The Palace Prison

I wish I hadn’t woken up. I had dreaded this day ever since I remember. It’s 6 AM and I’m unfortunately breathing. I look through from my window at the unobstructed sun that’s slowly rising and writing my fate.

I pull myself from the bed and walk towards the window and open it. The fresh breeze, the neatly lined houses that are yellow in color, cobblestone streets, cornfields, the sea, the sun behind it, everything is bliss to look at. But even that isn’t cheering me up.

I look down and I see people crowding before the hill where my house is situated. All the people are dressed in yellow, from a young baby to an adult in a wheelchair. It looks like a yellow sea in front of my eyes. Cars are parked neatly and doors across the city are shut.

People have balloons with them, confetti with them, and there are huge hot air balloons with my face, that is tethered to the ground. The road that leads to my house is filled with flowers. The flowers are emanating a scent that is bringing joy to every individual, except me.

What’s happening in the city, you ask? I’m being coronated. In a few hours, I will officially be Prince Stryko of the Fae Dynasty. And the problem is, I don’t want to be a Prince. I want to be Stryko.

The Fae Kingdom has been around for almost 1000 years. It has never fallen until now, and it is not that I’m scared that it would fall under my rule. It is that I have never lived my life, until now. Every person has a dream after he’s born. He strives to achieve that. I was forced with that dream ever since I was conceived and I cannot escape it.

My dad, King Draco, is one of the most revered Kings of my Kingdom. He became a King when he was just 18 years old and has been ruling the Kingdom for almost 30 years now. In the 16 years that I had been with him, my actions have only evoked one response from him:

You’re becoming a King. A King should act responsibly.

But why would somebody coronate a person who isn’t interested than someone in the Kingdom who actually wants to be a King? Hence, Nepotism is the word I have hated the most in my life.

With a train of thoughts in my mind and eyes full of tears, I see those people climbing the hill to the Royal Faelace, as our Palace is officially called. Everybody looks joyous and happy. There are celebrations in every nook and corner as far as my eyes could see. But nobody knows that their Crown Prince isn’t happy with it. What wouldn’t I give to be born as a normal person? Why was I even born? A million sperms and yet the Universe wanted me to be born. I’ve not been able to handle this and have been contemplating suicide. But when a Prince commits suicide, it brings shame to the Kingdom. There you go. I can’t even have the freedom with my own life.

While all that was running in my mind, the door in my room opened. I quickly wiped my tears off and put on a smile. I’ve mastered that in the last decade. I turned around to see my mom looking as elegant as ever.

‘Stryko, I see a million suns in your face. You have been a responsible boy all these years. You should bring pride to your father’

‘Sure ma. I was waiting to be coronated. I can’t wait to bring prosperity to the Kingdom’

‘Get ready. You will have a flower bath soon. The ceremony will begin at 8’

As she left and pulled the door behind her, I turned around to watch the people walking over the scented flowers and queuing in a line to see their newly coronated Prince. There were a few children about 7-8 years old, who were throwing flowers at each other. I kept staring at them, with tears running down my cheeks. I wasn’t even given an opportunity to do that in my life.

I’m not going to blame my father. He never deprived me of anything. I asked for a dog, and I got ten instead. My dad even bought an Aibo for me that’s currently dismantled. I asked for a car, I got a Rolls Royce. I asked for a toy airplane, and I got one made by Airbus and also a private jet with my face in the tail. If you’d like some detail, well it is an Airbus A350. It has a lot of arcade games, has a small football cage, and even has a Jacuzzi which activates when the flight is in cruise and will be equipped with a gym too. I once asked my Dad to take me to New York and got dinner at the White House later in Washington.

My peers get jealous of me because, at 16, I’m worth 1.4 billion US Dollars. When I become the King, I will become the richest monarch in the World. So, people outside the hills pray to Gods to be born as a Prince/Princess of the Fae Kingdom. You could easily find thousands of babies named Stryko as soon as I become the King. But I have broken traditions too.

