A few months passed and Sameer's plan of keeping Naina in the dark worked. Very cleverly, citing psychological reasons, Sameer had the doctor evade in-depth questions from Naina about conception. But then Dr. Srestha convinced Naina that to aid pregnancy, along with Sameer, she too needed to take regular dosages of vitamin injections and hormone bursts as well as do some regular cycle specific monitoring tests. Pertaining to the original set of reports, Sameer many a times craftily averted the topic by saying he felt upset and didn't want to look at the reports again, nor did he want Naina to go through them. The doctors knows the details and as per her experience, psychological pressures could be created due to anomalies in one's report, he would say. And then on the rare occassions, when Naina visited the clinic alone and surreptiously asked for reports, there was either some problem with the electricity or the lab incharge was unavailable or the printing machine was under repair for eternity. Naina wondered how they got about with their work with such disruptions in place, for she'd heard Dr. Sreshtha was one of the best in Ahemdabad.

Her friends, family kept checking upon them to see if they succeeded or not. Chachiji was immensely worried for them now- Naina had been a middle-class girl when she'd married Sameer. They'd not asked them or Naina for a single penny from their side during the wedding. Chachiji had full faith on Sameer and his love, but she was also worldy wise to know that not being able to bear a heir for the Maheshwari family might strike some discord with Sameer's family. Taiji, on the other hand, conveniently forgot how she'd born Pralay after 12 years of marriage, that too, through the test tube method. She could have been expected to understand Naina's predicament and to support her emotionally. Instead, everytime she visited her home, she had a bunch of taunts ready for her inability to bear a child. Naina would burst into tears at being subjected to such harassment for a child, adding to her own woes of being denied motherhood for so long. Sameer however saw to it that the taunts never hurt Naina for long, and was quick to remind her aunt of the testing times she and her husband had faced before Pralay was born.

Their neighbours too popped in advice, names of doctors who'd brought about miracle conceptions. Their relatives in village too had their home remedies ready. Munna and Pandit, along with their families, provided every ounce of moral support to Naina and Sameer. Vishakha too was absorbed in trying to help Naina conceive. Sameer had discussed the real problem with her, and the fact that he didn't want Naina to suffer. She couldn't have been more proud of her son at the way he valued and loved his wife. Rohan had spent many late nights researching on new medical breakthroughs, medicines to help conception as well.

All this while, Naina's suspicion grew that Sameer was keeping something from her. Or perhaps the doctor wasn't capable enough. Or maybe her treatment wasn't working for them. Determined to find out more about the science behind their treatment, Naina hatched a plan. Sameer was already wrought from work, and then their personal life had been susceptible to a lingering void. Sameer always coaxed her to feel positive, so much so he wouldn't hear of her trying to learn about the ailments herself. "Naina! Doctor ko humse zyada pata hai! Unhone ispe itne saal padhai ki hai! Tum kuch ulta seedha padh logi fir sochti rahogi kuch gadbad hai!" he would say.

One day, Naina saw him ride off to his office and unable to control her academic curiosity, she asked the driver to take her to the public library once he returned after dropping Sameer to the factory. A week passed by as Naina researched in great depth about the science of conception. She wanted to help Sameer and in a way it would help them both. "Whatever Sameer and the doctor had been telling her made perfect sense! Then why were they not conceiving? She was keeping a regular track of her dates, her most fertile time. Sameer was under medication too. They'd been pouring money on tests, sonographies, hormonal imbalances, vitamin supplements, injections- yet nothing seemed to work."

Lost in thoughts, as she strolled out of the library for a break, she noticed another gynaecological clinic just two feet away from the library. Stung by a strange recklessness, Naina found her feet moving towards the clinic. As she gave her details to the lady at the counter, she patiently waited for her turn to arrive. Once inside, out of an unexplainable whim, she hid her case history from the doctor and asked him to start afresh with his diagnosis. The doctor advised some basic tests, which Naina was already familiar with, but agreed to take them again, there.

