From the past

 It had been seven years since the untimely demise of my mother. My mother was a simple lady for whom her husband and daughter were her universe. With her long jet black hair oiled and tightly tied in a plait that ran up to her waist, a round bindi of the size of a rupee on her fair forehead and slender hour glass figure, I always felt my mother looked like a goddess from the Raja Ravi Verma’s paintings. She would cook delicious food, and my father would shower her with compliments in the form of lovely shayaris. The day she cooked his favourite kheer, he would say

I have no iota of doubt

That these rose like delicate hands of yours

Carry the taste of Ambrosia.

The day she cooked some spicy fritters with tangy tamarind chutney, he would say

It is you who

Brings the happiness in my life

And spices up everything.

‘Have some shame, we have a daughter at home who has come of age,’ My mother would say and rush into the kitchen to bring the fresh batch of fritters for him.  Her face would turn pink with the compliment. Yet, she made a humble protest, as was expected from modest women of those times.

The day my mother died, my father didn’t cry. The shock of her death had given crushed all the emotions inside him. He didn’t speak with anyone for the fourteen days, the traditional mourning period. He quietly did all the rites quietly and once the period of mourning was over, he deliberately tried to act as if everything was normal. I didn’t like it. I felt he shouldn’t be deprived of the grieving which would help him emotionally. But he wouldn’t listen. His decision was backed with the desire that ‘Nimmi should never feel that she is devoid of a mother.’ Since, that day he became my father as well as mother. We adjusted to our new life which didn’t have a place for my mother.

 

But life is such a bitch. It strikes you when you least expect it. That day when I received a call from my father’s office, I was busy with my research for my PH.D.  thesis. So, I disconnected the call and continued taking the notes. When the phone rang again, I answered.

‘What?’ I screamed into the receiver. Leaving notes on my table and laptop open, I rushed out of the house. I took out the car and drove full throttle. My mind was somewhere else. It is the grace of the divine that even if I was driving like a zombie I didn’t ram into any other vehicle.

I parked the car in the parking lot of the Civil hospital and locked it.

‘Madam, please park the car in a straight line,’ the watchman there told me. But I turned a deaf ear to him and scurried towards the hospital premises.

My father lay there on the bed. Even in that state he waved me. Before he could speak, the doctor on duty told me, ‘His sugar shot up. Nothing to worry. Considering his age, we don’t want to run any risks. We have conducted a few tests, the reports will come in couple of hours. Until then, we are keeping him in observation. You please stand outside for sometime, as we don’t allow visitors at this point of time,’ he said.

I dragged my feet outside and waited on the bench. That is when the stranger resurfaced in my life. He came and sat next to me.

I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z