In fact, I was the first person in my entire Kingdom to go to school. Usually, the Prince/Princess of the Fae Dynasty was taught in the Royal Nursery inside the Faelace. We are taught common subjects and never had to worry about board exams. Because one day, we will be the rulers of this vast Kingdom and the Royals do not need to be tested. The notion is that they are born with greatness, except that they are not!

My great-grandfather, who had a love for acting, was cast in many films as the lead, although most bombed in the box office across the world, except in the Fae Kingdom. The most popular work of his was ‘Faentastic Beasts: The story of all the animals in the Fae Kingdom’. My aunt has a clothing chain called ‘Faeshion’ which is the official manufacturer of all the garments worn by the aristocrats and the state. It is mostly substandard. My cousin started a tech company and created a Social Media platform called ‘Faecebook’.

But I never wanted to misuse my Royal Title for my benefit. I wanted to chase a dream. I wanted to become a pilot or an astronaut. I wanted to be a normal boy with friends and a dream. Not a Royal who can achieve greatness because of my heritage. So, when I turned five, I asked my dad to put me in a school. I didn’t like the nursery. I was the only person in the nursery and I wanted to be friends with people. My dad readily accepted and I was admitted to the school, the very next day. Although I was excited, I didn’t realize that the nursery and the school were the same after all. It all struck me when I turned 11.

While every boy and girl wore a uniform, I was never given one. I would show up in haute couture ‘Faeshion’ dresses, while the boys and girls wore uniforms given by the school. I always sat alone on a ‘Golden couch’ while my peers sat in wooden benches. I was never given any sort of punishment and I even had a right to speak inside my school’s library! No teacher would leave the room without addressing me and I was always called the ‘Prince’ and never with my name. The officials from ‘Faentagon’ – The Secret Service of our Kingdom would always watch over me and sat behind me. My father built a special canteen in the school to serve me food and snacks. This was to stop me from eating unhealthy foods. My school gave out ‘Faevorite’ student badges for students who scored well in their exams. Although I knew I flunked most of them, I was never seen without that badge.

Having been in the school for so long, I do not know the names of most people in my class, and never was a part of their little mischiefs. I, however, knew most of them were named Draco in honor of my father.

I have even tried to talk to a few, but they would fall in my feet and seek blessings. It was mandated to all the students in my school, even if they were many years my senior. I was never given homework, never allowed to run in the hot sun, and found my place in the school Tennis team without trials. Even if the opponent wins, they surrender the victory to my name. Prince Stryko was the exceptional student to the Kingdom, but a worthless piece of shit to his own.

Like every teenager, I even fell in love with a girl. Her name was Dia. She’s also one among those who are standing in the queue to see me getting coronated. But I couldn’t even talk with her. How would you like it if the girl you love fall in your feet and seek blessings whenever you approach her? In fact, we are barred from marrying anyone but a Royal. It’s a custom, my approval does not stand. I even have the right to marry multiple Royals, but I can’t marry somebody whom I actually like.

But for once, I decided to breach. I wanted to be radical, and not stick to olden customs written thousands of years ago. The only leverage I found useful was that I can access the school’s data. I thus decided to use my power and found her mobile number. I went home and saved her number on my phone. She was the only contact on my phone who wasn’t a Royal.

After fighting with myself for a few hours, I mustered up the courage and decided to text her. I wanted to show her my sense of humor, perhaps the first time I was showcasing that quality, and sent her this:

‘Hey Dia, Vintage Cars and I have something in common. We find it difficult to start 😀 I haven’t spoken much with people and I don’t know what to say. Waiting to hear from you’

The tone of the message could easily give me away. But I did send the message and through the entire night, I was anxiously checking if I had received a response. But I didn’t and I felt like a complete failure. Self-doubts within me kept mounting with every passing second.

The next morning, the Faentagon had come to receive me. When I got on board, the Faentagon showed me the message. It then struck me that all my messages are passed through the Faentagon and the responses are received by them too.