Two days later, sitting in the same clinic, Naina felt her world turn topsy-turvy. "Madam...the news is not particularly happy. You seem to have some problems in conception. We've found some blockages in the uterus and then the reason you were complaining of irregular menses is because you have some cysts forming in your ovaries!" the doctor recited. The biological jargon made complete sense to her, thanks to the research she'd done on her own in the library. She couldn't wait to inform Sameer that she too was at fault. Maybe they'd been taking the wrong treatments till now. And then her doctor's voice boomed, as she snapped out of her thoughts. "You can bring your husband along too. We'll conduct some tests on him as well, just to check if the problem is one-sided or both ways!" Naina nodded, paid him the fee as she felt a sense of unease sweep through her. "Could it be the doctor had been duping them? Or is it possible that Sameer had lied all along? Why would he do that? She would confront him tonight itself!" she decided.

The three hours and eighteen minutes that Naina had to wait to see him back home, fuelled her imagination, taking her thoughts towards some completely irrational directions and some plausible ones. As she heard the car screech onto the graveled pathway, and the sharp cluck of the car door closing, that Naina stood upright from the sofa.

"Hello jaan!" Sameer swooped down on her, trying to kiss her as his usual routine, though before checking Ramdhari was out of sight. He sensed her frigid response and broke apart, "what's wrong?" His eyes implored hers. Naina strode off to the dining table, picked up the reports she'd received today and handed the same to him, her eyes impassionate all this while.

"Sameer wo doctor ki reports galat hain shayad...maine ek aur clinic mein check karaya...tum kaho to hum wahan jaa sakte hain...dekho...," she stopped abruptly as she saw the colour fade from his face.

Sameer opened the report and what he saw made his heart skip several beats. No, not in joy. In fear, in apprehension. His eyes scampered to hers and found her gaze leveled to him, demanding an answer. The glint of guilt that shone in his eyes was enough for her to know. She held his palm and put it onto her head, "sach kya hai Sameer? Kya tum mein sach mein problem hai ya fir problem hamesha se mujh mein hi thi?" She urged as Sameer stood silent. "Sach kaho Sameer...tumhe meri kasam!" she pleaded. "Naina...!" he sighed and then softly put her hands on her shoulders.

"Meri reports normal thi...mujh mein problem nahi hai...matlab recently nahi pata...yeh...yeh report sach hai!" he acceded, fearing a flurry of distress from her side. Her eyes were already pooling with tears as she enquired again, "kyun?" Sameer had no answer as he hung his head in despair. And then Naina broke into sobs as she pulled him to her in a tight hug. "Kyun Sameer...kyun! Kyun itna pyaar karte ho mujhse?" she cried. Stunned, Sameer pulled apart to look at her. "Sameer...mujhse lucky koi ho hi nahi sakti...itna pyaar kaise kar sakte ho tum mujhse?" she demanded amidst her sobs. Unable to control his own emotions, Sameer held her close and wept with her.

Half an hour later, Sameer narrated the entire truth to her. Even the fact that they were taking treatment for her only. The doctor had been in connivance with Samer. All this because he didn't want her to lose hope or become forlon at the prospect of being childless, especially because she couldn't conceive till now. He took her palms in his and pressed them, as if reassure her. She smiled, and nodded. "Sameer...bhagwan ne mujhe baccha nahi diya to kya hua...tum jaisa pati de diya...iske aage mein aur kya chahun?" she let out, in a voice that spoke of pain, yet a strange contentment. "Naina...to kya hua agar hamare bacche nahi huye toh...tum mere saath ho...main tumhare saath hun...isse badhkar kya hum dono ko kuch aur chahiye...mere liye mere bacche se important tum ho...meri biwi...mera pyaar!" he cuddled her once again.

They decided to start afresh- not to give up hope. But after another year, the result was the same. Neither medicines helped, nor astrology, nor the visits to the famous temples all over India and neither the desi remedies offered by the elderly ladies of their families. Naina and Sameer remained childless.

***

Sameer felt for his wife around in sleep and his hand met the flattened blanket. He scrunched his eyes against the glow of the table lamp at the study table. He got up and walked over to Naina, immersed in writing her journal, her face illuminated by the lamp. He placed a hand on her shoulders, "soyi nahi?" As if jolted back into the present, Naina looked up. Her face was stained with tears. She'd been crying for a while, Sameer could make out from the blots of ink on the pages adorned with her crisp and now smudged handwriting. What was she reading? He'd barely registered the date and automatically his hands clasped her shoulders harder in an attempt to comfort her. The moment was broken by a soft voice, "Papa! Mumma!"

