Shreska’s Cross Over to Another Beginning
It was no surprise those days to meet one’s life partner for the first time at one’s engagement and so was the case with Shreska. Blunt and rough in style with unflinching authority, the Biology professor, Shirish Malik, was not the gentle and loving husband she had harboured dreams of, as a young maid.
Shreska was a strong headed girl and determined to mould him into the man of her dreams. However, Shreska's life unfolded in the shadow of her workaholic and ambitious husband, and she grew submissive with time. She often complained that his salary was very low, as though she tried to replace love and attention with money to fill her heart’s lacuna.
When children came their happiness knew no bounds and for a few years it seemed they were the anchor for their relationship. Soon the joys of raising their children, Ankita and Animesh, turned into a tussle between love and discipline. While Ankita embraced her father's love for science, and relented to his strictness, Animesh, became a rebel. Showered with attention by Shreska, he grew into an entitled and narcissistic young man.
Emboldened by the strong defence from his mother, Animesh’s demands grew, from latest gadgets to super expensive bikes. If the parents tried to negotiate he threatened his mother that he would leave the house for good. It's no fault of the child reared with an imbalance of love and discipline to exhibit such an egocentric behaviour. The more she would defend their son to Shirish, the louder their arguments were and broader the rift between the couple.
Through troughs and crests the years passed by, Ankita got married and left for the US to pursue post-doctoral education while Animesh took up a job in Delhi in a Software MNC, after completing his graduation.
When her son’s marriage was arranged, Shreska was beyond herself with happiness. Shirish’s reaction was, however, in total contrast. At the various wedding ceremonies, he was barely in attendance. Even when he was present, he surrounded himself with his students from the university with no interest in the family gathering or rituals.
After the newly-wed couple and guests left, the void in Shreska’s life grew menacingly. She tried to express her need to Shirish for his engaged presence in her life but Shirish was obsessed with his growing fame. As though to spite her, he would bring colleagues home, to work till late hours. The neglect she endured over the years reached a breaking point, culminating in a bitter argument one evening, that led Shreska to leave the house without money or her phone.
What returned home after three days of frantic search by the police and family, was her dead body, badly mutilated from being overrun by a train.
Painfully but decidedly, Shreska had crossed over to the other side of life, perhaps a new beginning for her soul. Will her end trigger a new beginning for the dysfunctional family she left behind?
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