Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny

by Preeti Shenoy

  Life is

  What You

  Make it

  Books by the same author

  34 Bubblegums and Candies

  Tea for Two and a Piece of Cake

  The Secret Wishlist

  The One You Cannot Have

  Life is

  What You

  Make it

  Preeti Shenoy

  westland ltd

  61, 2nd Floor, Silverline Building, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600 095

  No. 38/10 (New No.5), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout, Bengaluru 560 026

  93, 1st Floor, Sham Lal Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002

  First published by Srishti Publishers & Distributors, 2011

  This e-book edition published by westland ltd, 2014

  Copyright © Preeti Shenoy 2011

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-93-84030-62-9

  Typeset in AGaramond by Srishti

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person living or dead, events and locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Invictus

  Prologue

  A new world

  Nothings gonna stop us now

  Election Selection

  Girl on a Motorcycle

  Life is what you make it

  The needle swings

  Destiny changes in moments

  Ready to fly

  Never Belittle Love

  Racing ahead

  Dancing in the dark

  The descent

  A stop gap relationship

  The day something died

  Deeper down the bottomless pit

  The ink blots

  The light goes out

  A plan for a final exit

  No way out

  A tiny ray of hope

  Faith is a powerful thing

  One step at a time

  I am the master of my fate

  Epilogue

  Author's Notes

  For Satish, Atul and Purvi,

  without them I am nothing.

  For Dad and Mom who give me strength.

  For my closest friends Ajay and Cherissa

  who accept me as I am.

  INVICTUS

  William Ernest Henley

  Out of the night that covers me,

  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

  I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul.

  In the fell clutch of circumstance

  I have not winced nor cried aloud.

  Under the bludgeonings of chance

  My head is bloody, but unbowed.

  Beyond this place of wrath and tears

  Looms but the Horror of the shade,

  And yet the menace of the years

  Finds and shall find me unafraid.

  It matters not how strait the gate,

  How charged with punishments the scroll,

  I am the master of my fate;

  I am the captain of my soul.

  Prologue

  I wait my turn on the chair outside the doctor's office. The psychiatrist, to be precise. The so-called expert. We have travelled all the way from Bombay to Bangalore to make this trip. Getting an appointment here is like getting an appointment to meet the Pope at the Vatican City. I don't know how many months one has to wait to get an appointment for that. I am told many months. For this visit, dad had to pull a whole lot of strings. Finally one of his oldest friends managed to get it. It is one of the best mental health care centres in India. Or so I have been told. Perhaps it is. Every magazine and every newspaper seems to mention it and quote its expert doctors on anything to do with mental health.

  The drive to this place itself is beginning to seem ominous. The road lined with large trees, spreading their branches covering the place with gloom, as our hired car makes its way, it makes me want to get down and run. But I do no such thing. I sit and watch my surroundings. There is a blue board with large white letters proclaiming the name of the mental health institute, which is spread over a sprawling campus of ten acres, full of old buildings with fading yellow paint, dingy corridors, trees, bushes, even a cafeteria and scores of vehicles in which patients arrive with their families in search of hope. In me, there is none left. There is only despondency and an increasing feeling of frustration.

  We pass a large building brandishing a board which proclaims it is some kind of a guest house. I notice the peeling paint again. The car passes the other buildings, the Psychiatry ward, the Casualty and Emergency services, the De-addiction centre, the General ward, the Observation ward and the pale yellow cottages called units for some in-house patients. It looks like any other hospital and there is nothing to suggest that it is a mental hospital, except of course if you observe the signs and the people. I hate it all. It fills me with a kind of dread. I don't belong here. I ought not to even be here in the first place. But I am, and there is nothing I can do about it.

  The driver parks the car and we enter a building which is an out- patient screening block. It has more than a hundred people and their families, all waiting. The faint stench of human odour which emanates when bodies are packed together, hits my nostril and I hold my breath involuntarily. My dad approaches the counter and joins the serpentine queue which seems to be inching forward at the pace of a snail and I read the board at the entrance on which the following is written in bold letters:

  “Patients visiting National Mental Health Institute for the first time are requested to register themselves at this block for consultation/ treatment.

  Registration is carried out between 8:00 A.M and 11:00 A.M on all days except Sundays and certain specific holidays.

  Please observe queue.”

  I realize with a sinking feeling that the patient now refers to me. I feel helpless. I feel lost. I feel angry.

