Rashmi's Space

Lila was seething with anger when she put down the call. He is mine, dammit!  she thought. And even as she did, she knew getting angry won't get her anywhere. Nothing would change. It was just one more week, one more cancelled visit. And he would not even mind it. Plus, hadn’t she suffered through many of these already? And hadn’t she decided to come to terms with all this and get on with life? But she knew why she couldn’t move on. Life without him meant nothing to her.  Although, everyone in her life told her, this obsession of hers was unhealthy. she needed to move on. But she still held on tight; didn't know for how long. She didn’t even remember when she had stopped counting the years. He didn’t seem to mind the distance anyway. He didn’t feel the need to call her every day; although, she still remembered the time he was dependent on her. Oh, those were the days! But all that had changed. His attention had wandered and then Maya had come in his life! Even today...

Every once in a while, I make it a point to go to my daughter’s school and have a chat with her teacher. On these occasions, I also have an added advantage of getting to talk to a few of her friends; and that is something that I look forward to. It is through these conversations that I get an idea as to how my daughter is faring among her peers. These conversations are a good yardstick to measure the emotional ability of my five-year old to be around and deal with other children who are from different backgrounds and of different temperaments. After all, just like a glass filled with water from the ocean is a representative of the entire ocean, so is a class of twenty children a representative of the world at large. So, on one such occasion, after I had met with her teacher, we were getting out of the school, when we saw  two children sitting on a bench near the supervisor’s office.