What's your deepest darkest moment?
Am in confessional mode here, and well, confession is good for the soul, right?
Mine happened nine years ago. After twelve years of strict schooling and three years of stricter boarding school, I didn't know how to cope with the sudden freedom of college. What made it worse was that I set up house with some girls I met during the admissions rush. My parents thought I was in the college hostel. I planned to, but there were some problems and I couldn't get a seat right away. My dad is very pro hostel and I knew if he heard that I was not in a hostel, he'd tell me to come back home.
So I spun a lot of yarns about the hostel phone being inaccessible. And as the guilt grew, the calls home became less and less. I was also too guilty to ask for money and I steadily became broke. I knew I was on a disastrous course but I couldn't tell my parents the truth. At first, the freedom was exhilarating but the guilt and the lies eventually wore me down. I grew depressed and sat at home all day.
And that's when the big bang happened. My friends started losing money. Everyone of them- except me because I was broke anyway and I remember I had only about Rs.500 tucked inside my diary. So we called in our seniors and they started investigating. Well, I became the number 1 suspect since I'm the one who stayed at home and I was so broke, so they started interrogating me. I think there were about six of them who did the interrogating. It went on for hours. I haven't had dinner and they refused to let me eat.
After about four hours, they locked me inside our bare kitchenette while they all had dinner. Then they resumed the questioning. A couple of them had started drinking and they became verbally very abusive. They tried to blindfold me but cooler heads intervened. That nearly made me cry because up till a day ago, they were all my good friends, people I had laughed with. Around 3 in the morning, one of the more level-headed ones said he wanted to talk to the rest of the girls. I suppose he started to believe me since I kept on sticking to my story.
By daybreak, they discovered that it was actually one of the girls who was the thief. On inquiring further, they found out that she had a history of kleptomania. She had pretended that her money had also been stolen to divert suspicion away from her. During the course of the previous night, they had called up my parents and informed them that I had stolen money and that I should be sent home. My mom in turn called my cousin who came over in the morning. She also caught a plane and would be arriving that day.
I had stubbornly held on to my tattered dignity and refused to break down. But when my cousin came, he was so darned sympathetic I bawled in his arms. Then I started packing my stuff. My interrogators were a bit ashamed I guess, because they promised to smoothen things with my family and tell them that I don't have to be sent home now, since, surprise, surprise, I wasn't a friggin' thief.
What galls me the most is that afterwards, the friggin thief came and sobbed sorry and said, "In Tlabung we don't have good clothes. You can always buy good ones, so give me some of yours". And I was so numb, I did!!! I couldn't very well stay any longer, so the next day, I went home with my mom. Tlabung girl was also sent home soon after. But people who heard about the whole thing thought I was the thief because I went home so abruptly :((
Joined college at home, got good grades and redeemed myself. But for a long time afterwards I was ashamed and bitter. I knew it was technically my fault for landing myself in the whole mess and maybe my interrogators had grounds for suspicion but its hard to move on nevertheless. I've now chalked the whole thing down to good learning experience, though its still hard to speak of it. But now that I have, its strangely cathartic. I no longer resent the guys who got abusive, though I have to admit, learning that one of them never passed his BA and is now jobless doesn't hurt none. Am only human after all.
Kinda personal and not-so-nice, but hell, its me blog and me outlet, so there ya go.
23 comments:
I'm a big fan of personal blogging... personal as in revealing your deep, dark secret fears and foibles, or just writing all about your every day doings. Apart from its cathartic effect on the blogger obviously, I like hearing (or reading) ordinary details about other people :) Some are so close mouthed about themselves, choosing to write only about impersonal stuff, it's just plain b-o-r-i-n-g.
About your confessional here, whoa girl, you were playing a dangerous game and you were saved by fate! I've heard one or two horror stories about kids ostensibly studying away from home and feeding their folks a lot of lies which lead on to bigger lies.. you get the picture. The thief sounds like a proper little con artist. Getting you to give her your clothes after all she did indeed! As for your interrogators, put it down to power corruption. Amazing how people abuse their power and influence, especially in student communities away from home. A very Lord of the Flies situation hmmmm? :)
My life is pretty boring, but yet I cannot bring myself to tell the whole world what I did and what I feel. As much as I love reading the personal stuff put out by others I still cannot bear the thought of cutting myself open for everyone to see.
That was quite an experience. If you put a group of girls in a house and leave them alone for a few months problems always arise. I've had my share of petty fights with roommates and I know how ugly it can get.
Just wondering, are you still friends with any of those people? After an incident like that is it possible to remain friends? Forgiving is very difficult.
@Calliopia: Yeah, I wondered if I was a little too personal. And yep, I had a very lucky escape. I can't imagine what I would have become had that incident not happened. And yeah, the lies just keep in getting bigger and you dig yourself a bigger hole.
And oh, LOTF is so apt! Especially after yesterday's news (police brutality).
@Aduh: I was kind of reluctant tp put it up here, but it was one of the biggest turning points in my life- a complete life-changer.
And yes, I am still quite friendly with those girls. I don't hold grudges. Hell, the thief often called me up afterwards just to catch up :D I once asked her, "Min biak hi i inthlahrung ve deuhlo ami?" and she said, "Aih, piangthar theuh2 te chu inngaidam turah ka lo indah a". Wow.
OMGGGGG, so you're THAT girl!!!???? Sheeezzzzz! Even I always thought you were the thief coz you left so abruptly. No goodbyes or clarification. Dayyyyymmm gurl. Glad to know it wasn't you. Phewwwww!
