Dreams.

"Why are you so happy Kishore? You still don't seem to realize that had it not been for this silly girl, you would have lived this dream ages back."

All Kishore could do to that punch was, smile.
He was driven back to time.

"Neelu! Where are you?"

He looked everywhere in that tiny shed, searching for his wife.

"Neelu… Neelu?"

He found her lying on the bed with a thick quilt on her body.

“Neelu, are you okay?”

Neelu smiled shyly. Kishore knew what it was but he wanted to listen in the sweet voice of his beloved.

"I am pregnant!"

"Oh Neelu! This has to be the happiest day of our lives! I just got the estimate of the land near the village. We can save money to buy it and then fulfil our dream. This baby has bought with it only good luck Neelu," he almost screamed in joy and hugged his wife tightly.

Kishore was a junior clerk in the primary school of a small village. Earning a meagre income that hardly kept him above the poverty line, he was thankful for whatever he had in life. Its hard to believe that someone can be happy in such limited means. But to Kishore, money was not the ultimate happiness of life. He had a dream, one that would make him the happiest person on earth, and would wash away the stains of a dark childhood, perhaps, the dream he lived for.

Kishore had no one while growing up. He remembered being on his own ever since he started his life. Who fed him when he was a toddler, who taught him to walk, who taught him words, it was all unknown to him.

There was too much of turmoil in his growing-up years, he was always ridiculed whenever he left the space for parents' name empty in any form that he filled, and faced problems that one can't imagine.

That day, when the beautiful girl from the city he was married to had finally conceived a child, he could not thank his stars enough. Though deep down, his heart bled drops of worry. He knew how hard it was going to be for him. Raising a child was not that difficult but the dream that Kishore had was too big and he knew that the child would be facing a lot of financial problems.

But that was not where his sorrows came to a full stop. Kishore had a graver reason to weep in agony. His social circle would have never accepted the child if it bore a female tag. It was that very morning that he had heard about the head panchayat kicking a girl child in the well. All he did during his wife’s pregnancy was work and pray for a male child. He told his wife that he, of course, would be equally happy if it was a boy for he knew it is all God’s will. But somehow, his heart still wanted a daughter, his princess, his pride.

They say that nature always worked in mysterious ways, keeping a balance intact, a balance that is unbeknownst to the world.

It was a rainy day that his wife had gone into labour, and rains never go easy on people who hav1e little roof over their heads. He vividly remembers how difficult it was for him to get her to the government hospital, how much pain his wife was in during the whole bumpy ride, and how the doctors had looked at her when they finally made it there. He was not a very religious person but in those 2 hours, he remembered all the Gods he knew, did all the prayers that he could remember, and promised God of quitting all his bad habits, not that he had many.

Kishore had settled himself on a cold bench with closed eyes. He was just busy thanking heavens to have made him safely reach the worn-out walls of the hospital, when a doctor came searching for him in the corridor with a droopy face. Kishore drove his brains to the wildest of imaginations but never did he imagine losing his Neelu. The doctors had termed a 'stroke' to be the reason of this loss. The doctors also told him how Neelu, albeit to much hatred of the villagers, had given Kishore a last gift, his baby girl. Their baby girl.



The moment he lit the pyre of his young wife, who he believed died to fulfil his wish of having a complete family, that very moment he affirmed himself to devote his life for the girl. He knew he would have to fight the world for this girl's survival. The first step he took was to sell the land meant for his dream. He didn’t care that it was the only way to fulfil his dream; all he wanted to do was to give his child the best he could.



They moved from the suburbs to the town, where Sapna, his daughter would know nothing of his father’s past, the horrible intentions of his villagers, or the memories of the place her mother breathed her last. Kishore always told her about Neelu, and loved her so much that Sapna never felt that he was being raised without a mother. She achieved all the success that she could or could not, getting scholarships, making it into the lists of the top college of the country, and then getting hired by the topmost employer in the campus interviews.



All this while, Kishore never thought about the dream he had. His reason to live was now a long-forgotten thing, and he never discussed it with Sapna as well, saving her from an unnecessary guilt of making his father lose his passion.



Or maybe, that is what he thought.



