The Dark Night

It's not at all easy to revisit your darkest hours and it's even more difficult to share it with others, even your loved ones. It's a miracle, I am able to do so with my listeners around the world. The aim of narrating my story is to give you a glimpse of everything a person goes through, so we all be considerate next time we come across someone.

Tune in to hear for yourself about the moment where I lost my life completely and how the world looked back then and how have I reached the point where I am today. Your support is much needed.

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Podcast Episode 9

“Nagme hain, shikve hain, kisse hain, baatein hain.

Baatein bhool jaati ha, yaadein yaad aati hain.

Yeh yaadein kisi dilo jaanam ke chale jaane ke baad aati hain…

Yaadein, yaadein, yaadein”

A big round of applause to all the brave people who managed after my singing attempt. Hello everyone, how are you doing? The festival season is around the corner in India and though 2020 has not been that great a year, we have lots to feel grateful about as well.  Like there are so many people who are struggling for ends to meet, we, the privileged ones, atleast have our loved ones with us, food to feed us and roof on our heads. Let’s be content with this much, this year and take it as a breather to step back and analyze our journeys so far.

 Now while we are doing so, allow me take you to April 2015, when my journey spiraled out of control, I tumbled down and fell really hard in an oblivion which seemed like a black hole sucking me in from all directions. I request you all to please stay with me, while for the first time ever, I speak about this time frame in such detail and depth. Please bear with me and support like you always do. Even the thought of doing so has made me anxious and while I jotted down my pointers, my hands were shaking. 

So here it goes. By now, you all know Mr. K and I had an arrange marriage. We had an amazing courtship time of almost 4 months, where we dated, we snooped out of our houses to meet each other at odd hours, in those days we managed to sneak away from any family functions we attended to steal those precious 15 minutes we can get with each other. We were in dreamland and you name it, we did it. Maybe, someday I will walk you through my love story as well. 

Later in April 2012, we got married. After numerous family gatherings, lunches, fights, making up, holidays, career developments, in March 2015, we finally agreed to plan our family. We had just bought a new house for ourselves and our third anniversary was just few days away, so all in all it seemed like a good timing. We were happy, we were discussing the interiors of our new home, what furniture to put in, what colors the paint would be and thought of a child which we hadn’t even conceive back then made us ecstatic. We both were looking forward to life like every other person.

Meanwhile around the same time we received another happy news of my cousin getting engaged, I and my cousin have been really close since childhood so with this news pouring in, life seemed on getting rosier by day. Wedding was to happen soon in coming May, so everyone got to it immediately. With all the madness around, we ensured our anniversary plans remained uninterrupted so we planned well in advance. We were on cloud nine, mostly because of taking a step forward in our relationship towards being parents.

Soon came our anniversary month, which also happens to be my birthday month. As much as everything seemed normal, there were certain things getting little crazy. Like, I was to give a classical performance and I needed to step out for rehearsals, which required me and Mr.K to stay away from each other for some 5-6 hours, which was otherwise normal for us, since no one can stay 24 hours together as well, but that day both of us cried profusely over phone, unexplainably and unbearably. We left all our work and reached back home, where we hugged through the night. 

April was full of such incidents, like I cried whenever radio played some sad romantic songs and ended up calling Mr. K who would eventually either come to me wherever I was at that moment or would be waiting with a wide grin while hugging me like some long lost teddy bear now found, or like while he was at home, he would not be able to bear me away from him for even a moment, I literally chopped vegetables while watching tv with him on bed while he sliced fruits for me. My mother in law and sister in law even joked about getting both of us glued. We lived in a big house with my in-laws, and within the same house, he used to call on my phone if he seems to have lost me for a minute or so. We anyways worked together professionally, so because we went cuckoo for each other, we spent the April pretty much glued to each other.