They turned around to see their son of 5 years, the dimple on the left of his cherubic face visible as he clenched his teeth in anticipation. He was dressed in a white cotton kurta payjama, just like his father preferred to wear at night, and was fumbling with the cord of the payjama, trying to hold it in place from falling it down.

"Kya hua Nitant beta?" Sameer called, and his face immediately took on a compassionate hue. "Papa...bathroom jana hai...andhera hai..darr lag raha hai!" came the kid's reply. "Arey mera bahadur beta! Andhere se darta hai...Nitant bahadur hai na?" Sameer rushed forward to scoop him in his arms, while Naina's tears lent way to a broad smile. She saw Sameer lift Nitant up, mumble things to pep him up- like the doting and caring father he'd always been. A moment later, Sameer was off with Nitant to the bathroom.

Naina turned back to the pages of the diary she'd been reading just a while before. The worst day of her life, which ultimately gave her, gave them, the best thing in their life- a hope to survive, an indicator that despite everything, life goes on. That was the day they got Nitant- their son! She turned the pages of her diary as she read her notes from that day and reminisced that fateful morning.

Naina had just stepped out of the bath, patting her wet hair with a towel, as the trails of water seeped onto her cotton blouse. She went over to the mirror and quickly applied her sindoor and bindi.

"Baap re! Late ho gaya aaj! Chutti ke din na sab aur deri ho jaati hai!" She glanced at the antique clock on the wall to the side, "8.30!" She scurried over to the pujaghar and lit the diya and incense and started chanting her daily hymns with folded hands, her eyes closed in veneration. Ten minutes later, Naina was moving about the house, spreading the fragrance and the smoke of the incense all around the house. She moved back to the pujaghar and just as she'd settled down the plate, she felt herself go tizzy. Her mind lurched as if she was about to faint, and then she felt the earth slip beneath her feet. Moments later, the entire house seemed to rock to and fro in a dangerous rhythm, a loud grumble emanating around her, increasing in intensity.

"Was it an...," she barely had time to think, when she heard Ramdhari's yell, "didi bhukanp...bhaago!" Her sub-conscious kicked in and she ran out of the main door, past the porch, onto the garden as fast as her feet could take her.

The entire earth was shaking with madness, as if in mammoth rage at mankind, plundering all the buildings around her to rubble. As she and Ramdhari stood in the garden, their hands pressed against the ears to block the noise, her heart shouted, "SAMEER!" Hordes of people escaped or tried to, out of their apartments, bungalows around them, shouting out, alerting those asleep to the calamity. After what seemed like an eternity, but had actually been just a minute or was it two, the grumbling eased down and the earth stood still; innocently as if unaware of the havoc, the carnage that it had unleashed in that interval.

Cries turned to wails of grief and panic, as people tried to scurry through the rubble, to look for their friends, family, neighbours stuck underneath, or lamenting the loss of their homes, their valuable possessions, children, parents alike.

But Naina's thoughts were directed only on Sameer. She began to cry as a panicky Ramdhari assured her, "Sameer baba theek honge didi...wo bahar aa gaye honge...". "Sameer! Sameer! Preeti! Chachi! Chacha! Arjun bhaiya!" Images of family closest to her heart swam around her... "Shefali...Anirudh...Swati..Munna...Pandit...Pooja didi..Pralay her dad!" Terror gripped her senses. She ran inside their home, which had miraculously survived or maybe endured due to its strong base and construction to see if the telephones were working and if she could call Sameer in his office.

The day of 26th January 2001 was one of horror for the state of Gujarat and for entire India. As Sameer panted through the puffs of smoke and dust arising out of the rubble, of what remainded of the new apartment complexes around their office, Sameer could only think of one person, "Naina!" They were greeted by people running about hither-thither in panic, half of them unable to absorb the catastrophe that had struck them on what was to be a quiet, holiday- a day of get together with families- a day to observe the beautiful programs of dances on TV, to admire the exhibits of various states, and to watch the ultimate fly past across India Gate in the National Capital.

