The Streak that Struck

Resplendent in a jade-coloured high-low dress with matching stilettos and a large emerald bracelet, she sashayed directly towards me. “Could it be me she is attracted to?” I thought to myself as the petite figure bridged the aisles between us. It was love at first sight and I had to be Lady Luck’s own child to expect reciprocity from my first love!

Through my glasses, I could see those manicured hands inching closer to me. Sitting next to me, my friends who had been on the shelf for way too long could not imagine that my wait for the perfect hands could actually be so short. In fact, though I sported a shade of green I could almost see all of them turn green with envy as she turned towards me. But I had reasons to believe that she would love me and choose me to be with her for the rest of my life. I was the emerald-coloured nail polish who was fresh in the market and adorned the shelf of this glitzy store in a metropolitan city.

Now you know why I believed that I could be lucky? Yes, because I spotted that big, chunky, emerald bracelet on her wrist and felt that she might want a matching nail polish. My friends who have had a shelf life of over couple of months debated with me over the possibility pointing to the fact that this was not a parameter that will influence her decision making. But my naivety made me believe that I might just get lucky. I had barely been on the shelf for a couple of days and had seen some hands touching me, picking me up and immediately keeping me back saying either “too bright”, “too neon” or “too loud”, while others did not even so much as glance at me. But with Roshni, things were different.

Roshni, as her name meant ‘light’ that is known to brighten up surroundings, liked all things bright, so once she picked me up from the shelf, I was hers. But wait, she was calling someone. Was she going to discuss about me with a friend? There seemed to be no response! Lucky for me, I got chosen without much deliberation. Then her cell phone beeped and I thought she might keep me back, but no she did not and our journey together started.

 “So, Roshni, all set for Avni’s big fifth tomorrow? Last minute shopping?” asked a friend who had spotted Roshni and now joined her at the aisle where my shelf was located. She sounded overtly chirpy as she replied, “Oh yes! All done. Be on time tomorrow.” I somehow felt a streak of sadness in her tone, but then I overruled my thought thinking my association with her was way too young for me to understand her tone. I got busy in taking a last look and bidding adieu to my friends and my house for the last couple of days, while being clasped in Roshni’s grip as she started walking towards the payment counter to take me to my new home.

Roshni tossed me on to the seat next to the driver’s as she took to the wheels. I was checking out the surroundings around me, when I heard a deep sigh and looked up to see Roshni wiping her face. Was my intuition correct? Was she sad indeed? Was she crying? As I pondered over it, I heard the beeping of a cell phone. Roshni disconnected it and I saw a tiny little rivulet spring out of her beautiful, big eyes. She wiped it away immediately, put some music on and accelerated the car. The rest of our journey was uneventful till we reached home, my new home.

As she rang the doorbell, with me in her hand, I heard a shrill little voice chattering inside. “Mommy, are you back? Wow!” And as soon as the door opened, a tiny little being jumped on to me and started kissing Roshni saying, “Mommy big hug and lots of kisses to you. Do not leave me for so long. I don’t like it.” I was almost getting asphyxiated, when the tiny, cute little being named ‘Avni’ came off me and for the first time I saw this delicious combination of an angelic face with a naughty smile and sharp eyes that seemed to always behold a question in them. Roshni tossed me on the recliner next to her and hugged Avni close to her heart and said, “I love you baby. Sorry I got late. Will never leave you for so long again.” As she muttered these, her daughter dragged her to the toy room to show her the newly constructed Lego bridge that she had worked on for the last 30 minutes, with her nanny.

After the nanny left, Roshni rushed past me towards the kitchen with Avni in toe as she said, “Mommy it’s so late and Daddy is still not back.” Roshni froze on the spot as she turned back slowly and muttered, “Even I was wandering baby. Maybe Daddy has more important things in life.” As she said these I could see the familiar tiny rivulet again, as they smudged her kohl and started navigating their way out of those beautiful eyes. “Could there be something more important than me?” demanded the five-year-old, but on noticing the rivulet finding its course on her mother’s visage the toddler’s tone immediately changed to a soft mellowed down delicate one. “Don’t cry, Mommy. Avni loves you! I will not ask when Daddy will come, but you don’t cry please,” said Avni, as she wiped away her mother’s tears.

The duo hugged and Roshni wiped away her tears as she busied herself in the kitchen, and Avni dived into colouring the pictures in her drawing book. I wondered how this home was filled with colours, but there was something that sapped away the brightness from the eyes of its inmates right now. I was waiting to see Avni’s father, whom Roshni referred as Abhi, maybe as ardently as Avni and Roshni were waiting. But none of us expressed to each other how much we were longing to see that man finally. I wanted to see him because I could feel that Roshni’s tears were connected to him, and I loved Roshni. It hurt to see her hurt. Roshni wanted to see him because I think she wanted some answers, while Avni wanted to see him because she wanted to show him her Lego bridge.

Roshni brought Avni’s dinner and placed it on the side table next to me, then she lifted me up and shoved me in a cabinet in the bedroom, as she prepared to supervise Avni having her dinner. Meanwhile, I was getting accustomed to my new room and roommates. I had several kinds of friends here. Some introduced themselves as pens, while others said they were pins, diaries, greeting cards, business cards and the like. I realized this was not a female drawer or cabinet, where most of my kinds expected to find a permanent room. This was a very neutral, unisex cabinet that I had been shoved into.

