Rashmi's Space

Note: This is the second and concluding part of the story. Do check out the story so far in  Part 1  so you are up to date :)  I hear a tentative knock on the door. And then a question, softly: “Baba, are you asleep?” “No. Come in,” I call out and my daughter walks in. It is late in the night. Dinner is long over. And my daughter has come to see me. My daughter, who is the most like me of my three children – the only one I had wanted to be there when I returned home today with the auto driver, but was not there because she was visiting a friend in a different city. My daughter, who is my only true source of happiness. My daughter – the only one who loves me for who I am, and not for the locked box I keep in the safe in my closet. My daughter, who lives with us because she has never married. She has vitiligo, you see. Sometimes I feel, I have failed her there. Because even though she has always been beautiful to me, even with the white patches on her skin; I

Note: This is the beginning of the story.  Do check out Part 2 for the conclusion.  It is all a blur. The roads, the trees, the shops that pass by, they are all familiar, and yet, unfamiliar to me. The bright lights that zoom past, are they streetlamps? Or lights from the shops? The buildings that pass, the bus stops dotting this tree-lined avenue, the playground in the distance where boys must be playing football in the fading light – it is all a blur. There must be people walking on the pavement, some waiting at the bus stops, some crossing the road – but to me, they are all a blur too. I sit in an auto rickshaw and it zooms away, very fast, making me dizzy. I sit here, clutching the slim iron rod that separates the driver’s seat from the passengers’, and hope that the driver takes me home safely, in one piece. I know he intends to. That is where we are going, in fact – home. But the thing is, see, I had thought it was very close, just around the corner; turns out, it i

It is Saturday morning. Birds chirp as they sip water from the potted plants in the balcony that I have freshly watered just now. There is very less traffic on the road today as it is the weekend. I take my coffee and sit on the swing in my balcony that I rarely get to sit on. As I sip, I savour the bliss of this unhurried morning. I relish the calm, the silence. And I wonder – why aren’t my everyday mornings like this? Why is it only on Saturdays that I get to experience this beauty of the relaxed morning? And I sigh.   Because I know the answer to that question. I know, that every day, at this time, I am in the kitchen, rushing to get tiffin boxes of breakfast, lunch and snacks ready for my family – coming up with innovative ideas, worrying about portions and running against time to get it all packed and sealed for the day in the meal boxes that my family will carry with them for the long day ahead. Nutrition in bite sized pieces. That is what I am doing at this time on any

Lata Mangeshkar…or was that Asha Bhonsle...? In a lot of these old songs they sounded so similar! Simi woke up, as usual, to melodious songs of the black and white era being played on the radio. With groggy eyes, she walked up to the kitchen and hugged Mai from behind. “Good morning,” she mumbled, nuzzling the side of her mother’s neck. “Woke up? Go brush your teeth quick, I’ll warm up the tea,” her mother said, caressing her cheek with a loving hand, while the other, cloaked in dough, rested in the wide plate in which she was mixing the atta for parathas. When Simi came back to the kitchen to pick her tea-cup, she saw her mother had kept another cup next to hers. “Who’s is that?” Simi asked. “Baba’s” her mother said, turning to her, smiling. “At home today?” Simi asked, her eyebrows raised. Her mother nodded soberly, while Simi gave a wide grin. “Dada’s going to freak out!” she said. And the mother and daughter giggled like the best friends they wer