‘I can’t believe this. Let’s go out sometime’ is what she had sent.

The Faentagon advised me that their protocol doesn’t allow me to meet strangers outside the Faelace. And common men were not allowed in the Faelace as well.

I just couldn’t look her in the eyes that day and all I wanted was to take my own life. Why did I have to live a life for the benefit of others? She was disturbing me too much that I decided to stop going to the school and my parents assumed that I wanted to put my focus on Royal duties.

So, there you go. I’m an hour away from going through years of torture, and I’m still in a dilemma to either bite the bullet or to pass away peacefully. I could also see my coffin lying outside the Faelace – The Faelenquin. There will be a procession the entire day and the citizens will dance and perform for me on the roads as I walk through the city masking my feelings.

I took a flower bath and stood in front of my diamond mirror crying about the life I’ve had. It was like preparing for your own death. I’ve begun hating this universe, more than ever. People should be left to live their own lives and chase their own destiny. They should never be allowed to live a forced life. Any Prince or Princess before me would have been happy. Why not? You’re bound to unlimited riches the moment you’re coronated. But can money buy happiness? I guess not.

I wore my gem-studded dress and presented myself to the King’s seat. I could hear the firecrackers outside the Faelace and people in the Royal Room were throwing flowers at me, as I was crowned. I knew I was smiling, but I was unable to capture the environment. My mind had gone numb. My body was working on its own and pulled me to the Faelenquin and as soon as I got in, the city erupted with joy.

I put on a fake smile, waving at the citizens, while I was crying within me. I was protesting with my teary glands and my throat had gone heavy. But I was still putting on a smile. My fate was sealed. Nobody asked me what I wanted. None cared about my feelings.

When the Sun’s rays penetrated through my window the next morning, I woke up numb. I knew this will be my life forever. I made no choices to fight within me, as I didn’t have the energy to. As a custom to bring joy in the city, the Prince gets to pardon prisoners who have shown enormous spirit. It was my turn to pardon them today and along with Faentagon, I went to the Central Correction Center.

While I did pardon many, I was curious about one prisoner. He was about my age. He was arrested on account of helping his father to steal money for his family. Although he was just handling it, the Royal Court decided to arrest him as well. Our Faenal Codes are very strict. He was to serve for four more years, but I pardoned him. He thanked me, and scurried out of my vision.

Few years passed.

I pulled out of my bed and saw the flowers, balloons, people, cars, outside. It was my sister’s coronation as the Princess of the Fae Kingdom. There were celebrations of the like once again. I took out my telescope which I bought to give some reality to the dream of becoming an astronaut. While I normally gazed at the sky, I used it to peer into the city. I was looking at all the meticulous planning done by my family. I kept turning my telescope around until my eyes caught something near the cornfields. At the bus stop, I saw the prisoner I had pardoned. He was wearing a casual dress and had a backpack. I didn’t move my telescope and kept looking at him. He took out his wallet and was doing something. I don’t think he had enough money. But maybe he was determined to move out and explore his life.

As the bus stopped and crossed the place, he was missing. It then struck me that in fact, I was the prisoner all these years in my invisible golden handcuffs. The only difference is that my prison looks luxurious. I have never had the freedom to choose what I liked. I never had a social life and confined to the palace grounds. I might even be the richest prisoner in the world. I wish somebody could pardon me.

I did realize something. Do people become a prisoner of their dream or their destiny? Some have dreams but their destiny prisons them. Some have a destiny, but their dream prisons them. Where do I fall? Would I be happier as a King, or would I have achieved happiness chasing my dream? There is so much to muse while I am destined to spend the rest of my life in this Palace Prison!

 

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

‘Got Married’

I hurriedly added a life event on my Facebook timeline.

