Not a Typical Paki Woman

Insecure. Jealous. Possessive. Mistrusting. He was fuming with rage and contempt, calling her all that she never wanted him to say right to her face. ‘I have no feelings for you anymore. You have made me un-love you. Are you happy now?’ His voice was echoing through the empty hallway. She was standing barefoot in the kitchen, wide-eyed, numb, cold, fighting with guilt, self-hatred, and a gnawing sense of loss. ‘Have I lost him?’

‘You too are a typical Paki woman, playing with a man’s feelings with all the emotional trauma built on pre-conceived ideals about relationships; bloody social media crap.’ He had not stopped yet. ‘Every day, every damn day you nag about commitment or how miserable your exes have made you feel by not committing to you or how your life needs stability; such bull-crap I put up with every second day and then you have the audacity to insult me? Calling me a cheat? You insecure whore.’ His eyes were watery with furious upsurge of emotions. His forehead was sweaty too, and that green protruding nerve on the side of his temple was wilder than usual or perhaps that is how she was picturing him then.

‘How? Why? Why now?’ She was still standing barefoot, asking herself on repeat. ‘Why now, my dear lady within, why to him? Why to your own self?’ ‘I don’t know…’

It wasn’t long she had met him, as a co-worker. He was new at work and she was depressed and unlucky after a break-up. To summarize her life in a line, ‘She was an ocean of love and empathy, polluted every now and then by insincere, manipulative men in the name of loyalty and commitment.’ She had no intentions of going through the same road again but only if she had learnt it once for good and all. She did take the same road again, and here she was now.

They say, ‘if you keep doing what you have always been, you will get what you have always been. You want something different, do something different.’ ‘Take the road less trodden, and that may make all the difference.’ But that road is for loners, I am afraid of ending up alone and yet I always do end up alone. What is wrong with me?’ She was again caught in the same old spiral of thoughts of self-doubt. ‘It’s a vicious circle.’ Or is it?

He too had his own life challenges, expectations, prior commitments, plans and goals and she was not a plan, nor in any plan of his. He was confused or was she? They had stopped communicating feelings, or talking for that matter. He had his friends, while she scrolled through her contact list to find someone to give vent to but in vain. And one day, she saw him with another girl, rather with her family. Something broke inside her, hurting deep down. ‘Where am I in his life? Who is she? Why is he standing so close?’ Her problem was she was impulsive or probably that is how her default setting was. She gave in again, and blurted out on text messages, and, she lost him forever.

All she wanted him to know was she was not a typical paki woman. She had never been so, else she would have gotten a simple married life too. She was not negative. She loved him more than anyone could have had, she never asked for anything, not even marriage. She did ask for commitment. To her, commitment was to take the same road together, chasing dreams together, looking in the same direction and being at peace. She could learn to compromise, had she gotten a commitment. She was not a typical paki woman, she never will be.