Kishore always maintained a diary wherein he scribbled his emotions venting out the pains and occasionally, some tears. One fine day when 'appa' was at work, the little girl found this alien object lying on the floor. Kishore, unknowingly, had left the diary home that day.

In the dead hours of night, Sapna used to fake sleep and look at her father sighing away huge pains with a pen and that diary in hand. Human has always been an object of curiosity. Sapna, justifying the saying, had already read about her father's dream and passion of building a charity home.



.



It was not by chance that she had got all this success. She had worked for it, for the dream that her father had forgotten for her sake. She had gotten into the best college and the best office because of this dream. This dream was what had kept her going.

And today, this dream was fulfilled. Pitrachhaya Anathalaya was the unusual name that she had come up with, as opposed to 'matrichhaya' suggested by her team, because she knew that though mothers are the one associated with kids and love, fathers do no less.



Today, Sapna stands with her head held high and looks at her father's dream. It is her birthday the next day. As proposed by Kishore year's back to his wife, the orphan home would be inaugurated on the day of her birth. She booked her father's ticket who is flying to her that evening. Kishore has already packed his bag and is waiting for a taxi on his door with a grin he cannot suppress. He can see his fellow neighbour walking up to him.



"Why are you so happy Kishore? You still don't seem to realize that had it not been for this silly girl Sapna, you would have lived this dream ages back."



Kishore replied with a cosy smile "Have you ever lived a life for someone else?"

"No."



"Do you have a daughter?"



"No."



"Exactly."



The taxi honked at the turn.

Clock's gimmick.

I am a sixty two year old lady who is about to turn sixty three in a few hours.



It has been two years since I retired from the post of Head of the Department at a renowned college in my state and now I am in Seattle, living with my daughter. I did not really want to come here and intrude in her personal space but my dear daughter doesn’t think so. She loves me a lot; she had forced me and booked my tickets. My son, who lives in Ontario, is coming over to celebrate my birthday as well. I am not supposed to know about it, though. They have planned a surprise. My husband, and her dad, is here with us too. With a good job, a perfect husband and successful loving kids, I do not have much to desire for.

At sixty two, my hair has grayed. People tell me to dye, but I find this very ‘sexy’, to use a modern adjective. My face has wrinkles and it has started to sag.I am supposed to either turn into an absolutely boring, dull and pesky woman or get some facials in order to lift my skin, dye my hair and look a tad younger. They don’t let me be. Life was mayhem earlier, but now I have adapted myself. Aging has given me a lot of gems. Age has provided me with such intellect, that you don’t find in books or religious texts. I know I have become physically weak and the pain in my knees forces me to use a stick at times; but internally, I have become very strong and full of might. Life has given me a lot and now that death can swallow me any moment, I don’t repent because I have lived a full life. A good job? I got it. Married into a good family? I got it. See my children kiss success? I got it.

I am lost in my thoughts, but I can sense my daughter approaching me from behind. I know she will close my eyes from behind like she has been doing since childhood and then give me a tight hug, humming the birthday tune for me. She does the same, but along with it, she flashes two tickets for the cinema. With undue excitement, I agree to go along. I am standing near the long queue for popcorn while my daughter is still deciding what to buy. A strange man shoves by me from my side. I have seen him somewhere. I know him, but wonder who he is.

*

“Sorry,” he mutters.

He has a French accent. I think I know him. Well, I know him pretty well.
Peter. I know he will not recognise me. Peter. This man, here in Seattle? After all these years? Peter. I know him pretty well. Peter. He is the man I had first fallen in love with. Peter. He used to live across the church I visited every Sunday with my grandmother. Peter. We had a relationship of almost three years. Peter. He told me one day how he had to leave me because he could not focus on studies. Peter. I came to know later on that he had fallen in love with some other woman. Peter. After I got married to Paul, he got married to Zara as well. Peter. I can see him fighting with the guy in a distant candy corner. Peter. He smells of alcohol. Oh, Peter!

