It was hard to get a mere glimpse of her. A glimpse of overwhelming beauty. A slim girl with the fairest face and coldest brown eyes. Hair, like a Greek goddess complimenting those facial delights. But it wasn’t just her face and her hair that caught me in awe. She had this untold aura which surpassed the little distance between our balconies. When our eyes caught each other, I fumbled a smile but she hung her head down and shyly walked away. I was crushed.
It was hard to get a mere glimpse of her. I thought maybe the timelines of our days weren’t parallel to each other. Maybe she goes to college early. Maybe she prefers the indoors as much as I prefer the outdoors. Every time I left my house, I looked at her balcony but she wasn’t there. Her door would be closed and her curtains unwelcome to the light outside. I used to start my bike a little disappointed, a little sadder each time. But I wanted more of her. I wanted to feel her aura again. I wanted to feel her profound beauty again. So I started waking up early to college. I started spending my weekends indoors more often. I couldn’t sleep at night. I kept glaring at her room lights like a stalker secretly wishing she would come out to feel the night. I was curious.
It was hard to get a mere glimpse of her. And it was starting to drive me crazy. Not because I was sacrificing sleep and my social life for her but despite all that effort, I couldn’t even see her face. I was becoming a mad scientist. I was going insane for nothing.
Days… months passed but to get a mere glimpse of her became a rarity. At times, I pondered if she’d moved away or flown abroad like most of us these days. But then I saw her father in the morning once in a while- him going to work and me to college. A sharp looking, middle aged man who embodied the look of a businessman. We exchanged greetings but never a brief conversation.
“Off to college?” he used to ask.
“Yes, uncle”, I replied.
I understood that he was a busy man and knowing how my life was going wasn’t one of his priorities. Just by looking at him and the way he walked and talked, you could tell that he had truly earned every bit of the luxury they were accommodated with. So asking him about the whereabouts of his daughter was a far cry. But if it weren’t for his daughter, who would he work like a squirrel for, every day? From what I’d heard, his wife had passed away long before they moved into the area. His daughter was the only family he had.
*****
There’s that saying- “Time heals all wounds”. Likewise, my wounds of failing to meet the woman I fell in love at first sight have been inadvertently healed by time. It had been about a year since the last time I saw her for the very first time. Society has taught us that if you work hard enough, you will eventually reach your goals, no matter the length it takes to reach it. However, she was a special case. In her case, I’d done everything to get to her and achieved nothing but a futile slap to the face.
One cannot always stay broken. Life goes on and you have to move on, no matter how hard it can be. My heart ached, my wounds turned into ugly scars- but eventually I moved on with my life while she became a bittersweet memory. However, she seemed to leave lasting impression on me. The mad scientist in me that got up early for college, spent more time indoors and stood up late at night stayed with me even after she became a faded memory. It had become a bleak repetition but due to my delusional hopes of feeling her aura again, it never felt like a chore. Things people do for love! A year of repeating the same things and the same actions made it a habit and that was my life now. I was reading more books, enjoying staying at home rather than the usual binge-drinking parties and consequently, getting better grades at college. I was a changed man.
*****
January 16, 2016. How can I forget this day? Even if I tried to, I wouldn’t be able to forget the series of events that took place on this day. It was on this day that I finally saw her face. It was also the day I finally knew her name.
It was a Saturday morning which meant I could sleep a little more than usual. But that morning, I was woken up early. I vividly remember the voices coming from the outside that grew louder and louder as I snapped out of my slumber. It was like a call you get at the middle of the night- you know it’s never good news. I got out of my bed immediately and looked outside the window. There was a crowd of people in front of her house and among that mass, she was there too. And at a flash of a moment, I remembered the things I did to see her face again. The lengths I went to feel her aura again. Waking up early on winter mornings, glaring at her room lights like a stalker at night, sacrificing sleep- things that a hopeless romantic would do. I could feel the cold wind mixed with hope same as those winter mornings. I could feel the impatience in the nocturnal silence same as those sleepless nights. It was a surge of overwhelming emotions. Because at that point, I was seeing her face but she couldn’t see me. Her eyes were closed and her body lied motionless on her deathbed.
My heart began racing heavily and the wave of emotions inside me drove my body into frenzy. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could and when I reached the gate, I could hear heart-wrenching wails coming from Shrestha uncle- “Nima! Nima!” A man of such sturdiness was down on his knees, crying his eyes out. Two of his relatives barely held him back as the others carried her body towards the ambulance waiting outside. The crowd was quiet at the time as they watched the tragedy unfold. I was silent too. The ambulance took her away and that was the last time I ever saw her. I finally got a mere glimpse of her but not the way I could’ve ever wanted.
News made the rounds that Nima had in fact taken her own life. When something like this happens, people are quiet; it’s just rumours. And rumours began to spread from one ear to another which I would then hear from my mother. She said “Nima was suffering from a “mental illness” which began to worsen after her mother’s death”.
Puzzled, I asked “What mental illness?”
“Insanity”, mother responded.
She continued “Nimaquit college and stayed bedridden most of her days. Her father tried everything for her; hospitalized her here and when that didn’t work, she was hospitalized in India.”
“What happened then?” I asked, wanting to know the complete story.
“She returned a few months later after getting much better but everything fell apart once again.”In a pitiful tone, mother grieved“she was a lost case but Shrestha uncle never stopped trying”.
*****
As I write this, two years since Nima left us for the heavens, things are not the same anymore in the Shrestha residence. Turns out she had an older brother who lived in the United States. After Nima’s death, he left everything behind in the States and moved back here to look after Shrestha uncle. But you no longer see the sturdy, sharp-looking man that left for work in the morning. Instead you see a tired man whose eyes tell you he’s been through hell. I learnt the “mental illness” she was suffering from was actually clinical depression. And I often wondered how such beauty could be contaminated by the dark side. Upon studying the subject however, I learnt that depression goes beyond looks, wealth or even success. And it’s a crime how our society ignores it and stigmatizes it. Calling them insane; making it harder for them to get back on their feet.
I constantly think about Nima. Every girl with a fair face and long brown hair I see reminds me of her. If only I could tell her how she changed a man who she didn’t even know. Maybe things would’ve gone differently. I think and think- and it only makes me sadder.
About the author – Denish Balami is an engineering student hailing from Kathmandu, Nepal. He has been into freelance writing for a while and it’s something that he genuinely enjoys doing. To him, it’s like setting the bird inside his mind free. His personal goal as a storyteller is to write about things that are taboo or topics that are frowned upon in society.
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