While chatting up with my new friends, after what seemed like hours, the cabinet door opened again, and a new object was shoved in the corner. In fact it was carefully placed behind a big greeting card. After the cabinet door was closed and we were left to ourselves, we were all introduced to the new object. It was a diamond-studded platinum ring with the inscription ‘Ever & Forever’. She looked gorgeous no doubt. Co-incidentally we had something in common; both of us were picked up from the same glitzy store and from what she said I assumed we were picked up roughly around the same time. And we assumed we were both meant to stay close by because our common destination was Roshni’s finger. She was picked up by Abhi. I now was more eager to see him after realizing that he wasn’t a bad guy. Then why did it seem to me that Roshni was troubled due to this guy. Every time he was mentioned, she had those rivulets in her eyes or she would quickly evade talking about him.

While I was lost in my thoughts, the cabinet door opened again and Roshni pulled me out of the cabinet. I felt safe again in those beautiful hands and through the clasp of her fingers, I did finally get to take a peek at Abhi. His name was Abhijeet, as his ID card, carelessly kept next to me in the cabinet had informed me, and he looked every bit a gentleman although I must add slightly emaciated, worn out and exhausted.

He followed Roshni when she came and sat on the bed. Roshni didn’t look up at him. He asked, “I had called you in the evening, why didn’t you take my call?” “I was driving. How come your meeting got over so soon? I had called you a short while before you called and then you disconnected my call and texted you were in a meeting?” charged Roshni. Abhijeet seemed a bit hesitant and he fumbled with his words as he answered, “Oh yes! Yes it was a very short meeting.” “And what took you so long at work today? I know every day you have long work hours, but today I expected you to be early. Did you go out from work anywhere?” cross questioned Roshni. Abhijeet’s face seemed to turn slightly pale as he quickly gained composure and quipped, “Oh no, never. Where and why will I go out from office?” Saying that he walked to the cabinet, where I had a good time with the other friends and the platinum ring. He opened the cabinet door and stretched his hands and I assumed he would bring out the gorgeous ring, but he did not, and instead walked into his study to finish his pending work. I knew he had bought it for Roshni, and I could join the dots as to why he was lying to Roshni, despite going out of office only to pick up that ring and then he was back at work to meet the punishing deadlines of that day. The ring had told me that when she was ordered, Abhijeet was in two minds whether to inscribe a ‘Roshni’ on it or ‘Ever & Forever’. After a lot of deliberation he had settled on the latter. And this evening when he had gone to pick the ring up from the store, he had bumped into an old college friend. While they were talking, Roshni had spotted them right after picking me up from the shelf, but Abhijeet had disconnected her call and his phone had recently gone on an auto setting wherein if ever he disconnected a call an automatic text message was sent to the caller saying, “I am in a meeting. Will talk to you later”. Roshni had just seen that message and before she could react, one of her friends had spotted her and started enquiring about Avni’s birthday.

Now the blanks were filled as I joined the dots. So Abhijeet wanted to surprise Roshni with the gorgeous ring on his daughter’s fifth birthday. It was his way of thanking his beautiful wife for gifting that angelic daughter Avni. But only I knew the story, neither Roshni was aware of Abhi’s intention nor was Abhijeet in a position to understand that Roshni was misunderstanding him.

I could feel a streak of me being painted on each of Roshni’s nails and I could see that those beautiful eyes were brimming again. I did not like to see it. I wanted to speak out and tell her, or I wanted her to cross question Abhi further so that the misunderstanding was resolved. But nothing happened. Instead I felt a part of me being washed away, as the floodgates of Roshni’s emotions were let loose through her eyes. The droplets of tears washed away a part of me and left me feeling strangely void, but Roshni didn’t bother about it and stifled her cry as she hugged little Avni and felt asleep.

 “What a beautiful coloured nail polish you are wearing, Mommy. It matches both our dresses,” chirped Avni as she saw streaks of me on her Mommy’s nails the next morning while getting ready. Roshni and Avni wore similar emerald coloured outfits and both looked ethereal. Even Abhi had donned a light green, sequined kurta. I noticed Roshni was avoiding interactions with Abhi as they set out for the party venue, which was just five minutes away from their home. On reaching the venue, Abhi realized he had forgotten about the ring, and he wanted to gift it to her before the party. So he asked Roshni to wait near the gate of the mall at Sadar Road, as he made a quick turn with Avni in the car to get back home and fetch it, the ostensible reason to Roshni was that he had forgotten his cell phone.

But just a couple of minutes after they were gone, there was a loud bang and everything looked dark around me. I realized it was a blast. A bomb blast! The Sadar Road bomb blast that had claimed close to 160 lives. And Roshni’s life was one among those. I lay there as a streak on Roshni’s finger, but I could not see the rest of her. Strewn around me were severed limbs and parts of bodies. I lay there helplessly, as I spotted a tiny little silhouette approaching towards me with her father in hand. It was Avni with Abhijeet. She hugged me and said, “This is Mommy’s hand, I know. Look the nail polish matches the colour of my dress. She has to be somewhere nearby.” On hearing this I wanted to hug her tight and tell her like her Mommy I too wanted to be around her, in her house. I had started loving her family. “Mommy will come soon from somewhere. She told me she will never leave me for long,” cried Avni as she held onto the only identifiable part of her mother. A distraught Abhijeet hugged Avni tight and did not know what to do as the box slipped out of his hand and the ‘Ever & Forever’ marked platinum ring came tumbling out towards me. I do not regret that the ring and I could not share a journey together as envisioned, but I deeply regret the fact that the beautiful family could not be together ‘Ever & Forever’. Roshni, the light, blacked out and I lamented the fact that she died so sad never knowing how much her Abhi loved her. Never knowing he wanted to surprise her with the ‘Ever & Forever’!