Sameer squinted and saw that the government school that he passed every morning, and where today the students that had been chorusing the National Anthem just half an hour ago had vanished from sight, as if it had never existed. Many bungalows and apartments seemed to have been smashed out. It had been with great difficulty that Sameer had managed to run down from the top floor of his own office building to an open area, while the earth shook fiercely. He'd found a bunch of his employees, huddled against the corners of the rooms, and under the tables or in the grounds outside. Just as he'd been about to set foot in the open, he'd missed being crushed to death by a fraction of inch. The boulder of cement that had fallen almost on top of his head, hit his arm instead and Sameer knew his shoulder must be broken. As he tried to nurse his pain, he gulped thinking of his wife, hopefully somewhere safe outside. He didn't know if he even had a home or a wife to return back to, he thought in panic. Frantically, he looked for telephones around, but realized soon that no means of communication were working. He didn't know the intensity, nor the impact, nor the areas where the quake had struck.

Sameer broke into a run or tried to, amidst the roads laden with rubble, pausing in between to help a person or two to escape from the debris crushing them, or covering some old man with his expensive jacket to protect from the cold. He stumbled upon pieces of furniture, some cement, or mortar or what remained of a house's pillar, an urgency to see Naina safe gripping him.

A few men were collected at a distance at the bottom of the wreckage of a building, trying to rescue survivors, employing their might to move the heavy boulders and concrete. Sameer couldn't just walk past ignorantly, hoping that someone would have stopped to help his wife and friends like this, if they were trapped. And he ended up adding a helping hand. Moving stones, extracting bodies- dead, living or partially alive, either whole or in pieces was a gruesome, yet sharply painful task. To add to it, the aftershock tremors sent panic waves all through his body. He was horrified to his core wondering about the fate of his loved ones- Naina, Ramdhari, Munna, Pandit....and had the quake struck in Delhi as well...what about mom, dad, Rohan, Deepika?

And that was when he heard muffled wails coming from near him. He frantically looked around, and realized that the sound of crying was coming from a pile of rubble, of what had once been the Vrindavan society. With his own broken arm, he tried his best to locate the crying child. Two men ran to help him. And finally they unearthed a two month old baby, placed safely under a table, desperately crying away for his mother. As they evacuated the baby from the ruins, they tried to dislocate the slabs a bit further, and it was then that a hand came into view, and a gory, horrible site greeted them in the name of a woman, whose face and body, except the hand with which she must have held the baby, was crushed badly. Sameer shouted in fear and shock, and the baby wailed louder.

"Ye to Rekha ji hain...!" one of the men shook his held apologetically, his eyes misting as he recognized the tattoo of "Pradeep", her husband's name etched across the lifeless arm. "Ye inka beta hai!" he pointed to the baby in his arm. Sameer looked in pity at the baby, and tried to compose himself as he caressed the baby's face in consolation. The baby seemed to have sensed his comforting touch and his whining reduced in intensity.

"Itna chota baccha bach kaise gaya...!" Sameer exclaimed in wonder.

"Shayad ishwar ki iccha thi...jaako raake saiyan maar sake na koi...chalo mota bhai...wahan pe koi chilla raha hai!"

"Iske ghar ka aur koi hai aas pass?" Sameer asked. One of the men responded, "pata nahi kya kismet ka khel hai...iske janam se 4 mahine pehle hi iske pitaji shaheed ho gaye the...Army me sipahi the...aur ab Rekha ji...!" Tears trickled down his face as he turned his eyes up at the irony of life. Destiny took his parents away, but saved the child!

"Bhai sahab...aap is bacche ko sambhal lijiye tab tak...!" they thrust the boy into Sameer's arms and ran in the direction of the opposite building.