We aren’t married yet. The marriage is not for another six hours. But I just wanted my parents and my nose-poking relatives to know that their favorite and ‘role-model’ child is not coming back to their house. I’m sure they have already turned into Sherlock Holmes, spreading their nets to catch me. But they are mere hooligans. They are uneducated like us.

I’m sure that my parents, my relatives, or my nephews would never speak with me for committing such a sin. Having grown up in a family where murder is just ‘accounts settled’ and inter-caste marriage is an unforgivable sin, my conscience has come a long way. Isn’t reproduction a natural thing? Why does it matter who do we do it with?

After all, our offspring will enjoy the love showered upon it by both me and him. I’ve questioned my decisions in life. And often, I was right. It is my life. Neither my parents nor any other are going to live it on behalf of me.

So, when the phone was pealing with emotional messages from Vishal, I somehow had to stop him and answered with a syllable – Yes! He’s been someone who has turned my life into a beautiful story. I was sucked into this vortex called caste. Any relative who would come into my house would leave it by saying ‘Never fall in love with a person from another caste. We have high standards of living than the others.’ But he roped me out of it.

And this very forbidden fruit was the first reason why I said Yes. But that wasn’t the only one.

Making a transition from village life to city life was very difficult and unwelcoming for me. I was bullied by my peers for the first few months because of my awkward selection of dresses and my constant denial to drinking. I was very adamant in maintaining my identity. It was who I was; who I am. I can’t act like someone in front of my friends, and someone in front of my parents. To me, all the world’s is not a stage!

Just like how the ethnicities come together as a gang, few other outcasts and I formed a small gang in college. We weren’t the ones who took a lot of selfies, we never found happiness in drinking, we never gossiped, we were not interested in dating or casual relationships, and we were definitely not interested in wearing shorter dresses. Our identity was against it and so was I.

I’ll clear the air between my culture and caste. The culture was my identity, my caste wasn’t. I never wanted to be identified with my caste or my religion. I wanted people to recognize me as a Tamil girl.

To sum it all up, the life inside the college was no different from what was happening inside my house. Except, I faced staunch male domination and was caged in my house. But every bird leaves its nest. It just needs some amount of confidence.

The time to try the wild blue yonder came to me when I first met Vishal. Every club in our college was campaigning for new members and I’ve always liked a community-based club. I wanted to enlist for Rotaract and made my way to the stall when a stout figure stopped me.

‘Are you here to join Rotaract?’, he asked me.

He gave me a form to fill up as soon as I nodded. ‘Fill in all the essentials, pay your membership fee, and come to the inauguration.’ said he with a sly smile and left the place.

From that moment on Rotaract became my second classroom. We used to meet up every day and talk about the issues in the community. Since Vishal was my head, I always pitched my ideas to him and he saw those as a chance to get close with me. Nobody doubted our relationship. If you hear our conversation, it’ll only be about how the human race is being separated because of caste and religion, why there is so much hatred in a country that is unable to use its powerful population to turn into an economic superpower, etc.

But what I loved about Vishal was his positive attitude in life. Being from an orthodox family, he was trying to break the chains like Daenerys Targaryen. He used to tell me that he’d never pray to God nor do religious things because he believes that it separates people. He only visited temples for the prasad. He was indifferent to others’ opinions.

But he made my life in college sweet. We both shared the same ideologies. We both were very passionate about trying to create a change. He was always ready to show his ‘prestigious’ family that every human was the same and hence was never interested in arranged marriages. But at the same time, he was a hopeless romantic.

He never confessed his love for me during college. It was after my graduation one day that he confessed to me and through a text message! He was never interested in wooing a girl with gifts too. He believed if two people can love each other, why should materialistic love exist?

But my family was always interested in getting rid of me. They were raising me only to get me married to another person. The degree was just a showcase for the world to know that their daughter too is educated. They saw it as a mere status. Actually, a lot of people do. Otherwise, wouldn’t our country would flourish with a lot of common sense?