*

My daughter and I had a good time at the movie. I almost fell asleep on my daughter’s shoulder and she stroked her fingers through my hair like I always did through hers’. I am lying in my bed, next to my husband right now and the clock says it’s three in the morning. Aging doesn’t let me sleep properly. I absolutely forgot about Peter, but now he seems to be on my mind again. My husband turns and pulls me in his arms, making me rest my head on his shoulders. He plants a slight kiss on my forehead. He has been doing that every single day since we got married. I love him and he loves me. I can hear my son whispering to my daughter in the next room. They are planning me to surprise me in the morning with his presence.

But, Peter.

And suddenly, my elder sister’s words resound in my head. She was wiping my tears and questioning in her hoarse, heavy voice.“With a good job, a perfect husband and successful loving kids, will this break-up matter forty years hence?”

Well...

Demanding Little Sister.

Ever since my little sister was born, I have been very jealous of her. Until my mother’s tummy protruded, I was the only subject of attention for everyone but thereafter, everything changed. My mother suddenly started to ignore my talk about the happenings at school and told me that she wanted to sleep because the baby in the stomach tired her out. My friends at school told me that she was doing so because I may have been adopted. Whenever daddy came home from work, my mother would only talk about the baby and it seemed that she had absolutely forgotten me; this somehow convinced me even more that my friends were right.

My sister was expected to come to this world on the sixteenth day of June, back in 1997. But she, being the restless kid she turned out to be, decided to come into the world almost a fortnight prior to the expected date. The clouds had poured the entire day and night. It seemed to be a battle between the demons and the angels. The thundering clouds well mirrored the storm inside me. I was already planning how I would never let her sleep in my bed and how I would choke her.


Several years of her childhood had passed and my attitude towards her did not get better. My mother would spend the entire day making faces at her, feeding her, changing her nappies bathing her and to sleep. The only hope on which I would face the day would be my daddy’s return but it seemed to me that he too would enter the home just to hug my little sister and offer her a bunch of balloons. I used to feel as ignored as the orange marigold among a bunch of red roses.

*

It was an odd afternoon when she came back from school and despite my evident indifference towards her, hugged me. I tried pushing her away but then I noticed some warm liquid oozing out of her eyes.

‘What happened, Piya?’ I was concerned.

She tried explaining the problem to me but as always did not succeed. This was another problem with Piya. She was always very strange with her actions. She could never put her worries into words. We always had to make an estimate and decipher what it would be. Had it been any other day, I would have told her to stop disturbing me.

But that day was different.

Piya was crying a lot. The sister inside me was worried for the first time. I started noticing her hands and expressions to understand the complication. Just when she was about to give up, I saw a strange mark on her hand. Somebody had hit my little sister. I was suddenly filled with a sense of anger and rage. I called up my mother and she came back home immediately from work. We had put Piya off to sleep, and decided to visit her school for further investigation. The kindergarten teacher told us how she had ‘accidently’ hit her because Piya would never be able to differentiate between M and W.

We obviously wanted to report her; but then, that was not what my mother was concerned about. Our priority had to be Piya.

*

“Your daughter is diagnosed with PDD-NOS and ADHD,” the lady in white coat declared. My mother and I looked at each other with question marks on our faces.

“Piya is suffering with autism. Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them. People with Asperger syndrome are often of average or above average intelligence. They have fewer problems with speech but may still have difficulties with understanding and processing language.”

Everything had become very clear. “Piya stares for too long and expresses too little” “Piya is not able to draw a straight line” “Piya always hums songs and is least interested in listening to others.” Every complaint, every imprecation had become very clear. We knew what was to be done.My mother, as I thought she would, should have started shedding tears but she did not.

Appointments for the therapy sessions were taken even before I could realize.
Piya would obviously demand more attention now, but that did not make me jealous anymore.

*

Today is Piya’s seventh birthday and she has improved by leaps and bounds..

I have left home to pursue higher studies.I never thought I would miss Piya so much until I moved away to the university. I can speak to most of my friends and family when I miss them, but my sister Piya doesn't like the telephone. She would only be able to manage 'Hello didi' and 'I'm good' when I ask how she is, before dissolving into a fit of giggles and running away. It breaks my heart when my parents tell me that she asks spontaneously if she can see me, as she doesn't quite understand why one day I was there and the next day I wasn't. I try to make sure I spend time with her when I'm home. I just hope she doesn't think I've abandoned her or that I'm not ever coming back.

