11— Oh! Shiv Ji, please no, how? why?

“At some time, everyone wants to be understood by someone. But no one is trying to understand the other. Why? If you really want to be understood: try to understand first.”

— Saumya Tripathi 

“No..no..no..No!”

I woke up with a jolt, sweating. My heart felt as if it wanted to jump out of my chest. Awash with perplexity and dread, I tried to grasp the bits and pieces of the situation. Deflating through my mouth, I took deep and long breaths to calm the restlessness I felt taking place inside. 

Was that a dream? Still somewhere between half awake and half asleep, I pondered over, slightly confused and bothersome about the whole ordeal. It had to be. 

However, the vividness of the scene from the dream made my body tingle with fear and anxiety. I was certainly uncertain about what I saw. It took me a while to confirm that it was, in fact, a dream. More like a nightmare must I add. Had it not been a dream I definitely would have been having a heart attack by now. Stilled with mortification even in my sluggishness, I thought, half asleep. Although, my sleep didn't last long when a sudden thunder striking another jolted me awake fully from my deep slumber. My heart palpitated. With frantic heartbeats thundering within my chest and goosebumps all over my arms, I was torn from my dreamland into reality. The inexplicable thunder was overly loud and flashy and too sudden, which made my heart feel like it might rip apart from my own throbbing torso. I shuddered, involuntarily with a horrified aloud gasp. 

The dream felt too vivid to be ignored. It was the first thought that entered my mind when I deflated from my mouth again and again to ebb the thundering sensation from my heart. I did not remember drowning myself in my own compulsion of thoughts until I dropped asleep. I mused about it. Why did it still feel like that dream wasn't just a dream but a jiffy of the coming future? Shaking, the ominous thought from the corner of my mind, I deeply breathed, ignoring the slight pain which was coursing through my veins. Avoiding the unpleasant dream or rather trying to, I fidgeted in my seat. And, as perplexed as I was, I checked on my brother instantly, if he was alright, and to my great relief he was, he was sound asleep with his soft red lips spread open in a cute pout, snoring lightly. 

My heart calmed as I smiled softly, caressing his light pink cheek tenderly. The unusual pacing of the heart calmed almost instantly seeing him safe and sound. I breathed long as if I was holding it.

“Is it even supposed to rain today?” I heard someone ask in a high-pitched voice. 

“No. It is sudden. There was no news of rain.” I found myself listening to two other women beside me, talking.

My eyes followed their voice.

"Don't worry, child. It has been raining for the past two hours with thunderstorms, I suppose," the lady beside me said, assuming the time of this dark unbidden weather, maybe reading my ashen face. “Or it could be more than two hours, no?” turning her face to have nods from the other two women sitting in front of her, she confirmed. "It seems the rain will not be stopping soon.” 

What? How? Did I sleep for two hours straight without knowing? Did I? I blinked. I did!

I nodded at her through my inner implications with my large doubt-filled eyes already lost elsewhere. Hiding my fear, I smiled at her. Sighing breathlessly, my still wide-hesitate eyes ventured from the lady beside me to my brother who was still fast asleep on my lap. Upon watching him sleep soundly, I exhaled a long sigh.

He must have been very tired. I mused to myself. 

Bleakly, my mind diverted up to my uncle. Why was he not here yet? He should have been here by now! Shouldn't he? Yes, he should have. I wanted to howl at my current situation but thought otherwise. Closing my eyes, I bit my lips in anxiety. 

“PLEASE…HURRY, UNCLE.” 

I sighed, briskly while chanting the sentence in my head like a mantra. Nevertheless, a lone unbidden tear tripped out from one of my already overly wet eyes. Wiping it hastily, I tried to avert my abounded mind from the despairing thoughts.

No! Don't think negatively. I chided. He must be arriving anytime from now. He could have been caught in this adversary yet infuriating weather. I sighed. Yes, that could be. He will come soon, eventually. 

Nodding at myself, I blinked coming out from my implications. Turning to the side I asked the lady:

"Are you sure it has been raining for two hours exactly? Or has it been raining for quite long, more than two hours?" I inquired in a soft tone, and Hindi. I wanted to know the exact timing to calculate my uncle's. “It seems more like a storm than a rain.”

She offered me a kind smile before speaking,

"Yes, my child it has been raining for quite some time as I already told you so. It's the month of rain, so it ought to rain! And the winter is approaching too briskly."

I smiled back at the kind lady and nodded understandingly. Still not getting the proper information about the time of the rain from her.

"Thank you, aunty," I pronounced, letting my worries subdued for once. Bending down a little, I breathed Shaur baby's scent, very slightly rubbing my cold nose on his soft fluffy warm cheek. It felt good and warm. 