But the world was enough for me. I was not ready to spend the rest of my life with a person whom I do not know about. I’m sure he’s only marrying me because of the amount of wealth that’d be transferred to him, to satisfy his sexual desires, and to have an unpaid servant in his life. Because, ever since my birth, my parents kept telling me that I should never be cross with my husband or in-laws. Landing up in jail and the person’s place is both the same. And being from a village, they’d want me to act as if I had never read a book in life.

My conscience took over again. I wanted to be the Rosa Parks of my family. I wanted to change things. I wanted to tell the generations after me that men and women are equal and that identity is different from inequality and hatred. So, I called him and I told him that I’m coming to his house and we both better get married.

He understood my plight. I was scared that he’d give me a reason saying he’s financially unstable and turn me down. But he stood by his promise and his values. He understood that love meant sacrifice and that it takes a lot of pain to make relationships work. So, I told my parents that I’ll be back in a few hours. But I never visited my friends’ but caught my bus to Bengaluru and was scared to death until I found his smiling face waiting impatiently in the morning at the bus stop.

He hugged me, never questioned me, and took me to his house. I connected my Wi-Fi and updated my status. I convinced him that we’ve got to get married sooner and through a friend, he got us a church at 3 PM. It was really exciting. There were no conventions. It was a temple after all. It didn’t matter to both of us. He had to prepare for the wedding and he left to buy things from the store.

I was asked to get ready and his female friends ensured everything was set in place. They took me shopping, got me the wedding dress, the bouquets, ordered cakes, and in no time, we were present at the church.

The church was empty. There were no designs around. There were no people around. It was empty and our voices echoed through the church. And all this while, I was never worried about my decision. I have been with him for 2 years and I know him much better than anyone. I knew he’d never give up on me, nor let me down. The priest had come already and in 30 mins we were to get married.

I could hear the cars parking outside in a hurry. I knew he had come. But his friends came inside panting and weeping and I knew things weren’t right. Sometimes even conscience could go wrong. Your frantic decisions can always put you at a huge risk. So, did mine. It seemed that the status I had updated had shown my location as ‘Bengaluru, India’ and my parents always doubted my relationship with him.

Since he snatched my heart, they literally snatched his. Did I not tell you about how happy they get when they settle their accounts? But for some reason, I wasn’t going numb. I was hearing the stories without a drop of tear or a heavy pang in my heart. I went to the hospital and his motionless body lay there.

I knew it was me who murdered him. If only I had stuck to what my parents had said, he’d have been at his office smiling and enjoying with his friends. If only I had answered him with another syllable, he’d have found another girl. A guy like him would surely attract a girl if efforts were made. If only I had not taken my feelings personal to him, I’d have been yet another graduate without a friend from another department. If only I wasn’t born to this family, I wouldn’t have regretted any of this.

I only wish time could move back. All his friends were weeping around me. I noticed all the thick plastic covers laying around. Just because I asked him, he was ready to marry me within a short span of time. Such was his love for me. He wanted me to be in a happy place.

I opened each of the bags. The smell of the fresh linen coat still hadn’t died. His new perfumes were not opened. The watch that he was about to gift me still showed 10.10. The fruits still had dew on them. And the rings were glittering in the case.

I took the rings in my hand. It was already 3 PM. If he had been alive, we’d have been kissing by now. I’d have sped in his car to my new home and perhaps would have enjoyed every moment of it. I turned back to his expressionless face.

The blood was drying up. The police were around. And people were pulling me away from him. I was constantly resisting. I ran my fingers over his body. I knew that as long as the roots of the tree called casteism grew, nobody can have different opinions. I’m sure I’ll be slaughtered too. I wasn’t scared of death. I wanted to stand my ground. I did not want to break down and explain to the media how I lost him. They’d surely make money through my story.

I wanted the world to see that women too can fight, especially women like me who are just fed to be saviors to unknown and unworthy rulers in the future. I slowly lifted his ice-cold hand and clenched it tight.

I took a ring from the box, inserted it in his ring finger and said ‘I do’.