***

Word Count : 2000

Song : Carbon Copy  | Drishyam |

***

44 | The Threads Of Pashmina

14 Years Ago

May 21, 2009

Thursday

"Bags packed." She announced.

Then she turned around. "All set?" Tilting her head towards her right shoulder, she quirked up her brows with a lingering smile. "Ready for college?"

He ducked his head down and nodded.

She chuckled. "Awww... come here, you shy little thing."

Settled on his bed, clad in a long white divided skirt and a pale pink top, she had her legs dangling down the edge of his bed, moving in a to-and-fro motion, the skirt's Paisley-patterned borders flailing gracefully around her ankles.

Mahadevan made a quiet walk towards his aunt and then slowly placed his head on her lap, snuggly smothering his face in her stomach.

She cast a warm smile, feathering a kiss on the crown of his head, her slender hands rubbing his back in the process.

Nirjhara assessed her elder brother's frame, from the tip of his toes to the top of his skull, with a peculiar expression.

Little thing?... . . . from which angle?

Meanwhile, dribbling the basketball in his hand on the parquet flooring, Aridaman shot it directly onto his twin's bed. "If he is little, I swear, ninety percent of the asses here on planet earth are miniature chimpanzees."

"Daman, language." Darshana admonished.

Aridaman shrugged nonchalantly.

Mahadevan detached himself from his aunt, glanced at the basketball on his bed, passed a glare at his lunatic sibling, and then shook his head in hopelessness.

Immediately after, Nirjhara checked the time on the dial of her sunflower themed watch around her wrist, picked up her Ukulele from Mahadevan's study table and rushed out of the room like a bullet shot out of a gun. "Bye! Malvika and I are going out today!"

"Doesn't that Vijay Mallya have any other work?" Aridaman scratched his head while plopping down on the floor next to his sibling, who was already nose deep inside an archecturial magazine, right beside his aunt's right limb.

Darshana snorted and corrected her nephew. "It's Malvika, Daman, not Vijay Mallya."

"Malvika...Mallya...Mallu or whatever." The said nephew continued chewing on the chewing gum inside his mouth. "What's the difference anyway? One is sucking the nation's blood, and the other one has first-class honors in sucking our blood."

Darshana burst out into a fit of laughter. "Idiot!"

Mahadevan let out a faint chuckle as well.

The very next moment, Aridaman got up from the floor and walked towards the door. "Anyway, I will go. I have some work."

"Okay," Darshana waved. "Take care."

Silence took over as the aunt-nephew pair sat alone in the room.

"He seems a little off these days. What happened?" She began. "What's that girl's name again? I forgot."

"Indrani." Mahadevan reminded.

"She is leaving?"

"She already left." He replied.

"Oh." Her face fell. "He is sad?"

"It seems so."

Both of them remained quiet.

Sometime later, a teasing smile graced her face. "By the way, who is this Pigtails girl?"

Mahadevan's eyes enlarged as he promptly got up from the parquet flooring. "Didaa, you read my diary?"

Darshana cleared her throat. "No, no, it just opened up in front of me randomly! And I just read two or three entries maybe."

"Didaaaa!" He whined.

"So Miss Pigtails likes gulmohar trees, huh?" She satirized. "And someone here is going to miss her a lot? Lucky girl!"

"Didaa, please!" He looked horrified.

"Crush?" Her eyes coruscated as she teased him further.

"Please! No!" He sighed. "She is so little! You make me sound like that. ."

"Like what?" She appeared confused.

"Like a..." He hesitated. "A pedophile." His ears turned a shade red.

Darshana dropped down on the bed, roaring with incontrollable laughter. "Oh god!"

Mahadevan sighed, shaking his head in submission.

A minute later, after her laughing spree ceased, she finally got up from the bed. "Come," she beckoned him towards the door.

"Where?" He looked on cluelessly. "There are a few more essentials that I need to pack."

"We will do that later. Come with me, now." She patted his shoulders.

Nodding his head, he followed her out of his room.

Passing through the Cyprus pattern carpets of the majestic Dogra manor corridors, both of them entered the central hall. She then took a turn and walked into another corridor leading to the other end of the manor. He instantly got an idea of where they were heading.

"Your office?"

She turned her head around and smiled, passing a faint nod.

Eventually reaching the end of the massive cloister, Darshana pushed open the doors to her workspace, and in they entered into another world.

Mahadevan traced his eyes around, his gaze passing through each and every arch of the beauty he was standing in. It was just like its owner after all.

Garbed in the hues of royal green and white was his aunt's office, with a small chandelier attached to the roof. To his right was a diwan with a coffee table in front of it, and to his left was a table with a revolving chair that had a bookshelf just behind it. Herbs, shrubs, and creepers of all kinds adorned the large windows of the office through which sunlight entered inside.

