Silhouette

Pressing his face deep into the pillow didn’t drown out the sound. The darkness and fear only made it worse.

It was well past midnight. Neel was still awake, and he sensed his little sister was too. They shared the same tiny bedroom. Their parents were at it again—his father, drunk as usual, and his mother, playing the victim, hurling vile insults at each other.

Neel was too afraid to call out to his sister. Maybe it was better to pretend she was asleep. Pretending had become their unspoken way of coping.

Soon, dawn would come, and the school bus would arrive at 5:45 a.m. It was nearly an hour’s ride to school, and they knew they needed sleep. But, sleep was elusive.

For years to come, Neel would ask himself: Didn’t our parents know? Didn’t they realize there were two children in that house—too frightened to speak, too petrified to cry, desperately needing sleep? Did we even exist for them? Did we have a name, a dignity, an identity?

What Neel couldn’t comprehend was his mother’s behavior. She was supposed to be the dignified one, wasn’t she? Even if his father was pure filth, his mother—earning a decent salary as a healthcare professional—could’ve made her own decision and escaped this hell. She had more than enough to care for two kids in a regular school. So, why didn’t she?

Because it was all a performance. She needed to be the victim. She craved the validation. She didn’t care whose lives she trampled on in the process. All that mattered was that validation, even if it meant destroying the last vestige of dignity their family had left.

And she would feed fear into her children. She delighted in it, reveling in her power to co-opt them into her victimhood.

Neel raised his head slightly from the pillow. The room was dark, but framed in the dim antiseptic white light of the hallway outside, he could see her silhouette—a dark shadow, pacing in a nervous, rage-fuelled frenzy, muttering filth under her breath, her voice rising occasionally to a shriek.

Though they were in a foreign country, their apartment had neighbors, typical Indians, who wouldn’t bother to pick up the phone and dial the police. Maybe Neel’s life, and his sister’s, would have been different if one of them had. Maybe they would have ended up in foster care, maybe adopted by better parents, maybe quiet nights of sleep.

Maybe. Neel would never know.

Then, his mother paused. She stepped into their room, the dark silhouette, and shrieked, “Don’t sleep tonight! Your heads will be chopped off. Keep your eyes open if you want to be alive!”

Neel was 14. His sister 11. Every child, whether animal or human, implicitly trusts their parents to protect them with their lives. It’s a given.

That trust was erased and replaced by a fear that would seep into the very marrows of their bones.

The hard part was facing the neighbours in the morning. Avoiding the eye contact. Putting on the fake smiles. They pretending they didn’t hear anything and them pretending that it was a perfect family. Over time, Neel and his sister lost the ability to be genuine with each other. Maybe that’s how they coped. Pretending.

It’s been 30 years now. He can still hear his mother, that exact tone of voice. And, he can also see her - that dark shadow, convulsing with rage, silhouetted by the antiseptic white-light of the corridor, revelling in her power to threaten two helpless children, her own, with murder.

But, Neel survived. So did his sister.

In a quiet moment, almost 30 years later, sitting alone with his sister in a park, he believed they were thinking same thoughts.

It’s still OK to be denied a parents’ love. But, it’s not OK to be denied the right to love a parent.

That’s a feeling they both would never know - to love a dad and mom and to have a home to go to, where they were safe and loved. Having simple, decent, loving grand parents for their kids.

Then he said something that solidified their shared understanding. That’s when it clicked for him—when he finally voiced it.

“They were the biological reason for our existence. That’s all. Let’s move ahead.”

And, they did.