Can this mother forgive herself for falling in love?

I wasn’t wearing a sweater and it was so cold in that first week of January in Delhi that my nose wouldn’t stop running and I had goosebumps for three hours. I held a balled-up tissue paper in my left fist, tucked under my dupatta on my lap, and I would wipe my nose whenever the director asked his question so that I didn’t have to do it while answering him.

It was not just the cold that made me uncomfortable. It was also the questions, or rather, the emotions that the questions evoked in me.

We were in the last phase of shooting for a docu-drama based on my own life and love story. The web series Love Storiyaan is the Valentine’s Day release of 2024 on Amazon Prime worldwide. It is backed by Karan Johar, produced by Dharmatic Entertainment and based on India Love Project that documents true stories of love and marriage outside the shackles of faith, caste, ethnicity and gender.

The whole shoot had been emotionally fraught for me. My kids had flown down from Canada and Belgium where they work and live, we had travelled together from Delhi to Kerala, and had new and exciting experiences.

But we were also confronted with questions about some of the most difficult times of our lives as a family.

On some days, we’d get back from the shoot and cry together, reliving moments that we thought we’d put behind us. On one afternoon, I couldn’t stop crying during the shoot while the director, the national award-winning Hardik Mehta, asked my kids about not being invited to my temple wedding with Ullekh.

A Marxist atheist, Ullekh would have never opted to marry in a temple had it not been my wish. We had only our parents and siblings as witnesses, and I opted not to take the kids along. I wanted to spare them the agony of giving away their mother.

We were on a boat in the backwaters of Kannur, Kerala, and while the kids answered Hardik’s question, I hid my face behind one of the crew members and sobbed silently, tears pouring down my cheeks and neck and shirt as I tried not to move. I didn’t want the kids to see me and clam up. Masochistically, I wanted to hear them speak.  

Every question by Hardik sent a knife into my heart; every answer from my kids twisted it in. I felt like a terrible mother – a mother who’d put her kids through such a difficult time because of her own wilful decision to love and marry the love of her life.

“It wasn’t my parents’ divorce,” my younger daughter said, “it was my mother’s decision to remarry that was the most traumatic period of my life.”

Just tear it – just tear up this heart – this obstinate heart of mine that has got me into so much trouble. Just tear it apart and slash it into bits! This wretched, good-for-nothing, impractical, silly thing! This monster of desire and dreams that refuses to listen to reason! This enemy of common sense!

There were other days and other reasons to cry. When my elder daughter professed her love and loyalty to me – admitting that she’d always taken my side because my happiness was the most important thing for her, even if it hurt her to share me with a stranger.

When we talked about the time our dogs, our angels, died of old age. When my elder one said we had rescued them from a shelter but they ended up rescuing us as a family.

When Ullekh spoke of how he coped during the year-and-half that I’d broken up with him. I’d actually tried to put my kids before myself then – but it hadn’t worked. I’d sunk into a wasteland of hopelessness, and what good is a lifeless mother?

But hearing how my decision affected him made me even more guilty. He is a good man, the right man for me and the right father for the girls, the right partner to help me demonstrate to them that not all marriages turn out wrong, that not all men are bad, that fathers can be friends, that love exists.

And I’d hurt him too.

It’s like I hadn’t done anything right by anyone. Not my kids, not my parents, not Ullekh, not his mother, not myself even.

And while sitting on that chair with the balled-up tissue in my hand, controlling my shivers and runny nose, towards the end of the emotionally turbulent shoot week, this wretched heart just took over the microphone hidden inside my sky-blue kurta and poured itself out. My rational mind – that useless, fickle thing! – switched off and I had no recollection of what I spoke.

When I came back to my senses, I was again wracked with anguish and self-disgust. Oh, foolish girl! You and your big mouth! What did you say? My family doesn’t know half these details! What will they think when they hear of it? Will they hate me even more? Will I end up traumatizing them even further? Will I bring humiliation upon the whole khandaan? Will they be angry – again? Things had been peaceful for many years. Will we have to work on our relationships once more?!

Hardik assured me over email that I spoke well and he was quite happy with how the shoot turned out. But I am unforgiving of myself. I dread the release of this web series. The day my shame is made public to the world – the shame of running away from my first marriage, the shame of being a divorcee and a single mother for eight years, the shame of remarrying against the choice of my kids and parents, the shame of hurting the most precious pieces of my soul, the shame of having a wayward heart, the shame of being me.

More than a year later, a day after the film trailer is released, I am attending the Ochre Sky Memoir Writing Workshop hosted by Natasha Badhwar and Raju Tai. (Natasha, incidentally, is the one who invited me to share my love story on the Instagram page India Love Project back in 2021, which is how this whole web series thing happened.)

The topic for the week’s writing assignment is ‘forgiveness’. The prompt options are:

• A time when you were able to forgive
• Felt unforgiving 
• Were forgiven 
• Something you want to forgive yourself for
• The struggle or conflict around seeking forgiveness

Hah, I think. How apt. I am unable to forgive myself. I am the unforgiven, and the unforgiving. I am the struggle, I am the conflict all unto myself. I am unforgiveness personified. I am the goddess of the unforgivables.

I go to my go-to, the voice inside my head. “Forgive me father, for I know not what I do,” I plead, as if paraphrasing Jesus absolves me of the sin of stupidity. The voice asks,

So, what did you do?

“I fell in love. And I hurt my loves. And I’d probably do it again even if I got a second chance,” I reply in abject remorse.

Yes, it is in the nature of the scorpion to sting, and it is in the nature of the bud to bloom.

So, is it the nature of this heart to desire, defy and disappoint?

Your heart, perhaps yes.

How do I forgive myself?

Just like you forgive the thorn for pricking and the bug for biting. Everything has its place. Even grief.

Like Purnamada Purnamidam. All arises from the Whole.

Exactly.

Why aren’t I able to be better? More sensible, more practical, more worldly wise?

As if that’s ever done you any good!

But being myself comes at such a cost too! With the pleasure comes an equal amount of pain!

Then that’s a part of the karmic package you’ve chosen for this lifetime. And you know what you have to do with that.

Accept it like prasad.

Exactly.

So, do I forgive myself or not?

Begin the quest. Perhaps it’s part of the package.

This essay was written in response to the prompt, ‘Forgiveness’ in the Memoir writing workshop facilitated by Natasha Badhwar and Raju Tai. It was first published on Ochre Sky Stories.

Love Storiyaan is streaming worldwide on Amazon Prime.