“Are you waiting for someone?”

For a couple of seconds, I hesitated before nodding. “My uncle.”

"Don't fret, child. Your uncle shall be on his way to get both of you," the lady murmured with a reassuring nod at both of us. I nodded back my head in reply, still implicated with the torrent of thoughts within. "Don't be afraid, my dear," her voice soft-spoken for my ears. But unbeknownst to her the restlessness in my heart remained regarding my Uncle. 

Why was uncle not here yet? My mind again whispered.

Would he be alright by the way? Yes. Yes. He would be. He might have been stranded in this sudden brisk downpour somewhere while reaching me. I pondered over it and felt disheartened instantly. He would be alright, surely. He was not like some frail old man like any other man of his age. No. He was courageous and firm, after all, he was a retired officer, precisely a sheriff. But whatsoever he was a suave person for the one he wanted to be. For us, he was. I inhaled, shakily. Eradicating all sorts of ominous thoughts from the back of my head, I fended off my mind from such paranoia.

Nothing of that sort will ever happen to my uncle. I reasoned and somewhere from the bottom of my heart I prayed— for his well-being, still. 

Tilting my head to the side of the woman's direction, I saw her looking at my baby brother on my lap with a trace of a smile playing on the corner of her lips, however.

"Is the child yours?" Catching my gaze, she asked. Unnerved, upon hearing her I was stuck for the first few seconds but when the meaning struck me after a few movements my breath hitched in my throat.

"N-no! He is my baby brother," I faltered at her abstract question but answered politely, nevertheless. She smiled abashedly at me.

"Oh, sorry. I should have thought about it. You know; you both almost look alike and that reason pretty much confused me," she said, catching me off guard. Knowing not how to reply, I nodded again meekly at her, smiling lightly. Showing it was alright. “You both have a great age difference.”

I nodded at her with another one of my soft smiles. 

When will the rain stop? It had been raining cats and dogs since I woke up. I mused, turning my head to stare out of the opened window that had four bars; each parallel to one another. Even at night the hustle and bustle remained immense in this city. With people loitering, and looking around aimlessly here and there or some waiting for something or perhaps someone. I mulled that over, prevailing my mind from my horrid thoughts. It was better to think about these people than my horrid situation. Huh! This all seemed like a dream— a nightmare precisely. My situation resembled a nightmare— that type of nightmare where you just want to crawl back far away from it and vanish into thin air and never come back. Such a forceful nightmare. 

Blinking my damp eyes that reflected my sameness and pain, I focused my mind beyond the window on the people; where some were sitting on the floor and some were either crunching down on the bed sheets full of family members around themselves or some were sleeping on the squared dark coloured plastics rest set; waiting for the train whilst passing their time. They look so engrossed and rejoiced. My heart was sheltered into little pieces. They were all buzzy- buzzy in minding their businesses. And however, those who were left from the remaining crowd were either on their phones or sleeping in the midriff of the floor wherever they could find any space. People were so strange. But they looked satisfied and happy by being with the people they love, I mused, sadly. I once was happy too. 

Cold air swept past me through the open-spaced window, having brought me back from the woes and suffering I was enduring without the presence of my parents. I shivered voluntarily. 

Indeed, winter seemed to be coming very soon this year. I shivered again when the rather cold and chilly wind passed by yet again leaving goosebumps all over me. Tugging Shaurya closer to me for soothing warmness, I snuggled to him as much as I could have snuggled in a slouching position with my numbed backside and aching hands. My eyes welled up thinking about the grim situation I would be in; if I could get home— that was. Uncle would be fierce and happy at the same time. He must be! Must he not? Although, our lives would have been so much better and easier if our parents were here. Small but happy, indeed. There would have been— no escaping, no waiting and no dreading, crying, agonising, stressing and most of all the feeling of the fear of getting caught and above all, the loneliness that I would have to endure without them for the rest of my life with a small tot in my arms. Only if the accident hadn't happened, nothing of this sort must have happened. 

Closing my eyes tightly, I chanted and pleaded again and again to my Shiv Ji to send my uncle soon, inwardly. Shutting my eyes, I inhaled the baby fragment of my little brother through my nostrils. But, the apprehension of not meeting my uncle and getting home safely perplexed me to no— end. I hope he was closer to reaching us. 

I didn't know when the time elapsed in my own comprehension as I continued peering vaguely out of the window to the bristling pouring of the rain with thunder strikes, I sat waiting and waiting and waiting with my bated breaths for my Uncle to imaginary appear before me. Soon. 

“Please..hurry..uncle.” I shook from the cold and fear, both. “Please…be quick.”

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