A Messed-Up Life

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Eight Years Ago
Mumbai, India

    I don't know if my life experiences during my early teens were similar to those of others of that age. Life at sixteen was dominated by the dysfunctional envoirment created by a worrying mother and a careless, alcoholic father. It was not new —I had survived it for as long as I could remember.
   When I returned home from school, I always hear my mother and father quarrelling with each other💔
My little brother, Vivaan, who was eight years younger than me, used to lock himself up in his room, pretending to study. Only I seemed to know how petrified he was of the vicious fights between our parents. I used to cheer him up by playing his favourite video games with him.
  My Father, Ranvijay Singhania, had lost all his money when his import-export business went down due to a case of fraud. Now, he was down to his last savings. His income was almost insufficient to support the family and the burden seemed to have caused a permenant slump in his shoulders. This made me despise my father sometimes. He was smart but idled away his time, content with the financial support from my mother's family. My father mostly stayed at home, often drinking into the night. My mother's family advised her to separate or seek divorce from him but she could never muster the courage to do so. My mother was afraid it would turn her into a social pariah and would rather continue to portray the false image of us being a perfect family. She was from that order which believed a woman's identity was that of a wife —forever orbiting around a husband and family life. Once a woman was married, she had no home other than that of her husband's. Even if she did separate from my father, society would continue to question her identity as a mother. Nobody would want to marry off their daughters to her sons who had been raised without a father.
    My maternal relatives ensured that we didn't die of hunger. The scraps in my father's bank account were hardly sufficient to pay off our utility bills and household expenses. Harman mama (uncle), my mother's elder and only brother, bore the most of our expenses. He had told my mother that i shouldn't enrol for the state-certified matriculation if I wanted to study and work abroad. He'd even promised my mother that he'd send me abroad once I graduated with a bachelor's degree. Since then, my mother was impatiently waiting for me to grow up, study hard and fly abroad for a better future for all of us. I'd sworn to myself that once I had made it in life, I'd pay off the debt to Harman mama and get rid of the burden.
   The credit goes to Harman mama for ensuring that I studied at such a good school. I looked forward to school every morning. It gave me an avenue for escape where I could dump the dysfunctionality of home and catch glimpses of Taani— the only girl on the fave of this earth who held a secret power over me. I fell in love with Taani Shikhawat at the very first sight and forgot all my troubles. She changed me and my life without even knowing it and gave it a new meaning. I have Harman mama to thank that I got a chance to see Taani, to know her as a person. I still vividly remember the first time I met her in School😍

 I still vividly remember the first time I met her in School😍

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VIVAAN SINGHANIA:
Rey's Little brother...

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