A Dark Night.

She doesn't have a long life.
Rini knows that.
Her life line says that.
You may say it is nothing but superstition.
May be or may be not.
Who knows the ways of life.
They say you carry your fate with the lines of your left hand. They are from your birth.
And your right hand is your karma hand.
You build your own fate.
Life line in both her hands show a sudden end. And that too not so late in life.
May be a 60.
How will  I die?
Rini thinks.
A heart attack?
May be.
Her heart aches a lot these days.
Her heart may be weak, she thinks.
From her mother perhaps.
But never mind.
But she wants a satisfactory end.
An end without any grudge against anybody.
Hardly possible?
She knows she won't be able to forgive everyone before her death. She doesn't want to.
The relatives those caused pain to her father.
The father who sacrificed a lot for the family. But return?
Can you forgive you father-in-law? The man who mouthed the most nasty words about her mother. But he is in heaven or elsewhere.
Your husband? Who repeated every word after his father and then......
But perhaps he has returned more to her.
But what about this person, who came in her life all of a sudden, uninvited, unwanted.
At nearly the end of her life.
Who through his words aroused a hundred emotions within her.
Who uttered the words with that honestly which she thought no one before that did.
He made her cross the boundary which she always thought was criminal.
Who made her give the things she could hardly imagine.
And then he made her show his different face. A not so faithful face.
While she shuddered in pain he relaxed, he laughed with his new friends.
Never thought once what was going through her.
She poured her heart but he never looked back.
A cold hearted selfish man.
You can say, how foolish of her, at this old age.
I also think, how foolish she is, she deserves this end. An unfaithful woman, deserves such end. A pain in her heart till last.
But once in her life she wanted to curse.
She wanted to say, you too will suffer.
Much more than me.
You too will be in immense pain.
No one to look after.
No one to care for you.
Money can not buy everything.
You took will crave, with no one to love you back. I may not be there to see your pain, no one to realise, but remember me then, that I cursed you.
For playing with my innocent heart.
There is no hell, no heaven.
What we do we pay for it in this life.
If I am paying with my pain you too will suffer many times more to bring her in this path only to leave me in this darkness.
As you suffer, remember my name.
That I have cursed you.
Rini stood staring in the darkness.

Baba, to you.

Baba,

You shouldn't have left me alone in this world.

You should have lived.

Lived for me,  for me alone,  a few more years.

People stopped caring after you went.

Once the near ones stopped asking how I am.

They say a lot.

They say you never cared.

They say you thought me worthless,  useless.

That's why you gave me up so soon.

Is that true baba?

You just got rid of me?

You never believed I could do anything else with my life?

Did I disappoint you?

But you know I am disappointed with myself .

This is not the me that I dreamt of.

I too wanted to fulfill your dreams , to be an independent lady,  only if you were by my side.

You know baba,  there are so many things I never let you know.

You asked me,  but I never said.

I never wanted to make you sad.

Is that not my strength?

Is that my weakness?

They say because I lack the mental strength.

Baba you know now I lack the physical strength too.

I am fading too soon.

My days may be numbered.

But before that I want to see my children happy.

Then one day ,  just as olden days , we will sit face to face.

With many untold stories to tell.

With many questions that are yet to be asked.

With many answers that I am yet to receive.

And with a cup of tea in our hands perhaps.

Just like some good old days.