By the way, when you say Katharsis/Catharsis, rather than an emotional outburst, it means more of the bowel movements, "ek sang chhuah" types :D
Darn kleptos!! I bet that thief had quite a collection by the time she graduated.
The darkest moment in which my life passed before my eyes, most recently at least, was the one in which my niece finally discovered how much fun it may be to mess up my huge and neat desk.
I know this is not what you were looking for but I feel much, MUCH better after confessing. :)
:) Guess who was posting a comment at my blog while i was delurking over here.
Thil ho lam deuh...kan sr pakhat pawh a cooker hawh hi a kawl hlen hmak thin a, a graduate meuh chuan cooker 18 a nei tawh :D
@Illu: OMMMMGGGGGG...Do you want a good whack upside your head?
Aristotle, in his "Poetics" defined catharsis as purgation of emotions like sadness, anger etc through the enactment of tragedy.I dunno, maybe yours go only as far as the bowel movements but for us folks living on a higher plane..Oh, what's the use? :p
@Eve: Haha, I lurked in yours while you lurked in mine and we have the same deficiency in consolation skills.. Or maybe not, you made me LOL, so your consolation skills are wayyy up there. And hey, give your niece a quick pinch :D
@Kim Lulian: Hahaha, ka va awihlo e aw. A tak tak lo ni ta reng reng pawh nise, hostel chhuah dawnin a inkhai bawr awm. I dawheh em mai, kan venga in rawn insawn hunah "thudik tan, thiltha ti" ah kan lo siam ang che. Ran ngo te pawh kan lo TALH sak dawn che nia, cooker chu lo trick la.
Wow! Speechless! I'm assuming these friends and interrogators were Mizos? Drinking in the midst of it all, and suggesting blindfolding! It all sounds like somewhere in the Middle East to me. I'm sure it was all very normal and no one saw anything 'barbaric' in the way the whole thing was handled at the time, but to someone who's hearing it all for the first time - it's all so wrong.
But wow! It sure did make a nice read so I guess good things did come out of it :)
haha, Jeru, nawwww...it wasnt that bad, though I made it sound somewhat like a kangaroo court. Except for the two that I mentioned, everyone else was very level-headed. Haha, and thank you for enjoying the account.
Hei vang hi ni maw Calcutta tang khan i bo tak daih. Hahaha. Thil dang daih vang emaw ka lo tia. heeeheehee. I "chesual" emaw ka lo tia. I damdawi tih thin vang khan emaw ka lo tia. (fiamthu)
Mosha: "emaw ka lo tia" tih i van ngah ve. Nia, chesual ang chu ka nive deuh alawm. Damdawi sawi takah chuan,i nghei ve tawh em? Inhmuh apianga cheng 10, 5 mi i dil ziah kha chu a sim chi khawp ang :D
friend of mine once had a very similar experience in her hostel years ago. she told me about it fairly recently and i've seen how traumatic the experience can be. as for one's folks, i'm of the firm opin. that what they don't know can't hurt them (most of the time) cos it won't prevent kids from getting into any less trouble really.
here's a thump on the back for a post straight from the heart! :)
Heh, Peer, been keeping your share of secrets form the parents too, have you, hehe. Yep,quite a traumatic experience it was, but good learning experience too. And yeah, straight from the heart, like most of the things I do are,regrettably :(
I need to think with my head.
hey where's the "lets not have my-life-is-an-open-book attitude"??? min phatsan grrr i was once charged as a thief too way back in std IV in a hostel not too far from "tlabung" (btw its my mom's hometown grrr) and i remember the stabbing and the mental torture i endured even as a little gal, and u knw sumthng, like ur tb gal here the thief actually turned out to be the accuser...i silently cursed her to errr.heaven ti mai ang...it has since become a painful memory but ive learnt to deal with it because now i can say we were kids then, she was probably acting out her childish fantasies..
but for you dear, it was so recent...to think you were all prbly past puberty and still they were naive enuf to exert immature abuses...grrr just reading your confession alone makes me go hulky...wish i had been there with you i'd tear them to bits and pieces..and you, you were prbly shrinking away in the corner, timidly cowering as they towered over you and you lose your right to speak...grr..but hey look where it got u, u get 2 b a lit. expert and u met me...ur rock, ur pillar,ur icon plus everything nice!!u can say ty to the tb gal!!
hey kuks.. just came across this post of yours only now.. hmm, sorry for being such an irregular reader :-) Ka lo ngei pui tawp che I roomies ho chu. But glad you came out of it, and that you made it a turning point of your life. Thankk God for your blog or we wouldnt have known the truth :P Tak2 ah engmah ka lo hre ve lo reng reng... ka news lo thei ania! hehe
@Jay-me: Hah. Tlabung.I nu te thenawm aniang, bleh, hihi. Kidding. And why do you keep on thinking Im such a timid thing?Ka huaive em kha, a chang chuan. I kept my cool, was extremely polite and, bleh, ka hau let ve vak thiam hleinem, bleh. Ka hah.
@Mims: Of corse u didnt know.That was when u Aizawl-wallahs refused to speak to us or return our letters..eee..Chennai ah i awm tawh reng, lehnghala. Im sad :(
If its college, Mysore ka awm lai zawk aniang. Now that I've come to think of it, ka hre leh deuh si, rumours that you were sent home. But I guess I didn't want to know why, I never bothered to ask anyone. What use would it be for me anyways right.
Romans 12:19 " Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord." You proved it :-)
@Mims: Ni dawn tak :)
And yes, Im an angel :)
I would like to exchange links with your site kukuipachuau.blogspot.com
Is this possible?
@Anon: he? clarify pls.
Post a Comment