TWICE WRITTEN-I

“In another life, in another dream, let me belong to them, forever” , she whispered to the angels who lifted her gentle spirit into the world she deserved better.

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Paaras waited outside the doors of the Operation Theatre, the bulb still indicated a red, he was not tensed. He knew everything would be fine, and very soon it would be celebration time. He went back to the unfinished level of his ‘Angry Birds’ on his I-Phone He was addicted to the game more than anything else. .It was his mission in life to clear the maximum levels.

“One day while I am dying and the angels are taking me away, you will still be hooked to the game!”, she had taunted at his addiction. She had looked cute saying that, like the yellow bird in his phone!

The bulb turned transparent. Like lava that cools after the most violent volcano, he quickly put his phone inside and rushed towards the door. The same nurse who had rushed his wife into the OT came out, she looked like an angel this time with her perfect white uniform. All she lacked was the halo above her head. Paaras waited like a little kid, who waits for his gift from Santa during Christmas. As the nurse came closer, his  legs were shivering with excitement. His gift was with her, wrapped in the finest cotton and he could not but wait for it to be unwrapped.

‘Congratulations Sir!! You have been blessed with a girl!’, the nurse said as she handed Paaras his possession. He felt elated. He always wanted a daughter, from the very time he knew he held the power of creation, he had dreamt of this very moment from the time he knew his wife was pregnant. He wanted the moment to freeze, like the snow flakes on the Christmas trees, as he melted away into the joy of turning into a father to this bundle of joy!

The baby felt like pink candy floss, dipped in the charms of infinite innocence. Her rose lips, her tiny fingers, her little toes , her lashes ; everything so beautiful, he could not but admire Him for such a wonderful creation.

He went into the ward his wife was shifted to. The doctors said, she was exhausted after a tedious labour trial for a normal delivery, which she had failed, followed by a caesarean. She looked at peace now, with a soft smile painted across her lips that put even Mona Lisa to shame. He was proud of her. He would wait for her to wake up and live her dream. She too wanted a daughter, a complete family they were now! He carefully placed his daughter beside her in the cradle and went outside. He would loot all the sweet shops today, it was celebration time after all!

He quickly remembered he had to make a call, he pulled out his I-Phone and started dialing the number. If there was one person in the whole wide world, he wanted to share the happiness with; it would be the person on the very end of the line.

“The number you have called is currently out of reach”, the lady with the faked honey dipped voice chimed. At many occasions, he had hated the fake lady with the irritating extra dose of sweetness; but today he wanted to stuff in a few Motichoor Ladoos even in her mouth. ‘Maybe she is busy; or on top of some hill writing away to glory’ , he said to himself and walked out of the hospital to buy a truck of Motichoor Ladoos.

It was the twelfth day since  Paaras was hit with the tornado. It had come with the twirls of both unexplainable happiness and sorrow. He wondered how in one moment, life could bring both the emotions together that it became difficult to choose which of them had a profound impact. On one side, was his little princess who was born into his world, bringing with her incomparable joy and satisfaction and on the other side was her; whom he had lost to the dunes of death.  She was all he had ever had, she was all that he thought he will ever have. Those beautiful shimmering eyes, like stars swimming in the foams of the milky way, that serenity on her face that silenced the storms in him, now to be found only as darkened embers that had dissolved into the holy waters that morning.

The evening was adorned with festivity. It was his princess’s Naamkarna after all.

She was dressed in the tiniest silk frock he had ever seen. She looked beautiful, like a butterfly out of the silken cocoon, out to explore the world on her own. After all the rituals, the priest asked him to whisper the name into her ears. As he took a step forward, his wife, Siya pushed him aside and went to her angel.

“Chavvi”, she whispered as the baby smiled for the first time in twelve days.

