Part 1 - QUESTION

"Bye bye Grandma." "And Asid left the house for work as usual. "When he came home that day everyone except his brother was emotional. His mother, father and the most his grandmother. His world was about to change.

At 31 he was against getting married, meaning against the rest of the world which already had by his age. He had simply refused, angered, threatened to be disowned and even left the house, only to be brought back Twenty Days later. His grandmother in hospital sealed the deal for his escapade!

But something about this day was different.

No sooner did he enter the house than the Dias Family Blitzkrieg led by the oldest began. This time it was not an emotional one but a step further.

'Let us face it. You like girls, don't you? You are planning to get married one day, aren't you? Knowing you, accept that you are most likely to take only one partner for the rest of your life, will you not?

You have already failed for five years at whatever it is that you are planning or waiting for, haven't you not? There is no problem with the James family, is there? You agreed on more than one occasion their eldest, Betty, is a good girl, the complete package, isn't she?

Proving a non-existent point has nothing to do with choosing a life partner, is it? Especially, Betty is willing and needs to be recovered from the James for her better future, don't you think only you can or should  do it? You are not LG... something, are you?'

Sid's only weapons against the mind-numbing barrage of question tags was a 'yes' or a 'no'. Half of these were rendered useless by clever plotting and identification of weak spots.

'We leave the decision to you, hoping that wisdom will prevail and your father's confidence in your morality, sound judgement and respect will prove right. As you have proved over all these years.'

The fatal blow dealt most subtly with exceptional ruthlessness and calm.

It is 3 years and twenty days since that attack. Events that followed the brutality of that August evening are as foggy in Asid's mind as Delhi in peak winters. 

His vision is limited to couple of metres; metres consisting of an unfulfilled career goals, increasing financial stress, nagging neighbours, one step ahead in misery- friends, doubling of arsenal in opposite ranks in the form of James family; and to top it all the concentration camp called WIFE!

After all this destruction you would think the attacks must have subsided. But no! New grounds for attack are manufactured, which Asid never owned but has to defend.

When will your income (assuming it is stable) increase? What will you buy for this Valentine's Day? Aren't you coming to Europe trip with us like you promised last year? Only your wife knows cooking, isn't it? Your mother is the worst lady I have had to tolerate, JUST FOR YOU and you don't even appreciate that, do you?

All we ask is to see babies again in this house; is it like taking down a government (even that's easy)?  We are hosting a lunch for the Birla's, I don't care, so won't you be here to attend to them? You are only nice to your friends? What when it was my cousin's wedding? Only that time you had 'important work', didn't you? Where were you? Were you this irritating and torturous person earlier?

Am I really? Who am I? Five years ago, is this what I imagined I will be?

Your hair were not so white last time we met, were, they? Haven't you put on too much? 

Asid makes space for a thought like a gulp for life while drowning. My brain is not even a big cyclone that can end this once and for all. It is merely a blender swirled with a mix of emotions, its contents contrasted, compared, tested for consistency and turned a hundred times over and over again. At varying speeds. At the will of its owners.

How will Asid survive this? Rather, can he?