Knock Knock

I am 37, single and bitter about my ex who got married last month, even though I dumped him. All I ever was to get married and have a child of my own. Okay I will be honest, I want the baby. I am just not sure I am the marrying type. Can anyone ever really say they truly know someone? I cannot take that chance, I refuse to. So after three years of him waiting, I let him go.

I try to erase the pretty wedding photos I saw on facebook. This images refuse to even take a tea break. I cannot seem to focus lately.

I came back from little evening stroll. I have not eaten a single meal at the dining table since my dad  passed away. He died of a heart attack while taking his daily stroll. He has been gone a year yesterday. The thought of both my parents dead and me as an only child does not improve my mood. I tap my fingers impatiently as I wait for the microwave to beep and let me know my pizza is now ready to consume.

I am cozy and content in teddy designed  comfy shorts which is too short. I pull my quilt over my head and try to relax. Loneliness creeps up on my body like a blanket of lead. I drift off into a fragmented sleep.

At six in the morning I get up, pour a cup of tea and then a strange noise. It cannot be the door. I mean who could it possibly be? Visitors are rare for me. Knock, knock. I hear the noise again and can no longer deny the fact that someone is at my door. I looked at my very short shorts. I mean what do I say to the person knocking on the door, “could you please hold on a moment while I change into something decent ?” I walk slowly to the door. My mind is a blur. I open the door.

“I need help” says the troubled looking female with a protruding belly. She is not dressed very warm for the weather and looks lost. “What do you want help with?” I ask. I try to be polite and not sound annoyed as I actually feel. She shivers and looks like she might collapse. I am speechless. For a moment we both just stand there and stare into each other’s eyes. “I am freezing. Can I please come in and warm up?” she asks in a low voice. What the hell am I supposed to do? Suppose she collapses on my front door for the whole town to see? This is the negative aspect of being the first house visible when you come into town. “Ah, I guess, for a bit. Just until you warm up”. I raise my eyebrows as she enters my house.

I cannot help but stare at her. She tells me that is her name, for real. She is huge. She looks like she is due any minute. “Everyone calls me Ashu for short and I have two weeks until the baby is due”. She says softly as she meets me eyes. I cannot help myself. The whole situation is unbelievable. Ashu is eighteen. She has no parents and has walked five miles to my town, She just kept walking and walking until she could not walk anymore. That was when she knocked on my door. I do not want to scare her away. Although I am out of my element, I find that I enjoy her company.

I cannot help myself and ask her what she is running away from. “I am running away from my foster parents. There were nice enough when they were collecting money for me staying with them. Then the money stopped coming. They had another fight and I just could not take it anymore. Both were drunk and throwing things at each other. I barely missed getting knocked out by a glass ashtray. I will not go back, no matter what. I have no place to”. She looks up at me with tears in her eyes.

I fix up the guest bedroom for her. I have no choice. She needs somewhere to stay. The system does not seem concerned with her because she is older than sixteen. I called the foster parents house. They kept hanging up on me. She probably feels as lonely as I do each night. I just cannot send her out in the world alone. I have life experience and struggle with loneliness. I cannot imagine being in her position. It breaks my heart. That is it, I have made up my mind. Ashu will stay with me.

I feel good. I feel like that for once I am doing something in my life. When my father passed away I decided to give up my full time job as an architect and take two years off. Two years off to figure out what was going on in my life and how I could change it before it was too late. Up until Ashu, I had felt like life was passing me by. Now I have energy and feel alive. I have not felt this good since, I cannot even remember. This feels right.

I am in my bed. For once, I do not feel lonely. I feel good. I smile and then my heart skips a beat as I hear Ashu calling my name. I get up quickly and run into the guest bedroom. She does not look well at all. She is all curled up in bed and is breathing heavy. I am overwhelmed and not sure what to do. I ask stupidly, “What’s wrong?” She screams “I think I am having the baby!” I stare at her in disbelieve. What am I going to do? I shake my head to try and clear it so something intelligent will come to me. I wait and say nothing. It is Ashu who draws me near to the bed and whispers “you have to drive me to the hospital now”. I nod my head slowly.

It takes her and me a half hour to drive to the hospital. I drive as quickly as I can.  I am overwhelmed with emotion. I admire her. I would give anything to be in her place at the moment. She seems so brave, even in pain. She squeezes my hand during labour. I think my hand might be broken. I still admire her and feel alive.

