May continued to trouble the entire North India relentlessly as they awaited the monsoon. The residents of Delhi had long since accepted their fate, immune to the delays similar to the ones they faced in the government offices, the only thing missing was the bribe catalyst unfortunately 'ishwar bikau nahi hain.'

However, one such resident had refused to simply accept this doomed fate and continued to curse the weather every five minutes as she supervised the unloading of luggage which the truck had brought along with itself at the torturous hour of ten a.m.

It had been over a week since the Tiwari family, if a duo was still allowed by societal standards to be called one, had shifted to the moderately posh society in Greater Kailash. It had definitely not been smooth, Parashar had been trying as hard as realistically possible to convince his daughter of the benefits of shifting all the while managing his responsibilities with no one to complain to. But a teenager doesn't operate the way a decent adult does.

But was she entirely wrong in her silent protests?

"Arey bhaiya samaan toota to kya aapke sasurji bharpai karenge?" Nivedita burst out at the poor man unloading the carton; another victim fell to the wrath of her anger. The heat had already taken its toll on her and her normally unusual amount of patience was running way too thin for her to spare the man's life.

Meanwhile at the lawn in front of their house Parashar Tiwari showcased his love for gardening. All broken pots had been swept away the very next day of their arrival and were replaced with better and bigger new ones. This house was to become a home for his daughter. Joining a new workplace doesn't allow you to enjoy the perks of a new job just yet, due to which he hadn't had the time to unpack everything.

Be it the multiple boxes or their emotions. Leaving durgapur had been tough, they hadn't just left home but family...

Eager to finish as much as possible in two days he had gone out of his way to quickly make their tiny villa as cozy as possible. And what better than a garden to replace the wreck currently shaming his excellent gardening skills.Shukla ji had been kind enough to give him cuttings of enough varieties to open up an orchard.

Just as he was admiring his work he heard the outburst of his normally well-meaning daughter.Sensing the unusual, rather distant behavior of his daughter since the past month and this minute, he shouted, "Beta! Come here and help me with this."

"Just a minute Papa." She sighed loudly, untied her messy hair to tie it back into a bun and gave one hard look to the man unloading her novels. The helpless man simply nodded as if begging her to trust him.

She turned and jogged to escape the hot stoned walkway cursing at herself for roaming around barefoot, lately she had been all over the place and nowhere at all, all at once.

She needed a break.

She stood a step away from her father, slightly amused as to how in such a small time he had done all the gardening, turning the abandoned disgrace of a lawn into a much likable place.

"Kaisa hai?" he asked slowly, wiping the sweat off his forehead. He turned his back to the cycle plant-stand replacing the pink roses with a bonsai. For the first time in a long while Nivedita saw her dad smile. Yes, she was absolutely keen on rebelling, but that didn't mean she intended to hurt her father.

"Hmm." She smiled.

Would Ma be proud looking at her daughter making zero efforts to adjust to the ongoing changes in her life? Had she really taught her daughter to act like a brat rather than face her issues head on? But she didn't know what else she could to release her anger rather than simply letting it out, which mostly happened unconsciously. Ma did not teach her to pent up her anger and damage her mental health either, did she?

"Get me three more pots from the garage will you? Be careful, it is a little messy there, almost a store room." his brows furrowed as he realised cleaning the place was another chore added to the list. "Girna mat."

Hopping and skipping across the stone steps trying to walk as much as possible in the filtered shade of the years old trees in her lawn, she hurried towards the garage for the first time in probably seven years.

They had stopped visiting the place after her grandparents passed away. This justified how shabby it looked with dry creepers and unwanted weeds growing over the roof and green algae along the sides of the walls.

Opening the doors she felt a wave of dust hit her lungs, her asthma almost returned for a cameo in her already dusty life. Waving her hands in front of her, slightly coughing, she moved her hands along the walls of the dark room to find the switch board.

She flicked the lights on instantly spotting the crimson brick pots stacked in a neat pile in the corner. Something else caught her eye, metal, wheels? But the fetid atmosphere of the garage compelled her to leave as quickly as possible.

Carrying the pots carefully she moved towards her father trying to move as quickly as possible skipping sunny spots, her sore feet burning.

"Here you go." She placed the pots down gently, wiping her forehead with a rag cloth she had tucked into the pocket of her shorts.

She sat down on the dirty ground, legs in a lotus position, too tired to do anything and watched her father quietly as he used a hand hoe to aerate the soil in the new pots.

Suddenly her father spoke up, "I know you aren't ecstatic about Delhi." She said nothing. Nothing she would say would avert anything, so why waste energy, she thought

She could hear the distant traffic at the T junction, the gentle chirruping of the birds talking to each other, the background noise of the packers and movers shifting luggage now from the truck to the front porch of their single storied villa.

She listened to her father all the while having a keen eye on the workers.

"My job pays better here; it can give you all that you deserve. I need to think about the future as a father too, beta. You had finally settled there after all that happened. I know I have pushed you with this, but your whole family is here."

He turned to decipher the expressions, or their lack, on his daughter's face.

She never understood the financial angle behind his decision. Her dad was earning pretty well, they had whatever they needed; whatever was left from life to give to them. And about what she deserved?She wouldn't let her dad go to any college in the world with a donation.

She would earn it; there was no other way around it.

"Mai janta hoon, meri beti kabhi mera paiso ka loan nahi legi." He cracked a crooked smile, so did she.

"But what if something happened to me? And there are always wedding expenses to be taken care of."

Her fists clenched. Why in the world was the wedding supposed to be such a huge feat in every ladkiwale house that every normal man had to think about breaking FD's and provident funds? Why would they get their daughters married there?

Why would he think he would leave her one day? Tears brimmed in her eyes, not hitting her cheeks, making it even more difficult.

"Papa, if you are really going to talk about such nonsense, I'll be off to take a shower." She half got up but her dad kept talking.

"We have your maasi here, your cousins and your bua. Anyone can check up on you." He sighed giving up when he heard her say nothing in return.

How was she going to understand the inner turmoil within this man who had nothing but her best interests at heart? This was needed, if he didn't plan it all now when else would he?Already handling a gradually maturing daughter alone wasn't as easy for a man as emotionally inexpressive as him.

He constantly felt the need to be better at his duty at being a father, to get closer to her, understand what went through her mind.

He missed her. It could have all been so easy. She could be the one painting the pots, their daughter watching them from afar reading out horoscopes from the newspaper and ridiculing their concepts as she did all those years ago.

He missed the glue holding their family.

He missed his wife, he missed his Radhika.

"I miss her too." He turned looking slightly amused at his daughter. She leaned forward, "I know that look."

He continued his gardening, as she gulped some water kept at the porch; picking up a carton of her books she prepared to go in and have a bath.

Suddenly Parashar said, not looking away from his dear old plants, "You can have the bullet."

^^^

It was eleven in the night when she entered the same old garage as previously in the day, this time she did not fumble for the switchboard. She knew.

As the small pendant light hung above her glowing in the dark she saw it again, that metal. Covered with a rain resistant sheet, she could figure out its shape even then.She felt like Pandora who was tempted by the box, the only difference being, her box would hardly do any harm. She pulled the sheet revealing a 2008 Royal Enfield ES classic. What a beauty.

At least one good thing came out of the move.

^^^

Vote, share and comment. <3