It was 22nd April 2015, Mr.K was not feeling great so, we were working from home that day. My cousin’s wedding was approaching and suddenly on that same day he was after my life to go for my dress trials, while I didn’t want to leave him, he won the argument and I left along with my mother in law and sister in law for the fittings. After an hour or so, we received a call from my brother-in-law that Mr.K was feeling even more dizzy and how he has fell down. He tried to calm us, he told us he had feed him some food and had asked him to lie down, so we need not worry. But obviously we panicked and left for home. I remember I had a terrible headache that day, and quite opposite to my usual behavior of rushing to Mr.K as soon as I reach home, I prepared a tea for myself and ate something first. Within minutes I was better and by that time Mr.K also got up, we looked at each other and he pointed me to finish first while he was going towards our bedroom. I gobbled the leftover food and went after him. 

And in the next 30 seconds, he fell down on the floor again. This time he was not able to move, he just kept mumbling and was continuously looking at me, all his focus shifted towards my face and though in that moment, he could only look sideways his gaze was fixed on me. We all moved him from floor to bed, while my brother in law called for an ambulance, I sat with his head in my lap. His eyes were moving from our engagement picture which we had on our bed’s headboard wall to me. Simultaneously, he was making some sounds and he often used to do so to tease me instead of explicitly telling me what he wants, while I was crying, I wanted all this to be one of his nonsense practical pranks he used to pull on me. I kept on asking him, what’s wrong but only the same mumbling and gazing with tears even in his eyes. This continued for good 4-5 minutes and suddenly he stopped.

I shouted and everyone gathered in my room, we all tried every trick in the book, we tried whatever CPR we knew, we tried summoning all the higher powers we believed in, but right in my lap, on our 3-year engagement anniversary he was gone. Just like that.

We all were in denial, I don’t know what gave me those strengths in my arms, I carried Mr.K along with my brother-in-law to the lift and then we took him to hospital while the emergency team refused to do so, because they knew what we were not accepting. But still, we pressed. I, alone, went in the ambulance with him, and my brother in law brought my mother in law in another car because she too has fainted by then. On our way to hospital I was continuously chanting, begging hospital nurses for putting Mr.K on oxygen and shouting on the people who were crowding the ambulance, the moment we reached to the hospital Mr.K was taken to resurrection room, my denial made me further furious with this and they tricked me with some made up thing. I spoke to any doctor whoever came out and told them about his entire routine for that day, non-stop. Everybody tried their best to calm me down. Soon, my parents and closed ones started pouring in. My parents were in shock themselves and felt helpless, they cried and cried. One of my very close uncle took me to Mr.K and made me look at him, so that I accept it, while all I did was hold his hands, I touched my cheeks with his hands and spoke about the night before when he made me wear all the wedding dresses, especially his favorite one. For me it was impossible for any such thing to happen, so I refused.

I was not calming down, I was hell bent on staying with Mr.K, I was not stepping away from him and that’s what they needed to take things forward. My father and my brother in law had no option but to trick me and send me home, while promising to bring Mr.K back home. I got home, got dressed in a suit which he loved on me, made his favorite juice, but I was angry about the people who have started swarming our home. I checked with my sister in law and she too made up something to calm me. After sometime Mr.K did come home, but not the way I ever wanted to, we ever wanted to. Yet, I was not accepting, for me he was on some medication which was making him stay in this slumber. In my country we do not cremate after sunset, so he stayed with us the entire night, while others cried for him, I hugged him super tight throughout the night, hoping that it would wake him up for sure. It was the longest, darkest night of my life so far. 

My father in law resides in Lagos for most of the time due to work reasons, I spoke to him over phone, he told me he is on the first flight back home and will be there soon. I, Mr.K and my father in law are super close, so I was sure that now only he can wake up Mr.K. I don’t remember how many hours were there in that night, between literally dragging me away from Mr.K, to slapping me so that I wake up from this trance, from me rushing back to Mr.K while he didn’t move an inch to the dreadful morning where we were torn apart while all I could do was yell his name again and again. My entire world was crushed in a span of those 30 seconds. All the roses vanished. All of a sudden, I was sitting in a space where all I could see around was emptiness, black mass, all my hands could feel were hollow spaces or sometimes the crumbs of my universe. That day and for many days to come, I felt that emptiness in chest, pain in heart, and all the agony, poets always speak about in their poetry. I was in a state of free fall, I so needed something to hold on to, but as soon as I reached out all I caught was blank spaces. My anchor was gone, and I didn’t know where I was.