As the baby’s head comes out full or dark matted hair, it is I fill with joy. I stare at Sap. She stares at the baby like she is lost in a dream. The baby is a boy and weighs in at an even six pounds. I ask ashu what she is going to name him. She holds the baby close to her and looks nothing but comfortable. She whispers “Anand”. I am astonished and cannot believe it. I ask quietly “What is his name?” Ashu smiles at me and says, “Anand, I have always loved that name”. I am not sure what to say to her at the moment. My father’s name was Anand but I had never told her. She hardly knew a thing about me. This is my sign, my life and a new beginning.

Precious

I'd never seen my dad handle anything else more delicately or with such caution except may be my own mother. He slowly inched down the stairs, holding the beautifully crafted and craved glass vasewith a rose inside. His eyes matched the vase, and then the steps ahead of him. Back and forth his focus switched for what seemed like forever to get down the stairs"Dad, why are you going so slow?" I asked him.

"This is very special and extremely delicate. It has so much value, it's probably worth the same amount as your car. It must be taken with extreme care."

He finally made it to the kitchen table and placed the vase and rose in the middle. "I wish I could think of a safer place, but it looks so nice displayed here. Don't you think?" he asked me.

"Yeah," I replied. Why was this so valuable?

He took a quick glance at his watch. "Well, I'm off to work. See you tonight kiddo."

"Alright," I greeted as he jetted out the door. I walked nearer to the table and studied the flower. A red rose. What could be it's significance? I realized it didn't matter. I had to take care of it, and for some reason my dad thought it'd be okay to just throw it in a vase and on the table. He himself said how valuable it was, so I wasn't planning on letting it wilt away on some table by a much-too-sunny-window.

For days I took care of that flower. I did all the research on how to best take care of roses. I did all of it. But after only a few days, the flower began to brown, and grow wrinkles and tears.I was baffled. Why would my dad place so much value in something he knew would quickly pass? But I held it in my hand. It was beautiful. Red, with the now-brownish color. Soft and smooth petals. These flowers much cost a fortune for their beauty and sincerity. I was beginning to understand it's value.A petal fell off as I admired it. I turned to my dad, finally getting a chance to ask him why this flower had so much value.

"Oh honey," he replied. "The flower means nothing. What was valuable was the VASE. I don't care about the rose. I can replace that any time."

I began to study the rose in my hand again. Why did it seem to even lose color just while talking about it with my dad? I did not see the value I possibly thought it could have anymore. Now it was just a dying flower. 

Still observing the rose, there will still a few red petals. I didn't think the flower was completely invaluable to me now, because the beautiful things I memorized about it were still true. It had value to me, precious to me, but this value just wasn't true to everyone else.

King Solomon & Me

On a marriage occasion of one of our cousin's in Surat ,there was our family reunion aunts and uncles, their kids, nearly same age cousins whom we hadn’t seen in ages met up there. It was gonna be a fun time.  Before all the marriage ceremonies we had leisure time to chit chat .We, all cousins sat around in a group , sharing our mundanes , doing most enjoyable stuff  “gossips” . Everybody knows its a bad thing to talk behind one's back but  no one in  these world  stayed away from enjoying the comfort of gossips, Gossips about our groom’s in-laws, his  sister in-law and her short dresses .We were talking about failings and disasters and we enjoyed taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.We all know it was wrong to gossip, but no one resisted to seem malicious and we all  indulged  in this guilty pleasure . Our appetite for gossip was insatiable, then after some time  we decided to share some secrets .Some of us were hesitated but some were feeling very inclined to share their own secrets. We were laughing like drain when each of us one after the other shared their secrets . And now  it was my brother’s turn .

" it can be called as a secret , or a true inspirational story", a story of Me,Renu and king Solomon “ he said in a serious note . I frowned ,We all looked at each other and grinned .

Since childhood renu was very fond of reading stories.She used to read all the stories from her English and Hindi text books within couple of hours, and after reading she would love to recite me all these stories with real expressions .She was two classes senior to me ,I always gained the knowledge of those stories before it actually comes into my own text book ,stayed one jump ahead  from rest of my classmates most of the times .I remember one of those stories which helped me in my real life ,Story of great king “Solomon “ it was something like this -

 “Two young women who lived in the same house and who both had an infant son came to Solomon for a judgment. One of the women claimed that the other, after accidentally “smothering her own son while sleeping, had exchanged the two children to make it appear that the living child was hers. The other woman denied this and so both women claimed to be the mother of  the living son and said that the dead boy belonged to the other.

After some deliberation, King Solomon called for a sword to be brought before him. He declared that there was only one fair solution: the live son must be split in two, each woman receiving half of the child. 

