Avantika... needs help

It was a Sunday morning 6 O’clock. It was the Indian republic day but it was a insignificant day in the alien land. Her eyes just opened and she closed them tightly. Also the grip on her pillow tightened. She didn’t want to wake up. Last night she had a tough time getting sleep. She did sleep after 4 hours of struggle. She did everything possible – counting numbers from 1 to 1000, the alphabets in the reverse order, she would also tell her lower level maths multiplication tables to sleep. She really hated them then.

There has been very less occasions where Avantika had made a decision in haste. She in a lot of instances has believed that no decision is better than a bad decision. Indecisions have never made her feel so bad for the past 23 years of her life. For quite sometime say about a week Avantika has not been the person she is. She believed that she was living for someone else, not for herself. She was living for that someone, who would have not even made a difference in her life if asked couple of days back. Knowing this fact was not something that was comfortable to her.

She thought " she was not living, not even surviving but just existing"

She was contradicting herself. She was a strong believer that relationships are built over time. She valued her parents so much. While all these things happened she really missed her Appa – Amma.

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Avantika was a bright student in her college and like anyone else wanted to really make it big in her career in medicine. After a lot of effort and pain of writing the sequence of exams she had her admissions in US. She left India on June 11th 2002. The whole Chennai airport was cordoned by policemen. A politician was coming back from US and there was an arrest warrant against him on account of the new legislation to curb terrorism. Political vendetta had caused Avantika from seeing her parents while she boarded the flight.

Avantika was a girl who was matured for her age. Though she could take things as they came she did feel bad of the change in plans. She had some silly but important things to be told to her parents, she had a gift for her Dad and Mom. But situation demanded her to leave for security check even as her heart felt she should stay for some more time with her parents.

She recorded what she thought in her diary during the long and tiring flight. It was a mixed feeling. One she felt responsible for herself more and felt really free. Second felt deprived of her strength that she saw in her parents. Air India offered a good Indian food but she was in no mood to eat. If it was some other occasion she would have emptied the food tray in minutes. It was an 18 hour travel.

Page in her diary that day read:

11 June 2002
Vaiko arrested. Does that matter? Yes. My foot.

I am leaving India. Does that matter? Yes. Yes yes it surely does. Flying is an expression of joy, not anymore – I would remember this flight of 18 hours every time I think of flying. A new alien land, whether it welcomes me or not shall be my new home. Family and friends who were there at every step of my life so far would be there for me just through sound signals. But these would be the signals giving me energy for the next two years.

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She had to get up because of a phone call from her friend. She was informed that she had to attend a session in her school on Chemical pathology. She thought there was no need for her to understand what the bodily fluids did to her body. Previously she thought that most of the feeling in human body is because of these bodily fluids.

"Every Human reaction is hormonal" she said.

She would always quote the dialogue from "Ayutha Ezhuthu" (Yuva) . The protagonist explains to his fiance about what makes a realtion between the man and the woman before the famous song of Adnan Sami.

She would always found a logic behind anything. She felt there was a reason behind every human behavior and that it was all physiological. Now she is being made to think the other way.
Now she thought there is something that can’t be explained by Man.

Her parents have always taught her jealousy was something that was really bad. But now she felt jealous for one particular reason. Every time she was jealous she told to herself not to. Her moral fiber always felt that being jealous is bad. But now she feels it is ok to be jealous.

Before she leaves for school she writes her diary, the only company from the time she came to the alien land.

The diary reads:

26 Jan 2003

Indian republic day today: 53 years India has been republic. What has it achieved?

100 Billion Population.
Reproduction at the rate of adding Australian population to the Indian Subcontinent.

It has one achievement to boast. Sending engineers and doctors to work for the US multinationals.

Hey, until this time I thought I would write only good things about India. I feel it is my state of mind that I am reflecting. I see the only dark spot on the white sheet. I am jealous when I see him talk to someone other than me. Is this jealousy good? He was nothing to me until now but is making me feel this way. He was like anyone else. He was like Dr. Gunasekaran who assisted me in my laboratory or else he was like the postman to whom I talk about American politics. At least the postman brought me letters from home. What has He done to me? Except that Raj makes me feel good when he is around me.