  And in my mind I think that the whole mental health institute thing is bull shit. Hype. They talk nonsense and have no clue as to what they are doing or saying. I don't want to be here. I don't want to see any psychiatrist or doctor. My opinion now does not matter anymore. I had my chance and I screwed it up badly. Now I have no choice except to listen to my parents and go along with whatever they suggest. So much for my attempts at being independent. So much for my attempts at being an adult.

  I sit between my mother and father. I feel like a kid but I am 21, a full grown adult. At least technically. The chair is made of metal and feels cold. I try to hide the scars on my wrist, and adjust the broad leather strap of my watch, out of habit. Curious stares and worse, the looks of pity irk me. I don't want any of it. Especially, not now. Especially, not today. I don't regret my past actions at all. Physical pain is far easier to bear than mental agony. To be really honest, if I had another chance I think I would do it again. I look at the anguish on my dad's face and the look of constant worry on my mother's brow, just like those unwanted notices stuck on the roadside walls. I don't feel sorry for them at all, though I am supposed to be. I don't even wish I could erase them. I don't want to comfort them or mak
e them feel better. I am helpless. Beyond caring. I don't give a damn. I want it all to end. I don't want to see yet another doctor. I am tired of it all. What is this doctor going to tell me that others haven't?

  I loathe them all. The whole lot of them. They know nothing. My face is expressionless. I am incapable of feeling empathy. It is as though my heart has turned to wood. Rotting, festering wood that gnaws at the core of my being and threatens to drag me in. I was not like this. But that was then and this is now.

  I look at the other patients waiting their turns outside. There are at least one hundred and sixty or maybe more. The waiting room is actually a long cavernous hall about fifty feet by thirty feet and there are iron chairs arranged in rows, one behind the other. It seems like the waiting room at a railway station and just as crowded too. There is a guy sitting on the chair with his arms round his legs, rocking back and forth, back and forth. There is a girl who looks around my age staring listlessly outside. “I am not like you. I won elections in my college. I used to be the Secretary of the Arts Association. I was doing my management from a fine business school. I am not like you all.” I want to scream at all of them. I want to tell them that I am a somebody, at least in my world which consists of college, home, friends, fun, movies—the normal world, not this hospital where people who cannot cope come to seek help. I am ‘educated’, superior, knowledgeable, and smart. The pathetic, helpless situation that I am finding myself in is somehow making me want to prove that I am better than all of them. But it feels like somebody has stuffed a cloth in my mouth to prevent me from talking. I am unable to say anything. At the back of my mind I also realize that in reality, maybe I am in no way better than them. I am a nobody. Here I am just a patient, waiting in turn with scores of others, waiting simply to see the doctor.

  My gaze becomes transfixed on a middle aged man who cannot stop making small circulatory motions with his thumb. The air is dry, suffocating and oppressive. Outside, it is bright but shady. The psychiatrist inside will assess me and decide the next course of action

  What does he know? Can he look into my head? Does he even know what I am going through? Does medical school teach you to feel another's pain or step into their shoes? Most of the doctors I have spoken to are impersonal and clinical. They are trained to be so. I highly doubt if this one is going to be any different.

  Eventually, the nurse calls out my patient number. No one gives a damn about my name or what I used to be. I rise to enter his office. So do my parents. The doctor speaks to us. My dad is explaining my ‘symptoms’. I wince. That is not how it is, I want to scream. But I don't want them to think that I am out of control. So I dig my finger nails into my skin to prevent me from talking. I grit my teeth and listen. The doctor asks my dad and mom to wait outside.

  Then he looks at me. He looks nice. He is young. He seems kind but that does not fool me. He is just a professional asshole being paid to assess me. I decide to co-operate. It is the best way.

  Then he starts asking questions. I detest someone prying into my life like this. I hate having to go through all this, again.

  He starts off with mundane questions. Childhood, School, College.

  I look at him dully. I don't feel like telling him anything.

  “Look,” he says. “I need to enter all this info here. Do you want to tell me or do you want me to ask your parents?”

  I feel trapped, cornered, exasperated and suddenly very tired. I just want it to end.

  So I start to answer.

  1

  A new world

  1989

  July 3rd Cochin

  Dear Vaibhav,

  I am really happy that you have got into IIT-D.

  Why can't parents be a bit more understanding? How I wish I could study in Delhi. I know I can easily get into LSR with my academic record. What fun will it be to hang out together!

  But my mother says no. My dad seconds her. They want me to study here.

  The college is not really bad. It is the best in the state and the oldest too. It is a matter of prestige if you get in here. My parents have not stopped boasting to anyone who will listen that I have got into St. Agnes. It will start a week's time.