Upon hearing this terrible verdict, the boy's true mother cried out, "Oh Lord, give the baby to her, just don't kill him!" The liar, in her bitter jealousy, exclaimed, "It shall be neither mine nor yours—divide it!"

The king declared the first mother as the true mother, as a true, loving mother would rather surrender her baby to another than hurt him, and gave her the baby. King Solomon's judgment became known throughout all of Israel and was considered an example of profound wisdom. “

Few months after listening to this story something strangely similar incident happened to me .One day me and one of my friends started fighting. Our classmates gathered and were enjoying the heat of our quarrel .Our class teacher entered  the classroom as soon as period bell rung. He saw us fighting ,scolded us and told everyone to sit at there places and asked us the reason of fighting .

I told him that we are fighting for this car shaped pencil sharpener ,"sir this sharpener is mine but piyush grabbed it from me and claiming it to be his". Piyush interrupted “ No sir this sharpener belongs to me I bought it yesterday only , Vikas is telling a lie he stole the same from me and claiming to be his . Teacher was carefully listening to our argument, pondering, he didn’t say a word for sometime and then "There is only one solution  i will cut this sharpener into two equal parts and each of you will receive half of it ." He declared.  There was a pin drop silence in the class ,neither me nor piyush said anything . After a short pause I exclaimed "no sir I don’t want it to get cut into pieces it’s a very beautiful sharpener ,I don’t need it , please give this sharpener to piyush", one could have seen a huge triumphant grin,a look of self satisfaction on our teacher's face. He slapped and rebuked piyush for telling lies and gave that sharpener to me “

“Bravo” all of us clapped , "then you should have thanked renu for this "one of our cousins advised

Yes I must thank her ."Thank you Renu" , Just because of you I got something which was actually not mine .

Tell her today

So here we go.....
The doctor told him, and he had to tell his wife. He wasn’t surprised by what the doctor said; he had kind of a vague hope it would be something different. He thanked the sober looking doctor, and put on his shirt and pants, after the doctor’s back disappeared out the door. He walked with the bill to the receptionist’s window and it seemed like he could hardly hear what she was saying. He was thinking about how to tell his wife. He handed his credit card through the window, and took it back when she handed it to him.
Have a nice day, Mr. Shah.
The glass window slid shut, and he smiled at the irony. He walked out of the office into a different world. Colors, sounds, smells are not the same when you’re dying. He started toward where his car was and changed his mind. He stood in the middle of the parking lot befuddled as to what to do. A car from the street pulled in, and the driver gave him an annoyed look when he had to slow down to give him time to get out of the way. Mr. Shah would have apologized, but he didn’t.
Your time will come, he thought, your time will come.

  He walked out onto the street and down to the town common. There were children playing; he sat on a bench, and watched, thinking about his wife. He watched the children, and felt sadness at what they must learn. They don’t know; they give themselves to their play with abandonment; there was no compromise; no hesitation; no misgiving. Their joy would be sullied by sorrow in life – it was inescapable. Maybe that was the design, that the longer you live, the greater your sorrow so death was a release or a salvation of some kind. He didn’t know. He wasn’t scared, but he did feel remorse . He and Mrs. Shah raised an accomplished and caring son and daughter, and he felt good about that. He wasn’t so bad after all. What am I going to say to Anita? he thought. The sun felt warm on his face. A ball rolled to his feet, and he bent over to pick it up. He looked up into the beaming, giggling face of a little girl. She grabbed the ball from him and was gone. She didn’t notice him – the life, the energy in her didn’t notice him. Is she mocking me? he thought, no, no, it’s life  that's all. 

 He thought about the last time he saw his father, and his voice was nothing but a whisper, Take care of your mother, he said. After he was gone, his mother sat in a chair in the living room all day long, and she wouldn’t have eaten unless he went to feed her. She was dead three months later. The memory gave him a chill. He shifted on the bench trying for more heat from the sun. He heard the laughter and screams of the children. After a few moments, he stood and walked toward his car. He drove home and parked in the driveway. He sat in the car for a time before getting out. He walked into the house, and Anita was at the kitchen counter chopping carrots. He went to her and they hugged. He looked at the mail; checked his laptop, and went into the bathroom. He settled himself on a stool at the counter, and talked to his wife while she chopped carrots. They had done this ritual thousand of times., how was the doctor? she abruptly asked. She stopped chopping carrots.

He has to wait for test results, he said.
Anita looked at her husband for a long moment. She began chopping carrots slowly.