It was strange how a calamity that had the power to shook the mankind, had them all connected like a family now. The trust was unsurpassable, comfort sought in strangers, the only aim being to help as many and as much as one could. Sameer tried to swaddle the baby in its blanket and rocked him slowly to hush him. He waited around, looking for someone to hand over the baby in their care, who knew the mother. Ten minutes passed by and his urgency to check on Naina grew. The baby could be identified later. He would keep it safe. Thinking so, he hurried along the path to his home. He was almost near home when he finally let out a deep breath as he saw Naina crying frantically, her hands flailing as she was moving about calling out his name.

She'd been afraid to go out much far away, in case he reached home and became tense not seeing her there. And then she hoped he was alive and on his way back to her. Ramdhari meanwhile had been looking for him near the office.

Sameer shouted, "NAINA!" and stuttered across the shards of broken glass, the baby boy in his arms whimpering again and pulled her with his other broken arm tightly. He filched in pain, yet the pain didn't bother him anymore now that he'd seen his Naina safe. Naina looked up at his dusty, white face, his tattered clothes, his seemingly broken arm, and the unknown baby in his arms. But it wasn't the time to think. Naina felt her breath easen as she felt his familiar warmth, inhaled his scent, touched his body in a fierce embrace. They cried hugging each other, thankful to God for helping them both survive.

But not all had been lucky. Preeti who was due in three months, was in for a shock, as she realized Pandit had not managed to escape. He'd tried to lead his employees in the shop to safety, and had held back an instant late, only to have the shop burying him in his family legacy. Swati emerged crippled, banished to a wheel chair. But thankfully, Munna and their kids who'd been out enjoying the school holiday in the park were spared. Her in-laws again hadn't been so lucky. Swati's mother had succumbed to her injuries in the hospital two days before and her father who'd been out on a trip to Pune on that fateful day found himself shattered.

Taiji and Pralay had not managed to escape too, while Tauji had been saved by the sturdy court building where he'd been seated. Arjun had suffered some scars and scratches in trying to protect Shefali and their son, Anirudh from the disaster. Bela and Preeti had been downstairs buying vegetables when the quake had struck. Anand too had been buried underneath, just like his son-in-law.

Sameer and Naina tried to find the baby's family or any contact details, through newspapers, telephone helplines, through television, but either he had no survivor left in his family or no one came to take his responsibility. Eventually, after a few months, accepting him as God's decision to bestow a child to them, and parents to the baby, Sameer and Naina decided to adopt him legally and named him, "Nitant!" They couldn't have asked for more. He completed them. Completed their family.

Sameer entered inside a few minutes later, with Nitant giggling at his toes. He was obviously not scared of the dark now that his father was besides him. "Dhishoom dhishoom...! Aise maarunga main rakhshas ko!" he chuckled to his father and Naina silently admired the blood of the Armyman in his veins. Which reminded her that their grant for the aid of widows and orphaned children of defence personnel was pending. She'd would remind Sameer to release it tomorrow.

"Mummy! Main aapke saath sounga aaj!" Nitant grinned and scooted towards his mother, wrapping his tiny arms around her neck. Naina planted a kiss on his cheeks. "Bilkul beta!" she replied as she got up from her chair, removed her glasses, and closed her diary. For Sameer, these were the times when he had to chose between two of the best things in life- have his son cuddling upto him in sleep or to cuddle his wife to sleep. He couldn't and wouldn't choose one over them though, he contemplated smilingly. Sameer went along with Naina to check up on their new bundle of joy wrapped up in a blanket, thankfully snoring peacefully tonight. He planted a soft kiss on her tiny, round cheeks. The baby girl smiled in sleep. "Just like her mother when I kiss her when she's asleep", he mused fondly.

Sameer jumped onto the bed with Nitant, as Naina covered them both with the blanket, before ushering herself inside too. The happy family of three had been so content that God had finally given them another addition. Just a few months before, Naina had given birth to their daughter, "Prishi". As Naina slowly rocked the cradle, thinking about their children, her husband and life in general, she felt Sameer's hand hold hers and at that moment, Prishi gave out a squeaky cry. The lights turned on and the parents looked at each other in exasperation. Sameer's eyes conveyed, "your turn" and he turned around to sleep, with Nitant hugging his back. Naina rolled her eyes at her husband, and then at her baby girl, and mused, "just like her father...doesn't allow me sleep!"