Barf-ka-gola

 ..."I feel this marriage is failing." His words echoed like a shrill noise in my ears. 

I was standing with a melted "barf-ka-gola" in my hand, huge pile of questions in my mind and a drowned heart full of pain and fright while he walked away ragefully. At that moment, he felt like a stranger to me. A person I did not know or loved, ever. 

"Since when is our marriage, a failure? How come I never felt it? Why all of a sudden? Because of a demotion in job? Am I the reason? Because of all the fights? Did I not understand him? May be--

may be this is just his frustration. He has worked hard. And that's why he might be upset. He will be okay once he settles down." 

All of these doubtful yet defending thoughts just rushed inside me and my mind quickly found a consoling escape from reality. We all do, right?

I threw away my melted, half-eaten, compromised barf-ka-gola and went home. 

For the next few months after he had suddenly vanished, I found myself frequently crushing on the floor, screaming and wailing, again and again.I felt- destroyed. I felt- betrayed. I felt- numb. I don't remember for how long I had stopped thinking, speaking or feeling anything. 

But I do remember that there were lot of cries, shivers and nightmares. There were quiet mornings and dreadful nights. There were sombre evenings and again horrifying nights. There were self-doubts and questions. So many of them. "What if this never ends? What if he never comes back? What if he has found someone else? What if he is dead?" My life felt like a dark, unending disaster to me. There was agony and a miserable downfall, 

until that one evening- 

when I was walking home from work and stumbled upon a toy. I picked it up and gave it to the child who came running towards me, took it and went inside a stadium which appeared to be a 'Mela' (funfair). 

I don't know what came to my mind but I just headed towards it. I stepped inside to find people with cheerful eyes, smiling faces and joyous screams around me.There were vivid lights and luminous colours gazing at me through their happiness. And there in a corner, I saw a crowd laughing and celebrating their existence with a"barf ka gola". It was all red, green, yellow and orange piece of cold delight. It was surrounded by soft giggles, unsaid romances and a low-key fun. And here I was, watching all of it and thinking about the last time I had a" barf-ka-gola". I remembered it to be melted, half-eaten, crushed and soaked into pain. I remembered it to be something frightening and malignant."I feel this marriage is failing..." His words again echoed in my ears.

But this time, something gave me the strength to walk towards that "thela" and ask one for myself. Only for myself.

I soaked the juice, took a bite of the frigid red coloured ice and watched people around me, still hopping with immense bliss and merriment. And at that fine moment, something in me just changed. Something, that I felt deeply inside me after so so long. Something that was mere beautiful and satisfying. It was nothing grand. Nothing huge. Nothing Magical. Just the usual me, having a usual 'Barf-ka-gola'. It felt cold but it gave me "the sweetest relief." As if I could breathe after so long. As if the whole world has gathered to take me into its arms, to hold me tightly and to tell me that "the sky is yours now and its waiting for you!" 

I found myself in tears but with a wide smile on my face. I ate it, I screamed with extreme joy, I hugged a little child for no reason at all, I filled my eyes with all the dazzling colours and the magnificent lights, I danced with strangers, I rode the ferris and looked at the world from top, I waived the sky, I screamed again and again and again but freely! 

And in that moment, I was born again. But this time, I wanted to live. 

Life grants us two choices, I feel. 

One: A choice to live in an imaginary world where there is always an alibi or a lie that would make us feel good for the time being, 

where there is sacrifice of our respect and trust just to hide from reality and give us a temporary smile. 

And two: A choice where there is freedom, self-love, strength and yes, a painful reality. 

Where there is a heavy storm but with a rainbow afterwards. Where there is bare land but beautiful roses afterwards.

But our mind always makes the first choice. Because we feel that not accepting the reality now would eventually make things better. 

And life? Ha! It surely has better plans for us.

It grabs our hand, pulls us out of our Cinderella fairytale and tells us that we are larger than all of this. That we are made for a world where there are challenges and sufferings but here, only we are responsible for them and no one else. We are made for a world which is filled with self-love, victories and greatness of life. 

A world that belongs to us. Wholly, without any backseats. 

A world where miracles exist but we are their creators. A world where there are people who fill our souls with strength and our hearts with their magical love.

And life makes us realize all of this someday or the other. But what makes me wonder the most is that: it does not give us a grand ocassion to realise this. Sometimes just a small incident is enough to make us feel alive again, to make us feel that "sweetest relief", to make us feel lost in the harmony of love. Love that is created by us, only for ourselves. 

Afterall, its comes down to nothing but acceptance of reality.

Afterall, its comes down to nothing but that one "Barf-ka-gola".