My heart aches to see her struggling with things we don’t even notice. Though, whenever I meet her, she never fails to put an instant smile on my face by pointing towards the poster in her room which reads “I am not dumb, mad or deaf. I am different and different is good.”

Finally.

“Where are you? Have you packed everything? Do not carry those useless dresses... Give some of them to a needful person and get rid of extra baggage... Are you sure you will be able to carry so many suitcases alone?”

“Maa, please stop it now; I need to take a bath before I leave for the station. I am busy. I am hanging up now!”

“No, no wait! One last thing. Did you eat properly? Did you ask that person at the mess to pack some lunch for you?”

“Yes, I did. See you,” I sounded irritated and hung up.

I belong to the old city of Hyderabad and had come to Bombay for my studies. My college got over last week and now, I am going back to live with my maa before I begin with a job. I still remember the first time that I had travelled alone. It was four years back, when I had come to Bombay for college. Maa asked exactly the same questions back then, too. I don’t understand why it is so necessary to treat me like a little school-going kid always. I mean, I understand, she is my mother and everything, but still? Well, whatever I say, I know that at the end of the day, if I do not get a call from her asking me about my dinner, I would not attain a peaceful sleep.

I have packed up everything and now it is time to leave, finally.

Hostel was mayhem. Such gross food, enemies in disguise, long lonely nights and the boiling rooms. I missed my welcoming and cosy room so much. I am so excited thinking about the after-hostel-life. Maa’s food, air-conditioned rooms, no shortage of money, I can watch television whenever I may; such bliss! At the back of my mind, I feel guilty already for hanging up so rudely, but it is okay. I will make up by calling her after I reach the station or maybe, when I board the train.

I am going back, finally.

I take a bath, for one last time and leave for the station. It’s 1:30pm by my watch and I have to board the train to Hyderabad which arrives at 3:30pm. It will hardly take an hour to reach the station, but Bombay and its traffic, you know?

“Taxi!” I scream.

The roads are always shinning with yellow rooftops, but I can never manage to find a taxi when needed the most. The baggage I’m carrying is now a pain in the palms, perhaps, maa was right. I should have left some of the dresses. I am not going to wear them anyway. Finally a cab stops by me.

“Mumbai Central?”

“Get in!”

Letting out a heavy sigh, I struggle myself and the bags inside the taxi. I plug in my earphones and play my second favourite playlist.

So I am actually leaving these streets, finally!

“He is the painkiller, this is the painkiller, faster than a lazer bullet, louder than an atom bomb,” Judas Priest’s ‘painkiller’ buzzes in my ear, exactly where I left it at and exactly the part I like the most. I put it at repeat and rest my head on the window. Somebody knocks the glass. I feel the urge to open my eyes and check, but I am too tired already.

“Must be a beggar, ignore,” I say to myself.

My phone vibrates and I am sure Maa is calling me again. I decide to ignore her call and talk only when I board the train. I feel a slight tap on my shoulder.

“With mankind resurrected, forever to survive, returns from Armageddon to the skies, He is the painkiller” the song continues.

I take off my ear plugs to look at the flushed face of the cabbie. I knew I can never complete a journey without a thrill. I urge him to speak but he stays mute. I can see him trying to gather words, finally.

“There’s a bustle ahead,” his voice shakes.

“Any idea, why is it so?”

“Might be a rally. I don’t know. We cannot go ahead.”

I get down from the cab, even more irritated and walk towards the movement. I fumble for my phone in the bag to turn off the song.

“1 unread message. 26 missed calls: Maa,” it reads.

I have no clue when I put the phone on silent. Before I could read the message or respond to the calls, I see people running around with their faces reading evident worry. My sixth sense tells me to get away from this place. I can feel a sinister in the air. I can smell a pungent smell; melting plastic, wires, what would it be? I am pretty curious. I can see some distant smoke.

“Move, there’s a bom.... !” a man screams and I feel a burning sensation even before I could react. A deafening explosion blurs my vision to a dazzle and everything disappears in less than a minute.

I understand what it is, finally.

