The unwanted one!

“Mom, Dad please please don’t fight. I love you both, please don’t leave me.”Cried Zoe.

Her parents are fighting just like every day, as usual. This is the scenario as any other day, but today it is a bit too heated. Zoe knows something bad is coming, the inevitable just as all the couples do, who have lots of money to spare and don’t want a child to look after. Zoe is 12 and her brother 5. It all started when her acting assignments started getting hectic, and both of her parents fought over who’ll go with her to shoots, they both were working and could not attend to her. Her life was becoming more of a pain, and she had forgotten what childhood was like. 

Many in stardom faced this, whose parents were either separated or fighting on the verge separation. She wanted them to be just like before, when they loved each other and gave both Zoe and her brother lots of loving attention. It’s been 12 years since they married. Now things had changed. Those college sweethearts had grown up.

“I don’t want to live in this shithole. You may keep Zoe; I am leaving with Tom right now!” Shouts her mother.

Zoe’s dad is now very silent, he turns back wipes his tears, and sits on the couch taken aback. Her mom hurriedly emerges from the bedroom, a big bag in her hand, & pulls Tom with her out of the house. The decision is taken. Zoe’s dad is very loving and he still loves her mother. But it’s difficult to reconcile. Her mother on the other side is looking forward to a new life in Australia with another man. She has filed for divorce.

A year later. Zoe is silently taking the poison of living without her mother, who she knows never cared for her, nor for her brother. Zoe knows everything about her mother’s affair, but she still wants her to come back and reconcile with her dad. Which now seems but unlikely enough to even think about? Zoe misses Tom, she can’t meet him nor can her father. Her mother has started legal proceedings against her dad, which makes it difficult. She comes to the film city everyday for ad-shoots etcetera, her mom’s house is just behind the film city, and she just stares for few minutes whenever she gets time..... But never for even a second can she see her brother. It kills her inside neither silently, she can neither tell her dad nor anyone else how she feels. Tears flow down her cheeks, over and over, continuously.

She have realised that she is the unwanted child, the one who is not needed by both of her parents. She feels worst than an orphan. Even after having parents, they have disowned her almost. The time only remains is that when she’ll become an adult and stand on her own feet to fight for herself? Everyone is waiting for that time. Her pretty green eyes are now crimson colour, she wants the sunshine to give her a new ray, she wishes for the solitary sun to teach her to live alone in this vast world. Her fragile body pressed against her car she waits for the shoot to start. In school she waits for the lunch break to get over, for the playing time to get reduced, because she so feels alone in that huge crowd of mellow kids blossoming.... and the silent tears she finds hard to hide.

“Why did mom leave me? Why did she then give birth to me in the first place? If I am such a pain to them, then I’ll leave them. Both of them can enjoy their lives as and how they want, I won’t interfere. Can’t these middle-aged adults understand the real essence of living? If they can’t, then why can I? I question the capabilities given to everyone by god.”

Zoe has taken a decision. She will hunt for a guardian for herself, then will live with her till she becomes 18 and then pay her guardian for providing support. She knows at least the paid persons are worthy of trust than her own blood relations. Her dad is more interested in his business than he is in life, money means the world to him, and he just knows to talk about bank balance, cheques and deals.

“Its a cruel world, a world wherein only money matters the most, feelings, love expressions and character are sold for publicity and fame. It’s the world where she has to carve a special niche for herself, which is very difficult and she has to be strong. Emotions and feelings are to be left behind, she has to be hard as a rock, unable to be broken by any barrier, any which barrier of hate or competition. She has to overcome everything, such things happen in life. People get divorced, their children become unwanted, and the future bleak. But she won’t let it happen to her. She has decided, and next week she would tell a lawyer to submit an application to the high court against the custody battle going on. The world seems so happy, but their lies truth behind every veil of bliss.”

She feels the wind blowing on her face. Couples sitting there on the benches. Sea water wildly dancing and sun silently sinking. She knows if any of these couples every get married they will have children unplanned, and some like her will be sitting years after at the same place she is. She looks back to the tall hotels embracing the Marine drive like a queen’s necklace. She looks to the sea again, there are some families enjoying, but she avoids looking at them. It hurts her today, but she promises herself, one day she’ll be prone to it without any emotion. That day she’ll be a changed person.     

“I am the unwanted child, the unwanted child, unwanted child, unwanted one!” she mumbles silently looking at the sea.