When I first saw the movie My friend Ganesha , I tried calling Ganesha in school when I was bullied and abused. “Om Gan Ganpataye Namah” But he never came. After I read Geography in school my 9 year old brain concluded that Ganesha lives only in Mumbai. He only listens to Mumbai kids.
That was the first time I thought about you, that you are in Puri only 100 km from my house, so I can call you instead. Despite the fact that I don’t like crowds, I still went to your temple and introduced myself so you wont be confused about my voice when I say – Jay Jagannath.
Why don’t you love me ?
Not only you in particular , why didn’t you program the love in the house I grew up in. It came with conditions I was unable to read and it fell like the uneven raindrops which filled some cups and most often I was the one with cracks. Soon, I learnt to read the weather – the absence before the storm and a particular silence which means no one thinks about me and the warmth of the room which never increased when I entered.
You might say that it’s not like you were never loved. But you are the cosmic ruler , and you very well understand the difference between loved and being needed. I was never chosen. Are you listening or from your height this distinction is too small ?
I read Champak and had an idea that there were some people who were supposed to stay. Let’s keep aside the family for the moment.
What about the friends you sent me ?
In the beginning there are always many friends. I built trust in the dark because I had faith in you that you would never send wrong people in my life. Of course now I understand that my mind works differently though I didn’t always have words for it. I see the world in pieces and patterns and take people at the surface of what they say because you didn’t program my brain to be able to hear the hidden current beneath the words. It was like an unlocked door trusting that danger doesn’t always walk in but it did and more than once. People used my openness , attention, loyalty and careful love I have been storing since childhood – took what they wanted and left. And every time I blamed myself that maybe I misread it, or I was over-shared , they ghosted me because I was not enough. Here the least you could done is stop this mahabharat inside my brain which anyways always concluded the same that the failure was mine, it’s something in my nature that broke the connection and I am genetically unfit for belonging.
You have such enormous eyes and you chose to ignore all these. I know you keep reading the universe and those hypnotising eyes of yours behold everything that has ever lived. How did you miss this loneliness and the kind of grief of never quite having ?
Now I think it’s too late to try again . I only have one question for you. And please don’t reply in the language of scriptures. Is your love without conditions ? Because I can’t do any of the religious rituals. And are you able to give me the love which is different from what people have given me till now ? I have heard in bhajans and read in texts that all soul is yours and you love everyone equally. But I never felt it.
There is a difference between being told you are loved and the feeling of being loved , I have lived 25 years in the mid of that.
Sometimes I wonder, did I misunderstand here also ?
Were you present for me when I felt empty ? When I sat alone near the river with silence were you in that ? Was I connecting to the wronf bluetooth earbud and couldnt hear you ? I am asking because honestly I want to believe it , that even though I never knew I was still loved. I want this story about presence rather than desertion with me as a witness.
Now let me squeeze my brain for moments when I felt it.
Once near Maa Ganga at early morning when the water turned from dark to golden and lights arriving slowly on the mountains behind her, I felt the warmest hug ever in the ice cold water from glaciers. I just sat there and did nothing. I saw others praying in an organised way , but i didnt recite anything and in that moment for the first time I felt less alone. Home. Maa ganga was beside me and your friends Shiv ji and Parvati ji didnt need me to perform or justify my presence. I can just exist without permission.
When I was starting to learn how to code in at the age of 10 , I asked your wife to give me free internet and very lovingly she provided it. I always considered her as a mother who wants me to keep my room clean before giving me pocket money and you are like my father always lying that if you score 90% you will get an apple, and then after results giving me 1kg apples instead of iphone.
Now i dont know what to do with all these complex emotions. I understand that the people who were supposed to love me first still carry their histories of preference and conditional warmth and I have kind of accepted it. The friends who took what I offered have disappeared. But now my mind reads people with a delay and trusts when actually I should have been hesitating, and misses the things which others seem to catch instinctively. And I am still in almost all rooms the person whose arrival does not affect the temperature.
I am still here asking you – can you help ? I dont think I am a devotee – I have seen saints on TV and read about them who saw you in everything and wept with the excess of it accepting every curve ball you throw at them. I am just another ordinary, faltering slightly resentful girl who will keep knocking on your door until you open it. I dont care if I am welcome or not but i dont know where else to go.
So, I am asking you – Why don’t you love me ?
The more important thing here is – please let me feel it, just once , clearly enough that I don’t have to wonder. And I trust you enough that your love must be different from people around me- unconditional, not comparative and not having any ulterior motives. And find me where I actually am, not where I should be. Not the better version of Ananya, this one, this confused, neurodivergent, too -trusting, easily hurt sensitive one.
See, I am communicating directly what I am and what I need. I will complain to Maa Laxmi if your love also needs me to be someone else in order to be loved. For now just know the question and think about it.
With lukewarm regards (People always write your servant but i dont want to be your servant but your daughter)
Your anxious kiddo