*

I remember my mother’s womb. I was just a little sperm who had randomly succeeded to win the race and was rewarded with a nine month spa. All I had to do was to float and occasionally kick to make maa smile. I remember her hand-cooked food, how she cared about me, how she always held and helped me. But now that I am not there, I start to realize how comfortable everything was.

Though, here, things are pretty much the same. When in womb, I floated in the sweet fragrance of the spa and here, I float in the middle of the skies. The hot spa has changed to a pleasant breeze. Just that now, I do not make my maa smile. I am now the reason of occasional tears which I cannot wipe, perhaps, will never be able to wipe.

I realize how things would have been had I answered her last call.

I realize, finally.

Permission

She sprung up from sleep for the fourth time that afternoon which was very unusual for a typical housewife for her, who used to wake up in the odd hours of morning and work like a magic machine till noon. It seemed as though her cell phone had buzzed and granted her a reply, perhaps, an answer to the question she was struggling to put up to her husband.
But the screen just flashed the time and now, a sign which indicated the low battery.

-

Bani was a very traditional and wonted lady, whose husband went for a nine-to-five job leaving her by herself at home to spend time with the television set. She hailed from a middle-class family of Gujarat and was married to another middle-class family in Cuttack.

Her mother had taught her, when she was very little, that women were not supposed to work and how they were put on this earth with the one and only motive of serving the husband with a head bent down. And Bani, some because of the background she was brought up in and some because of the introvert nature she instilled, had followed her mother’s teachings and thought twice before speaking anything in front of her husband even after two years of marriage.

Her conversations with her husband were confined to that of the food to be prepared and the grocery items to be bought. Sometimes they exchanged shy smiles on the dinner table when her husband would compliment her for the delicious food, and that was it. Shlok, her husband, would try getting all romantic and mushy with his wife, but Bani would always give him an uncomfortable look and suddenly remember an important household chore to be completed.

But today was different.
Today, mustering up all the desired courage, Bani had fired her husband with her dream. But Shlok, unlike the regular, had not replied to the message and this was killing every inch of Bani. Her thirst seemed to quench due to repentance and body seemed to collapse due to fear.

-

*Buzz buzz*

She woke up again*

*Battery critically low. Connect to a charger*

She opened the last text message sent to Shlok and re-checked the delivery report, just to be sure.

“Why would Shlok not reply? Didn’t he read my message? I hope he is not offended. Why did I even think of writing that silly question to him? Have I lost my mind? Ma had told me not to be so selfish,” she almost slapped herself.



On not receiving a call by Shlok like every day when he started for home, she was sure she had disgraced her husband. She decided to prepare his favourite dish as a token of apology.

Just when she entered the kitchen, she heard the lift stopping at her floor.

“The neighbours are not in town. The maid has left already. Who would it be? Shlok?” she almost skipped a beat.

When she felt a key entering the keyhole and turning in the ideal motion, she was sure her husband was back home. Her face was flushing with fear and guilt. Shlok entered and brought with himself, a sweet smell.
Roses, she wondered.

He directly moved towards the kitchen for he knew his wife would be busy with the dishes. Even though they had barely exchanged heart-to-heart conversations, Shlok had observed his wife enough to know about the tiniest of details about her.

Shedding away all the shame and awkwardness, he spooned his wife from behind and presented her a bunch of roses.

“Relax your heart beat, baby.”

“Why didn’t you reply to my message?” she fired.

“Because I wanted to look into your eyes and tell you that even though we are a married couple, you are not shackled to me. You are free to make your own decisions and choices. You don’t need to seek my permission.”

“So, does that mean.....”

“Obviously it means that you can work at the bookstore!”

“Please say that again?” she almost screamed.

“You can work at the bookstore, my love. Whatever you do is going to benefit us in the end.”

“Benefit us?”

“Yes, obviously. You will shoplift...” “...Jeffery Archer for you,” she completed him, with instant tears oozing out from her eyes. For the first time in their two-year old married life, Bani hugged her husband in broad daylight without a slightest hint of discomfort.

“How do you know roses are my favourite?” she whispered.

“Just like you knew Archer is my favourite,” he whispered back kissing her forehead.

They had found their day of love.