23rd April 2012 my mehendi day, a very auspicious occasion in Indian wedding and the same day 3 years later became my husband’s cremation day. 24th April 2012, my wedding day, was one of the happiest days of my life, became the saddest day of my existence. I used to smell him, in his clothes, hugged his pillow, wore his clothes, followed his complete routine, talked to his pictures, listened to his audio messages, video messages on loop, cried until my eyes gave up, and everyday woke up with the recurring thought of my rose filled world, which shattered every time when I had to look at his picture instead of his face as the first thing in the morning. 

After 13 days of rituals, both set of my parents decided it was better for me to return to my parent’s house. For days I remained in darkness, in my bed, staring at ceilings, refusing to eat, bathe, refusing to meet anyone. Everyone was worried, they had no clue of how to snap me out of it. All of them enrolled in a course which they heard Mr.K and I were talking about some months ago. It did help a bit, I met really nice people, two of them are really great friends of mine, but it took me 3.5 years to finally sleep again without having to cry myself for it, 3.5 years for me to look into mirror and tell myself I am not just a widow, 3.5 years to rise above my circumstances.

You must be wondering why am I sharing all this with everyone, first of all today I have spoken about many things that I haven’t shared anywhere else or with anyone else, it was difficult beyond words but I think it was needed. And second, I shared, to give everyone listening a hope, a hope that things might seem bleak right now, or might not be making any sense, but stay put, don’t try too hard, just stay there. Time causes the greatest hurt and is undoubtedly the best healer too. And third, the reason for sharing my darkest night is to request many many people out there, who find it super easy to say, move on, who find it completely normal to say, with your partner gone why do you need to keep ties with that family, , why do you still care about that family, why do you still think about him or her, why do you meet them, why this, why that and endless whys, I request all of you, to let people around you heal, give them their “own” time and space to bounce back. You are just adding to our suffering and nothing else. Don’t try to snatch away the remaining bits and pieces that we have. It’s a process, it’s easier said than done.  

I am myself scared; you know. Quite contrary to everyone’s belief I do not fear about comparing Mr.K with anyone who I might meet next, because I am mature enough to understand that no two persons can ever be alike. But the thought of will I ever feel loved again is scary and then, even if I do, the thought of giving everything again to someone and then losing it again is terrifying enough. I hear people saying when the right time and right person will come, all fears will vanish away. And over the time, I have put my belief into it. I took my own sweet time, then thought there is no harm in putting my faith into it, because magic does happen and I am waiting for mine to happen. 

Mr.K once told me no one can ever stand for you, they can support you, guide you but you have to walk yourself, stand for yourself. His voice keeps echoing in my ears and whenever I struggle, I can feel him guiding me through life, I am certain about it. So, here I am. I am at a better place now, I am happy with my own self, and believe things are going to get better now. I would say, just believe guys, I know it’s hard and everything might be looking impossible right now, but don’t give up on yourself, I am rooting for you all and so must you.

Well, thank you guys, thank you for letting me share my darkest parts with you, because it’s really hard to come across people with whom you can actually pour your heart out. This brings to the end of this episode and next episode, episode 10 will be the end of season 1 for ranting and relieving. Don’t miss it! You guys can write in with any questions, messages, feedback or any comments at thescribbledsolace@gmail.com, or you can get in touch on Instagram, my handle goes by the name of @thescribbledsolace.

 Now see you on next Wednesday, keep supporting me like you always do. Time to say goodbyes, but like always I have one request guys, if you liked me, liked this episode, then do subscribe, rate and review Ranting and Relieving. Podcasts heavily rely on word of mouth, so do share it with your friends, family, colleagues and anybody you know. Help them discover this podcast on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Buzzsprout, iHeartRadio and all major providers out there. Lastly, keep listening to Ranting and Relieving, pls pls pls, subscribe, rate, review and most importantly stay tuned. This is me Shefali signing off, until next time.