And from the windows was a clear view of the grove behind the manor.

Nothing too extravagant, yet the aura of this place was warm. Just like having a nap on his Didaa's lap on a warm summer afternoon.

His gaze then fell on the door on the wall next to the other end of the bookshelf.

"Why are we going inside the storeroom didaa?" He asked as she unlocked the door beside the bookshelf.

"I have a few things I want to show you." She announced.

He followed behind.

As he entered the storeroom, he saw her settling down on a large mattress covered with a soft white sheet. Next to her left limb was a satin sheet tied to form a bundle as if it contained something.

"Sit down." She patted on a spot next to her.

He nodded, making himself comfortable right beside her.

She proceeded to open the knot of the bundle. The four corners of the satiny fabric slithered down as its contents came into his view. "Shawls?" He asked, amused.

"Pashmina shawls." She corrected with a smile.

Wandering her hands around the stack of shawls, she pulled out two of them.

Staring back at Mahadevan were three different shades of the commonly accepted color palette: maroon, spruce, and black.

The black one had intricate embroidery of appropriate threads. He then glanced at the spruce and maroon ones, again embroidered with the most complex designs but very different from each other.

"This is called Tilla work." Darshana said while tracing her fingers through the golden tapestry on the black pashmina shawl.

Then she pointed her forefinger at the pattern on the maroon scarf. "This is Sozni work. And that's Jamawar." She finally directed her finger at the spruce-hued shawl.

"And I feel proud to announce that I weaved all three!" She patted her own shoulder. "Obviously, not alone! I am an amateur, so I did take expert help." She passed a cheeky smile.

"You did?" He looked on, half astonished and half curious. "How?"

"I was in the old town of Srinagar for the past one and a half years. Learnt it there." She confessed. "I am still in the learning process, though."

"You lied to Grandpa?" Adrenaline rushed through his veins.

Darshana Dogra was a known rebel after all.

"Convinced him." She sassed. "Face to face."

"Woah!" He laughed.

But then, the space between his brown drew closer. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you had boards, silly boy! And I didn't want to disturb you. Plus, learning to weave a Pashmina shawl is a highly attention-demanding and tedious task, and I needed seclusion for that. Away from every one." She explained while neatly folding all three shawls and stacking them upon each other.

"Oh." His mouth formed a small 'o'.

"Take these. Keep them safe with yourself." She handed over the stack of Shawls to him.

He stared at her with a perplexing expression. "Why?"

"Because I said so." She shot back. "Because they are for you." Moving a little closer, she whispered. "For your special one."

"What?!" His cheeks, chin, and neck turned crimson.

She laughed. "Keep them, little one." Gently caressing the black curls on his head, she continued. "You will leave for college tomorrow and I will be leaving for the States a week later. I don't know when I'll see you next in person. So, at least, when you see or use these shawls, they will remind you of your didaa."

He ducked his head down and nodded. "Grandpa wants me to go there as a beggar, so using Pashmina shawls is a big no. But yeah, I can definitely touch and feel them from my bags."

She nodded and kept the shawls on his lap. He gulped the slowly forming knot down his throat and picked them up in his hands.

"Just a reminder though." She teasingly mumbled. "They would no longer be your possessions the moment they find their rightful owner."

"Didaaaaa!" He whined.

She guffawed, flailing her arms around.

A short knock on the door snatched both of their attention.

"Madam." The lady bowed gracefully. "Young Master."

"Aisha!" Darshana quickly got up on her toes and rushed towards the lady standing next to the storeroom doors. "Oh my god!"

Taking the lady in her embrace, she engulfed her in a bear hug.

Aisha Muhammad chuckled her heart out. Just behind her stood a young man, smiling, looking at the two friends.

"Karim," Darshana turned to look at the man. "May I please borrow your wife for a few hours? We have a lot of talking to do!"

Karim nodded with a barely perceptible curve of his lips.

"Where is Asiya, by the way? She must be three this year, right?" Darshana probed further, appearing excited.

Aisha nodded. "Yes. She started school this year."

"Awww... my little baby." Darshana clicked her tongue. "Tsk. tsk. tsk. She is barely three! You both admitted her to school already?"

Karim chuckled. "Yes, ma'am."

"And here I thought that my oh so dear father was the soul incarnation of Hitler in this whole damn world. Turns out there are two more specimens left!"

All three of them chortled in unison.

Mahadevan came forward.

Karim immediately bowed. "Sahib."

Passing a faint smile at Aisha, Mahadevan grabbed Karim's upper arm with his left hand while his right hand held the shawls carefully. "Come with me to the grove. I have something to talk with you."

Darshana glanced at her nephew's back. "Keep the shawls in your room and then go to the grove. They are very delicate."

Nodding his head, he moved ahead with Karim as Aisha and Darshana followed behind them.

A lot of gossip was long overdue.

***