Nishanth and Shruthi sat down every evening to untangle their differences bit by bit. He was a pure vegetarian. She was a pure non-vegetarian. She liked her clothes ironed. He never cared about clothing. Social media, she enjoyed thoroughly. While he remained private all the time. Words and physical touch were her means of expressing love to the world. But he spoke in actions. He wouldn’t get the movie references, and she wouldn’t get his anime references.
They were like salt and pepper, or the sun and the moon – Always together in the vastness of the sky but exuding beauty in their own different way.
And so, they had chosen to be together.
The entire college knew that the first person he had ever opened up to was Shruthi, for he was a very silent man. On the other hand, Shruthi was very vocal about everything she felt. She would ask, and she would express. But in doing so, the only problem would be that when a difference surfaced, agitating her mind, naturally being outspoken, her words would pierce his heart, wounding it with irreversible damages.
Eventually, the problem was not the differences. It was her impatient and infuriated self that he never recognized.
So on, one evening, when they sat near the college premises and paved a common ground where both would feel seen, Nishanth decided to address her anger first.
“I need to tell you a story.”, he said, keeping a straight face.
“Okay,” she said, looking quizzical. How could a man of few words narrate a story, she thought.
Nevertheless, she had her eyes fixed on him, a hundred percent undivided attention.
“A father and a son lived in a village.”, he started.
Oh, god. What is this? Where is this going?, the voices in her mind screamed. But all she said was, “Ummm. Did the son have a name?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Sorry, sorry”, she said.
He continued with a great deal of interest.
“The son was very talented. He was the topper of his class, he excelled in sports, he was a great orator, he even mingled easily with everyone. Funny, everybody’s favourite kind-of guy. “
He paused to check in if she was listening, expecting some response.
“Okayyyy?” she said.
“One day, his proud father, who knew all this, was called to the school for a parent-teacher meeting. He walked in with many expectations, wondering about all the great things they would say about his son and how high they thought of him. And, of course, they did because he was a student who stood out of the crowd. But, all his teachers, friends, and classmates had gone up to his father and made this particular complaint.”
He stopped to check in again.
“Umm” she said.
“They told him he’s amazing and all that, but he loses his mind and is clearly unaware of what he’s saying when angry. Sometimes, it’s loud and scary. He apologizes the minute he’s conscious, but what’s said is said. Damage is done. The father was then distraught by these collective remarks and decided to talk to his son. The minute he brought the topic of anger, the son snapped at him and ran away.”
He stopped to check in again.
“Ummm, continueee”, she said.
“The father felt disappointed with his behavior. The school had closed for summer vacations, and he had carved a plan to teach his son a lesson. One evening, the father called him when the son was playing near the house. His father was a carpenter by profession. He told his son that a large wooden plank was set up in the work area and that whenever he was angry, he should hammer a nail on that plank without talking. The son agreed to this.”
“Umm”
“On some days, he hammered one. On some, he hammered five. Some utterly deep. Some right on the surface. You could gauge just by the measure and sound how angry he was. The wooden plank was overloaded with nails. Suddenly, one day he had no space to hammer. So he went to his dad, fuelled with anger, and told him there is no space on the wooden plank.”
“Umm”
“His dad pointed at the wooden plank and told him you see the holes there; when you speak out of anger, you create such irreversible holes in someone’s heart.”
He paused and looked straight into my eye.
“I think I feel like this when you say things out of anger.”
Shruthi, whose natural reaction would have been to laugh, teared up, feeling genuinely bad for him and absolutely stupid about herself. It’s been three years since they parted ways, but today, somebody said something that made her furious, and she walked away with
“Just give me 10 minutes, and then we can have this discussion.”