Paaras had tried calling Chavvi quite a number of times that day. And every time he did, the same faked lady had answered. He wondered if the faked lady would have had diabetes by then, guessing the number of Motichoors he had virtually stuffed in her mouth. He was worried by night, and so was Siya. Siya had woken up to her dream transformed into reality and both she and Paaras had celebrated it together. What they now missed was Chavvi. Siya longed to see the gush of happiness on her face, it had soothed her on many occasions, she longed to hug her and bask in the warmth of her optimism. Where had she disappeared?

Late the same night, Paaras had received a call from her number. He had been animatedly playing ‘Angry Birds’ again He had excitedly picked up the call and had marched into the excitement of the day and was silenced by the news from the other end.

“She was run over by a truck this morning on her way to the hospital. Nothing of her remains but for a mess of blood and bones’, her distant relative had wailed.

The storm had come, Paaras had cried, cried for the loss he once owned. Siya had cried too. All the hospital staff was left wondering what had gone wrong.

Paaras and Chavvi were best friends. From the day their memories could trace back, they were the best of buddies ever.  From the time of nursery days to the times of Paaras’s marriage; from the times of punishments in the corridors to the times of rifts between Paaras and his wife; from the times of walking out of the college gates as graduates to the times Paaras walked into the gates of fatherhood. They were inseparable, with the understanding of timeless comrades. For the last twenty six years, they had lived every emotion together. They were united in the extremes of the worst and the best. It was not love; as others around them thought. It was certainly something above friendship but less than love, and in such relations you could never mount any higher falling lower!

                                                                                                                  

Siya was never offended about what they both had for each other. In fact, she was drawn to Chavvi’s aura. The first time Paaras had introduced her to Chavvi, both of them had instantaneously gelled into a bondage of sisterhood. Paaras cursed the man who had once said that two women can never get along!  What followed were innumerable memories of the three together. Paaras and Chavvi effortlessly dragged Siya into their world, telling tales of childhood and youth, as all three laughed and cried at the same time. Chavvi always gave them both their personal space, never intruding into their problems and only had something to say when they sought her help.  Though Siya had tied the knots with Paaras, she often wondered if she was married to them both!  Paaras often lovingly looked at the two women, without whom his life was much more than incomplete.

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It was a month now. That morning Paaras had received a courier. And inside lay Chavvi’s most priced possessions. Her writings, Her poems. Her diary. He had the first right on them, more than anybody else. And her family understood that well. She was an amazing writer, the one who captured everything beautiful in the whims of her pen. It was her passion, her way to escape from the miseries of life. She never believed in revolting against the unfairness she was thrown into . She simply believed in accepting it all, taking refuge under the realm of her writings. She never even shared her writings with anyone, except for a few dear ones. All her works had the potential of being published, she had never bothered. It was never her dream.

‘I  live in my stories. One day, I’ll live my story’ she often said.

Paaras opened the books that lay infront of him, as Siya pulled over a chair and joined him. Chavvi loved writing with a fountain pen, she had said her blue ink had a deeper tinge with the nib. From class five till the day she had penned her last story, everything was in blue ink; from a fountain pen. Paaras could feel the scent of the rose she always wore on her in the pages. He missed her. He missed her terrible. He missed her in the spaces between the words in her sentences, in her undotted I’s and J’s, in her undoodled margins, in her complete signature. She always signed backwards, with the C of her name starting from the right corner and the I at the left with a strike of a line throughout her name.

‘Urdu main sign kar rahi hai kya?’, Paaras had asked her once.

‘Nahin Nahin. It has a deep meaning . What begins with me, should end with me know!’ she had told, admiring the silliness of her own philosophy

He felt the void of her absence in the presence of her words that echoed her thoughts. As he read more and more and flipped through the pages, he could trace the stains of wisped tears on a few pages. Siya noticed them too, both of them knew the answer. It was better some answers remain unquestioned.

Paaras had decided then, her writings would be published. The world had to know that there was solace in pain, beauty in  injustice, hope in the dark, soul in the dead. He knew of the outcome: a best-seller without the autograph by its author!