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RAPE~ isn't it something that happens in dark alleys? In dark nights?

It was 9:30 in the morning, when I was looking for Nandani everywhere in that hotel. The place where my granddaughter was supposed to get married. The day  which was supposed to the happiest day of her life. How did it turn out to be something so gloomy that it took her so far away from us that it took 2 years to find her?

Manik had called me just like 5 minutes back. He told me he is coming, and he is coming with Nandani. I was so happy. Happy would be an understatement. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to hear her. I couldn't wait until they reached here but, Manik told me that she won't talk. She hadn't talked to them at all.

And the answer to my why, was the most dreadful answer any mother would await. My daughter was raped. And I had got 15 minutes to deal with it. She would be here at the door step any moment, but I didn't know what to say to her, what to talk to her, whether to hug her or cry with her?

I didn't understand what would i ask her. I wasn't even sure whether to ask her or not. She wasn't born to me, but I had taken care of her more than her mother did. I was the motherly figure she looked upon after my son and my daughter in law died. And today this motherly figure didn't know how to react.

All these years why didn't I prepare myself for the worst? Why doesn't a mother not even want to think of anything bad happening to her kids.

Kids......, how much dear are they to us parents, aren't they? And so was Nandani to Ashwin. Why wouldn't she be? After all she was the first kid to them. It's not like that Rishu wasn't. He too was dear to everyone being the youngest. But the first child is the dearest to parents. After all she was the one who made them realise what it was like to be parents. What is was like to be a mother, what it was like to be a father. The first feeling of having someone who defines you. Someone who proves the existence of your love. I still remember how much Ashwin cried that day when the doctor gave Nandani into his arms. He cried more than Nandani did.

How much he loved her. How she wanted to go on a two day school trip and he wasn't letting her go. No matter how much we convinced but he wasn't ready to let her off her site for even two days. And here I am. Two years passed and I didn't even know where she was, how she was until now.

I couldn't decide if I was careless or just unlucky.

First I lost Ashwin. My first born child. My daughter in law. Rishu's voice. No one knew how dear his nagging were to me. No one knew how I would be up all night beside him pampering his head just to absorb that little thought that my rishu would never call me ever.

And then my Nandu. Someone just snatched her away from me. All my kids. I might be the most unluckiest mother of all times. What did i do to face such fate?

The past is past they say. But why is it so? Why is past the past? Why can't we change it? How much I wish to go back in the past. To that one day and just tell Ashwin, that son it's too late don't come tonight, stay there. Don't drive this late. I would have have had my son to myself today. Rishu would have had his voice.

Why didn't I tell Nandani, beta sleep with your Aams tonight. I would have known when she left. I would have accompanied her. May be nothing would have happened what happened.

Why didn't I force her to never leave Manglore. Why did I let her come to Mumbai? Why me? Why my kids, always? Why?

All these years i was dying to see her. Make sure that she is fine. Make sure she is alive. But when I come to know now. I don't have guts to face her.

I always told her, a woman's decisions should be stronger than a man, but what about her body? Why didn't I make her strong like a man? Why didn't I think about that?

I squeezed my eyes and let the tears fall. That is all I could do. Cry at my fate and at my daughter's fate.

I bell rang and I tried to get up quickly but my knees hurt, reminding me that I was old now. I walk towards the door witch aching knees and open the door.

Manik and Abhimanyu are on the door. Where is my Nandu? I look at them with my questioning eyes. Manik looked down and tried not to look into my eyes. What more could it be? I tried peeing behind the tall man, but I couldn't. I moved a bit inside to let them in. And to my surprise they moved aside. And the sight was enough to sweep the floor beneath me.

Nandani was standing there. My Nandani. With a sleeping baby in her arms. She was looking staring at the floor. The air left my lungs in just one gasp. She isn't even looking at me. I clutched the pallu of my sari against my mouth to hold my sobs back.

"Nandani, come in...." Manik said.

"Let's go..." Mukti whispered behind her. Putting an arm around her lightly and she walked further in.

She's really here. I repeated it in my mind again, just to believe it was true.

I too want to go near her. But, she haven't even looked up yet. It scares me. To the most. I just stare at her, look her walk in. Look at the walls , the furniture, the ceiling, the floor, the doors, the windows, everything but me.

She walks in further, touching the walls, to the room. She opens the door and walks into her room. And I walk behind her and stand at the door. Watching her stare at the bed. She stares at it for a while and slowly places the sleeping baby on the bed, and looks at her. Looks at her for all her time and then sits on the bed moving her hands on the bed, feeling the mattress, the bedsheets. And finally up, up at me.

Her eyes....... my Nandu.... my kanuu... she's really here.... I squeeze my eyes and the tears flow unbound. I lean my head against the rim of the door and weep. She's really here.

She looks at me for a while and then lies down facing the kid, curling up. My baby needs me. And this time I won't give myself a reason or a chance to regret.

