material world, bringing a smile to the face of many and nurturing a family with her love ,I will smile somewhere on the face of earth . It was the part of me that made me a different man, she is the part of me whom I owe my creative energy. And as for love , it will always be there, in the gentle autumn breeze that caresses her face , in the sound of music on a busy crossing that comforts her soul,in the smell of orchids on a crowded lane when she feels low and in the moments of life when a stranger kid walks up to her and gifts her a priceless innocent smile, I will live amongst them. Goodbye for now.

Years later she’ll change

A bit obese, adorably strange

With her kids,holding their hands

Killing their fights with that healing smile

And I know time would stop again for a while

She’d sing them songs as tired eyes coalesces

And moments turned into memories in lapse of eye lashes

My love will be here;for her, the rest of today may fade to ashes.

I could breathe on in pain just see her walk my isle ( again)

__END__

Subhajit Dasgupta