Legacy.

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Dislcaimer: This is a fictional piece written during a story telling workshop, any resemblance to any person or incident is purely coincidental. 

Sitting alone on my balcony with my 3^rd single malt in hand, I am looking over the busy streets and the noise that makes Gurgaon  a millennium city. At 48, my life is complete. Love of my husband, success at my job. I have worked incessantly for 25 years of my life, to earn my space in this materialistic world. 

I wonder if I die today what will be my legacy? Will my kids remember me for my care, love, wisdom? Will my husband remember me for my commitment and honestly. I want to think yes, but if I am entirely truthful I think my legacy will be my penthouse. 

How did I land here? Where is that optimistic passionate person who would fight against hypocrisy, societal norms and conventions and take the world head on? Today, as I think of true love, I think I still regret breaking up with my first boyfriend, just because he didn’t confirm to the so called group dynamics of my best friends. 

Was that first step towards losing my innocence? And beginning of my manipulative life. As insecurity crept into my mind, fear and jealousy took over my core values…and in my aggression towards success I started using my colleagues and friends as stepping stones towards the next promotion.

Suddenly my son breaks my chain of thought… the bell rings and I see him rushing out to take the pizza that the delivery boy has got in. I smile at his innocence and sheer happiness at being able to eat junk food for dinner.

This takes me back to the time when all us cousins would sit around the fire on a cold winter night playing antaskshari and my mom would come with a glass of haldi mixed doodh, a perfect shield for a menacingly cold winter night. I remember my Dadi’s pre independence stories, and how each story would end with the moral of appreciating inner beauty. Huddled together somehow these sessions always  made us feel safe.

All this nostalgia, tears me up. While I am respected and loved by most, I wonder if I still have the power to accept myself for who I have become. This conflict of instant gratification and my beliefs is never ending. Having completed ¾ of my life, do I have the power to renounce the toxic shell that I have built around myself and embrace the real me? In the process become a complete person, make my roots strong… spread my branches wide and high with leaves that are always green and healthy. Do I have it in me to leave a legacy for my children that they will always remember me by? The legacy of happy memories... of doodh haldi... of time spent... of huddled winter evenings with masala chai and pakora and ghost stories...