I walk towards the bed. And sit beside the baby. Oh! It's a girl. A sweet little girl. My two little girls. I lean against the headboard and with my both hands on both girls head I pat them gently, pampering them, the way they deserve.

And importantly making myself believe, she's really here.
*******

Do you have a sibling?

Elder or younger?

Do you hate them?

Do you love them?

Well if you love them now, there's always one time in your life when you hate them.

For me that time was when we got that red cycle of ours. And I didn't knew how to ride it and she did. How much I wanted to ride that cycle and not just sit back on the carriage. But I didn't know. And she would not teach me. Because elder siblings are elder siblings.

When all friends of mine used to boast on how cool their cycle stunts were and I couldn't stay the only dumb person there and I even boasted until the day Shyantanu Iyer asked me to ride his cycle. I didn't just fall but made quite a joke out of myself. I was already mute and this another stunt of mine left me with nothing more. It wasn't just cycling to me. It was something that made me a boy in school. Yes people might consider it bull shit, but in school, things matter. Accept it or not they do. And cycling is one of them.

And that day watching them laugh at me, made loose my confidence that day. It wasn't a cycle, it was my confidence.

That time nandu didi was the one who found me crying in the garage on Appa's scooter. She consoled me, band aided me, and with all those injuries dragged me to the neelam pawati baug and taught me cycling in one day. I fell, the bandaids were ripped of. Few more scratches but she didn't give up.

If you want to learn something new, do it before the spark dies, that's what she said. And she did teach me cycling in one day.

I came back home bunking the college,running, when Manik called. That Nandani is home. Nandani didi. I had to see it to believe it. And when I did come home. She was there. In the room. Lying with some baby. She looked pale. She looked lean. Dark circles. Nobody needed to tell me to know what had happened. I knew it myself.

I went in the room and sat beside Amms. She was pampering them, and both of them were asleep. Or atlest one of them was pretending to be asleep. Manik said she wouldn't talk. But right now I promised myself I would make her talk. She has to talk.

I with shaking fingers touched her cheeks to make myself believe that I wasn't dreaming. She really was here. We could never thank Manik enough.

I walked out of the room and joined everyone else in the room. I stood in the balcony and saw the rainy clouds covering the sky. I felt Manik come beside me.
"Thanks bhai." I patted his shoulders and signed him. "I still can't believe she's here."

"Don't worry Rishu. She'll be fine." Manik answered. In all these years he also learned how to understand sign language.

"Who is that baby?" I asked.

"Amm... Nandani's daughter..." he almost whispered. He wasn't showing so much but he is also equally affected like any other.

She has a daughter. I have a niece. I thought. A lot of things change in an year.

I looked back at the sky and my phone beeped. It was college group. 'From Saturday to Tuesday- mass bunk for rakshabandhan' it said. Rakhshahbandhan, we don't celebrate it in south so much. But here people do. And this time we too will. And I wouldn't wait for Monday. I will do it today. I patted Manik's shoulder and signed him, "let's go, i need your help."

"Where?" He asked.

"A try to bring didi back." I signed.

After an hour of searching we finally got what we needed.

Two red cycles.

One big one. Other was almost a crawler. I brought them out of the lift and rang the door bell. Mukti didi opened the door and looked at us like we bought racoons. She stepped aside in amusement and we walked in. Manik bhai picked the crawler in his hands effortlessly and I saw Aams gawking at us when she saw me walking in with a bicycle.

"What is this Rishabh?" She asked whisper shouting.

"He's happy her sister is home. And wants her to come home too. Don't you want her?" Manik said and Aams was just trying to register him. "Is she awake?" Manik asked and when Aams nodded in yes I rushed in.

She was looking at the photographs hanging loosely on the walls. I gulped the lump and collected myself just praying, that I don't fall weak. And with all my strength I pressed the bell.

Tring-tring. The bell rang. Just as we used to signal each other in the summer afternoon for ragu anna's coconut water. She looked at me with something in her eyes. I rang the bell again. The baby quiet seemed to be fantasied about the bell. She almost was going to crawl around but Nandani held her.

I again rang the bell. And now her eyes were filled with tears and she clapped with the baby sitting in her lap. The baby too gleed and clapped like her mother.

She clapped. It used to be our signal. That it's safe, Aams is asleep and you can seek in or out. I left the cycle and walked to the bed sat in front of her and brought out two rakhis out of my pocket.

She just started for a while but then, slowly took a rakhi and slowly tied it around my wrist. And we both were shedding our silent tears. Once she was done then I presented the other rakhi in my palm in front of my niece. And unlike her mother she quickly grabbed it and in  no second it was in her mouth.

But a mother knows her ways. And Nandani took it out and holding her hands she made her tie the Rakhi too. I kissed the baby's forehead and signed looking at her, "mamu will always protect you. Promise."

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There's a small message out for or the girls out there. Be safe. Try not to support something that leads you to think or believe anything that gives someone an upper hand on you. Your self respect is your responsibility not anyone else's. Stand against something you don't like, be it just an eve teasing or your own husband.

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