The Love Game, Season 2: Episode 5

 

Somewhere far away,

In another galaxy,

The truth of love will unfold.

It won't only take away the heartache,

It will release her from the bondage of her habitat

"What would happen without you Prantik? I was a zombie for two years. I became indifferent to people. I saw a world with uncaring people, I lost track of time and suffered a writer's block. I started dating randomly just to push your thoughts away from me. I put on unhealthy weight and my wishes dried up. I became cold and lifeless, just like the blossoms on trees in winters and I still love you."

Jahnvi's painful cry reverberated in Prantik's ears. Her cry took over his entire being. It was 2 am and a day after the party. He had joined Joyce and Wreathes, an engineering firm in Panvel. Prantik lived in town and the long travel from work to back was taking a toll on him.

It was a Sunday and he didn't feel like getting out at all. He just wanted to rest it out. He tried to relax in bed but Jahnvi's confession of her life without him was ringing constantly in his ears. What had he done?

The sense of loss, the overwhelming loneliness, detachment from human connections and relationships over a period of two years had rocked Jahnvi's boat in his absence. She was no longer the same sweet Jahnvi he had known. She had definitely matured and for the unfortunate like him, she had become cold to proximity.

Thinking about her state of mind, Prantik shivered for a second because he had noticed the change in her behaviour in a matter of minutes, the change in her tonality towards him and the way she had said cautiously, "It's too late Prantik, I am not the same Jahn."

He bolted from his bed suddenly realizing that in trying to make her independent inorganically, his absence had somewhere cut through her heart and stripped her apart.

Generations of women in India were born to get married and live a life dependent on their Husbands. Yet, Indian women were moulded in a perplexed manner where, in spite of their husbands calling the shots, they had an apparent sense of strength that showed in the way they brought up their kids and maintained the harmony at home. Their values, their culture, their traditions they learned from their mothers all transcended into them becoming the silent warriors of a man's domestic legacy.

When their counter parts pass away, they aren't broken into pieces but are taught to pick up the pieces and start a new life all grounded in the circumference of their children and relatives. In the case of modern women, they found that circumference in their work and friends. Protected like calves all their lives, they show their true grit when their husbands or children falter. However modern, an Indian woman will truly and always remain the bespoke power of her life and that of her husband, her children and her family.

Then who was he to try and change his Jahn? Her quiet strength that he was thinking about and saw in American woman was right there with his Jahn all along. He misunderstood her love for attachment and now he was responsible for turning her into a cold hearted young woman.

His uncalled for interference in the way she was had changed her to become indifferent because now she didn't trust humanity or even for that matter his love for her.

Can you challenge a woman to live without a man and she will succeed? The answer is yes. But can you expect a man to live without his woman? The answer is no.

Jahnvi had seen the cruel reality of life instead of tasting good freedom because all of this time she was burdened with his love. Had he passed away after marriage, would she have been so cold and indifferent? The answer came and slapped him on his face - No!

He had expected her to be righteous and independent knowing he was there in the periphery. His intent was not wrong but his way was wrong. Why did he expect her to mature before time? Why did she lose control of her life in his absence was because what he had done was unexpected.

He was wrong. And Jahnvi had paid the brunt of his wrong. He had not only pushed her into stop loving him but he had thrown her over the edge of a cliff where she wasn't able to love anybody else as well!

Do you know what it means to love someone and not have them around you? He could now understand what Jahnvi was going through. The cerebral shift from wanting something to a sudden sense of loss without any reasoning had dimmed her light. Had restricted her progress in her writing. (The one thing he knew was her way of life.) she was born to write. And like any true writer, her sense of loss had prevented her from imagining her stories for the longest time.

Prantik, now sitting upright on his bed, could not even fathom the mammoth sense of deprivation of her right to be happy that Jahnvi felt without him. For fuck sake, if he wanted to test her independence, he could have broken up with her. He could have parted his ways for sometime but cutting off for two years without notice had submerged her feelings and emotions.

The psychological battle she must have fought to grieve his loss or the inferiority she must have felt to think she wasn't enough for him made him crawl in his bed with shame. He thought, "Why did he want to change something about Jahnvi when she was functioning perfectly well organically?!" Prantik didn't think he could take the fact of ruining her life any minute.

Jahn was battling depression. She was suffering from acute loneliness, she was fighting their sense of broken relationship and she had faced the challenges of escapism through Tinder. What Prantik's one misguided step had done was to cut a rose from its roots.

That's why she turned cold at the party. What she must have gone through without him must have ruled her memory and now her trauma was not letting her see the brighter side of life. She had become a log of wood, just flowing in the river forest like water.

Instead of wanting her back and pleading her to forgive him, he had to heal her. He had to take the responsibility to protect her healing phase now. He would do it. Just like how he now promised to protect her dearly after marriage, he would go all out and become her friend. Not want anything in return. If she wanted, they would part ways forever and he would never intrude her privacy. But right now his Jahn needed to heal. She had to see the positive side of life, she had to see the optimism in every moment and become her happy self again.

That minute, all Prantik wanted was to heal his girl. Even if he lost her in transition, never mind, he would happily give her away to the best suitor there was for her. He would live alone for the rest of his life because loved he had only her.

It was Nishant's wedding getaway in a few weeks and Jahn would be there. He would take it from there.