  I miss our gang in school. I wish my dad had not got a transfer here. We could still have been together then.

  Take care

  Ankita

  1989

  July 9th Delhi

  Dearest Ankita,

  We have to accept the things that we cannot change. I miss you a lot.

  I got your letter just now and I am replying immediately.

  My orientation is tomorrow. I am excited! I cannot believe I am an IITian now! I love the campus, the hostel and everything else.

  I tried calling you. But your mother hung up on me. Looks like I will have to wait for your letters. It reaches me only on the 5th day of your posting it. Five days is so long! But it is better than nothing I guess.

  Do tell me how you like your college. It must have started by the time my letter reaches you.

  Luv

  Vaibhav

  Before the advent of the Internet or computers, we wrote letters by hand and waited eagerly for the postman to deliver one. Those were the days of epic television drama serials like Buniyaad and programmes like Chitrahaar, when television meant just one national channel and when video cassettes recorders were still in vogue.

  Looking back I am surprised. Given how conservative, strict and Indian my parents were, they actually allowed me to write letters to a boy, considering the fact that I was not permitted to invite boys home or to visit any boy's house, even if I was with a group of girls. When my gang consisting of four boys and three girls, were going out for a movie and for ice-creams letter, after my class 12 Board Exams, I was the only one not permitted to go. Perhaps, they let me write letters as no one would see them whereas going out for a movie or ice creams meant that people would see and they would talk.

  The first felling I had when I entered the college gates was that of breathlessness. I had hurried to make it in time for the first day at college. I could not believe that my school days were actually over and I was officially a college student.

  No more school uniforms. No more strict rules. No more being treated as a kid. I would be 18 on my next birthday and officially an adult. I felt excited as legally it meant I was eligible to marry and vote. The flip side immediately struck me too. I would no longer be a juvenile and could be arrested too Of course, at that time I had no idea how dangerously close I'd come to it. It was an exhilarating felling — like a caterpillar emerging out of a cocoon. I could hardly wait.

  It would take at least twenty pages of writing to describe my college to Vaibhav.

  The buildings were smart, modern and pristinely clean. There was a solitary tree in the middle of the courtyard, standing proudly, on which hung a bell. A circular platform went around the tree and some students were sitting on it, some standing, and all chattering excitedly. The bell would be rung throughout the day to indicate the end of a period.

  The campus area was about five acres and the building had expanded vertically. There were three wings— the old, the new and the hostels. The old wing had spellbinding architecture and I gazed at its beautiful arches. This wing also housed the very large, well equipped library spread over three floors, the administrative offices and the principal's office, apart from the various counters for collecting forms, paying fees and other things associated with an academic institution. Four spotless wooden showcases with crystal clear glass proudly displayed the gleaming, glittering trophies that Agnites had won over the past eighty years. The trophies spilled over to two deep brown rosewood antique tables too. It instilled in me a kind of awe and respect, something similar to what one feels when one enters a building that belongs to the Armed forces in the country. It was a very positive and vibrant feeling. I could even see my reflection in the polished wood.

  The auditorium was large and easily accommodated all the students. The stage was done up with
élan and there was the college logo, a huge crest which proclaimed the motto of the college with pride. The audio system, the speakers and the whole set up was very impressive. So was the Principal of the college, a nun named Sister Evangeline who welcomed us in perfect English, telling us about the college, its history, its achievement, its vision, its aim and the high standards expected of each Agnite. I began to feel pride slowly stirring in me.

  Never in my life had I seen so many women or girls in one place. Throughout my life I had studied in co-educational schools where men were a part of my world. Suddenly being thrust into an atmosphere without any, had taken me completely by surprise Everywhere I turned, looked or went it was women, women and more women. The college must have had at least three thousand students and it seemed as if almost all of them had turned up at the college auditorium for the welcome and induction at the start of the new academic year. I remember staring in wonder and thinking that it meant 6000 breasts and 3000 vaginas were in the auditorium. I smiled to myself at my wicked thought.

  I looked forward eagerly to the classes that would begin soon.

  2

  Nothings gonna stop us now

  How do groups get formed in colleges? Some say that you gravitate instinctively towards people you can relate to and then gradually over the months a bond develops.It was not like that with my class. It felt as though a snooker player had hit a single hard strike and we, like the snooker balls, had scattered in all directions, random balls coming together with no pre-determined plan. But of course, in reality, each shot is planned with precision and each strike is made with a purpose, and on deeper contemplation you realize that the balls came together for a reason after all.