Trapped....(Part:7)

(....continued from Part:6)

(Two years later....)

"Hello!!!", Dr. Shetty cheerfully wished us, as I entered her clinic with Rohan.

"So, last day with me, isn't it???...take a seat...um, Rohan, please be seated. So basically, I won't say much today. I want to hear from Jay first. Tell me, how do you feel??"

"A lot better, ma'am. I feel more at peace with myself, more loved, more accepted. And it would not have been possible without you, my parents and Rohan. Had you all not been there, by feminine soul would never had been able to accept my biologically masculine body...to love myself. I no longer feel that nature has mocked me by trapping me in this body. I know, my inner and outer selves are not congruent, but I love myself for who I am."

Dr. Shetty smiled, as Rohan gave me a comforting touch. 

I continued.

"My naiveness had tricked me to believe that my parents don't love me. But I was wrong. They were just concerned, that their son don't behave the way all so-called normal boys do. They tried to make me understand, they scolded me, because...they felt I was wrong. But the day they got to understand my side of the story, all thanks to you, they have supported my identity like anything. They kept calm, and held their heads high, even when people called me 'gay'...because they knew I wasn't wrong in any way. May be....I was a bit different, but I was, rather am, who I am, and its not at all any fault of mine. They have taught me to love the very body that I had once hated, because again, this body doesn't define who I am.

And then came Rohan. I met Rohan at my workplace. The simple guy, who could never give me the butterflies and the obsession....but with him I felt at peace. He is my home. After dating for a few months, we moved in together. A lot of people spoke, but we never cared. We loved each other for who we were. And ofcourse, we had two sets of wonderful parents to keep us strong, so anything else hardly mattered. And you know what the funniest part was???...the same people who had laughed at us, mocked at us...and what not,  slowly seemed to come to terms with us. You can amend Article 377....but amending peoples' mindset....that is tough, so better not even think of it. Guess what, the entire world starts accepting you once you start accepting yourself.....and you won't ever find love, if you don't love yourself. So what if I am feminity in a masculine body??...I love myself, both my soul and my body, for who I am. Neither I am abnormal, nor have I committed any crime by loving someone of my biological sex."

Dr. Shetty smiled before she began, what I have been waiting to hear all these days.....the story of my past that I never exactly knew.

"Jay, now that you are ready to know, let me tell you about your past. You might not remember everything....that is called 'repression', a defence mechanism of our subconcious mind that makes us unconciously forget painful memories. You have been suffering from gender identity disorder, whereby you have always felt that you are a feminine soul 'trapped' in a masculine body. You had thus ended up hating your male body that was not congruent with your female soul. And, you have always been a loner since childhood...that became more during your adolescence, as you were too 'girly' to be accepted in the guy's group, and you were a 'guy' to be accepted among the girls. And this loneliness, lack of friends, along with a constant disaproval from the society as well as your family made you feel more hopeless and dejected. You felt misunderstood, and trapped in a big bad world. And that gave rise to a peculiar habit....you began texting yourself. You texted yourself to your sim one from your sim two, from the same dual sim phone. And then came Pranav.

Like any other girl of your age, you began dreaming of your perfect prince charming. Though rejected by your concious mind, your subconcious mind began imagining. And this imagination became too strong, to be called as an obsession. And this obsession made you hallucinate about Pranav. You began dating each other. The entire world stared as you began speaking to the winds, but you remained immersed in your own world, because, nobody but Pranav understood you. The entire thing went to another level, when you began texting yourself from your sim two as Pranav, and you replied from your sim one as Jay. If I am not very wrong, you might have never spoken to him over the phone, because you have always received a 'busy tone'. Anyway....when you broke the news about Pranav to your parents, nobody believed you, because no Pranav ever existed. They might have scolded you...or thought that you have been sick..or tried to correct you. And that was the final nail to the coffin. The entire dejection by your family and the society was too much for you to handle, trapping you into severe depression, and you attempted suicide. And you hallucinated Pranav to die along with you. Though you were somehow saved, Pranav had died in your subconcious, and you never remembered him again. Then you reached college, and Pranav was replaced by Aryan......the entire story of texting, and hallucinating repeated itself."

Dr. Shetty paused. I stared in disbelief at her, as she resumed.

"When you had told about Aryan to your parents, they were scared, because they knew no Aryan ever existed, and this would result in another suicide attempt. They didn't even allow you to go out for this very reason. But the day you sneaked out through the window, your mother's instincts kicked in, and she came searching for you into your room. She couldn't find you, but you had left behind your phone. She had read your messages to yourself as Aryan, and she wasted no time in calling for help. You were saved again and taken to Sanjeevni Hospital....and you know the rest."

There was an awkward silence. The entire thing seemed to me like a distant story that I never remembered. I didn't know what to say. It was then Rohan spoke up.

"Ma'am, now that I am here, I promise you, that no Pranav or Aryan would ever come back in Jay's life...." 

He held my hand tight.

"I know guys. Jay has finally found love and happiness. And I know Rohan...you will keep your words. My best wishes are with you both for a wonderful life ahead."

I felt a hint of emotion in Dr. Shetty's voice. A lump formed in my throat, as my vision got hazy. 

I felt choked once again....but this time with emotions.

I felt 'trapped' again, but this time, by love. And for the first time, I didn't want to escape.......

(The end.)