Short Story based on this picture.
The picture was clear to me. Stark, black and white but
clear. There was me in it: a happier, much younger version of me. I wore a
turban on my head along with my work clothes and carried Chanda: my daughter,
on my shoulders like I use to, a long time back.
She was four
years old, as old as I last saw her. She sat comfortably with both her legs
hanging around my neck and my head held in her baby arms. There was something in the
way she rested her head on mine that made her seem weary yet confident. Like
she knew, her Abbu would get her home somehow, anyhow.
She wore her best
dress, the pant suit that I bought for her for Eid. The dress was tad expensive by our standards. However, festivals had always
made me splurge.
Bit by bit, the
picture grew a life and turned into a scene/ a sequence. On difficult nights, this
was a dream that I lived. A dream, that never lasted for long, just about enough
to bring me the taste of my past, of what I lost.
Crumpled was my
life. Folded and creased endlessly. I was broke and homeless, without a friend
or a foe. No one cared, none bothered. Oh,
I received a lot of those pitiful glances, those careless looks. Each set of
eyes worried to rest on me. I was frightened of the freight in their eyes.
It was a dark silent night, one of the worst
kinds, with no stars out. You had nothing to look up to, nothing to shine on
you. And you wake up from a sweet dream to bitter cold. Morning would bring rain..!
Tip!
Tip!
Tip!
Incessant rain drops
would pour down, soaking you, crowding you, drowning you. I shuddered and tried to move to a comfortable sitting
position, unsuccessfully. I was not alone. Under a lamp post, on a deserted by
lane, I had street dogs for company. And a few other castaways like me. Some of
them had not moved for days. And then there were others, who blabbered late
into the night.
I hated the street
and I hated everyone around it, including myself. I wanted to run away. But, where would I go? I was a man, old before my time. I was dead alive.
My past murdered my present and my future died in quick reaction.
Everywhere that I
went, memories reached me. Memories shuffled me like a pack of cards. It
connected me to a past, I would much rather live and not dream about. A time, when I had a tiny
but cozy home, a small but fertile farm land and most importantly, a wife and a
four year old daughter: Chanda.
My recurring dream
was my sole solace, where I was a hero. In my delusions, I carried Chanda to safety,
where she would be alive. I protected Chanda like a father should
have, like I never could.
The incessant rain and that furious flood
took everything away from me. It left me guilty. Guilty of guilt that I was
safe, I was alive when my wife and daughter were not. I was not there with them
in death. I was away on my weekend trip to the city. Three hundred miles away-I
was tucked in a warm blanket-when flood hit my village-wiping clear my life. It
left me bereft of home, family and essence.
Tip!
Tip!
Tip!
It started to rain again, fading the picture of my past from
my mind. 'Chanda, my dear daughter, wait
for me, wait for your Abbu. Abbu’s coming for you…'. I was blabbering ~
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