Our Car: Strike That, My Car

 It’s funny — or maybe tragic — how after a separation, every little effort, every gesture, suddenly feels wasted. Especially for those of us who gave something real in the relationship.

I’ll admit it: I am a hopeless romantic. Too emotional, too much of an overthinker maybe… but never when it comes to showing love. That part, I’ve always done plenty.

So let me rewind. Back when we were in a “relationship” — or at least when I thought we were. Because looking back now, he was just window shopping, weighing which girl would do the most for him. Around that time, his father sold his car. Obvious reasons — the drinking, the gallivanting, the carelessness. He was devastated. He always said he loved his car, and I believed him. Cars, in a way, became his identity. He loved driving, especially after drinking. Dangerous, yes. But to him, it was freedom.

When the car was gone, he wasn’t himself. And almost at the same time, I caught him cheating on me — I don’t even remember which number of betrayal that was. I cut him off, shut him out.

But when I found out about the car being sold, I felt bad for him. I even told my friend, “If we were together, if he was loyal, I would buy a car that we both could call ours. He’d drive it most of the time anyway since my office gave me a cab, and I had my little second-hand car for my needs.”

That was just a conversation, nothing more.

But maybe God heard me. Maybe He was sleepy, because He only heard half of it. He brought Landon back into my life, made me believe he’d changed. And in that foolish, hopeful love of mine, I went and bought a car.

I won’t give you every detail, but this much I’ll say: my birth date is 28, his is 09. And the car’s number? 2809. That’s how deep in love I was — so deep I carved us into the very number plate of my life.

This car saw everything. The love, the fights, the reconciliations. And one day, it even saw him cruising around with another woman, while I was out of town.

So no, it was never really our car. It was always mine. My love, my effort, my foolish hope — painted in its numbers, etched in its journeys.

The Sindoor Ritual

 Indian weddings — no matter how chaotic, noisy, and exhausting — always carry a sense of romance. Even those who are single can’t help but get swept away when the bride and groom exchange garlands, when the mangalsutra is tied, or when the sindoor is placed tenderly on the bride’s forehead.

There’s a small hidden belief too — the bride closes her eyes, secretly wishing for the sindoor to fall a little bit on her nose. Because someone once said, “If it does, it means he loves you a lot.” Funny, isn’t it, how rituals carry such hidden meanings? But what if they also plant a false sense of forever in your heart?

It rained on my wedding day. I even had a silly fight with my bridesmaid about my entry. But when it was time to sit around the holy fire, vowing ourselves to each other, I felt like the most accomplished woman in the world. I was happy. I was in love.

The first day in his house, in his room, I stood before the mirror draped in a saree I barely knew how to wear. My hands were full of mehndi, my heart full of pride. I reached out to him with a box of sindoor, and he applied it on my forehead again. I wanted this to become our ritual.

No matter the hurry, no matter the chaos of the world, I wanted us to pause — for those few seconds each day — and remind each other what this relationship meant. A promise that in the middle of all the madness, we would still slow down, look at each other, and choose each other.

Sounds like a dream from a Bollywood movie, doesn’t it?
Only… dreams don’t always match the endings we imagine.

Who Do You Blame?

 When you love someone with your whole heart, when you give them 100% of yourself and betrayal is all you get in return… who do you blame?

By law, the blame lies with the one who cheats. But women are wired differently. We turn inward. We question our worth. We wonder what we could have done differently.

I don’t know how or when, but I fell into the trap of something that looked like love, smelled like love — but wasn’t. Landon’s mistakes, his betrayals, they should have been dealbreakers. But they never stood tall enough in front of me. I kept giving, and giving, until there was nothing left of me but fragments.

God has always been tough on me. Nothing ever came straight or easy. So I convinced myself that maybe this was the price of unconditional love — to endure, to struggle, to sacrifice. With that conviction, I walked into marriage.

It wasn’t a fairy tale wedding, but to me, it felt like magic. I was madly in love with my so-called Prince Charming. Even though we had known each other for a while, I felt butterflies in my stomach as the day grew closer. The idea of becoming Mrs. Landon filled me with a hope I had never known.

A friend told me, “The first three months of marriage are the honeymoon phase — you won’t want to do anything but enjoy each other.” That promise thrilled me. All I had ever wanted was a family to call mine and a partner who wanted me simply for being me.

But reality knocked too soon. And it didn’t come gently. It came like a cyclone, tearing through the fragile walls of my new life, leaving behind damage that could never be undone.

So who do you blame? The woman who gave her everything? The man who took everything and left her with pain? Or do you turn your eyes upward and blame the supreme power for writing such a cruel destiny?

When the World Sleeps

 When the world goes to sleep, that’s when the demons in my head wake up. They whisper, they scratch at memories I’ve been trying to bury. I didn’t want to relive the days that were never meant to happen, so I stopped writing for a while. I thought silence would protect me.

But today, I realise that the more I run, the more it chases me. Grief, betrayal, loneliness — they always find a way to stand right in front of me, demanding to be faced.

My divorce is done. I am now, officially, a single mother. And yet, life hasn’t paused for me to catch my breath. It hasn’t given me a break, a moment of kindness. It keeps throwing curveballs, one after another, like it wants to test how much I can endure before I break.

All this time, I survived because I had faith in God. I believed He was walking beside me through the darkness, carrying me when I felt too weak. But today, it feels like even He betrayed me. He left me alone — just like everyone else has.

My savings are gone. My money is gone. Even the money my sister trusted me with — gone. A fraud stripped me bare of the little security I had built. And now I sit here, with nothing in my hands but my son, my courage hanging by a thread, and a hollow ache where faith used to be.

The pressure of being a good single parent feels crushing. To provide the best, to protect my son from every scar, to make sure no one can point out my failures — it’s a weight I carry alone. But how do I do all this now? If God can leave me, if humans have already left me, then what do I have exactly?

Maybe just this pen. Maybe just these words. Maybe just the strength to keep breathing into tomorrow, for the sake of my little boy who deserves a world better than this one.

And maybe — just maybe — that’s still enough.