Washed Away

Sunitha’s tears were heavier than the rain outside.

Rain..it brought back memories.

Memories she was trying hard to forget.

***

“Amy! Get inside, will you?”, Sunitha shouted over the splatter of rain. “You’ll catch a cold.”

But Amy wasn’t ready to get inside. Drenched to the core, she felt excited and unstoppable.

“Amy love rain..rain..Amy happy!”, she told her mother with a giggle.

Sunitha could not help but smile. Amy’s face..red with excitement..her happiness..it all filled Sunitha’s mind with warmth.

Her daughter was 15 and mentally retarded. But for Sunitha, she was the world.

“Sunitha..where’s Amy?”, Rajeev had come out of the house looking for his daughter.

Outside, he found his daughter drenched in the rain and his wife drenched in affection.

As soon as she spotted him, Amy ran to her dad. The father and daughter were inseparable. And Sunitha liked it that way.

****

The memory brought a curl to Sunitha’s lips. But there were more..memories hit her like cold wind.

****

“Here they come with the mad girl!”, people would talk behind their backs. But nothing could dampen Rajeev’s and Sunitha’s spirits.

They were determined to give Amy a normal life, as much as possible.

Having mental retardation wasn't a sin, after-all.

Amy could do all her activities alone. Only when it came to academics and controlling emotions, she was slow.

But as far as Sunitha and Rajeev were considered, Amy was the perfect daughter.

Because Amy was capable of loving innocently, unlike the neighbour’s “perfect” kid. She loved even the people who called her mad.

Amy’s mind was pure. And as far as Sunitha and Rajeev were considered, that was enough.

****

“Why hasn’t Amy returned from school yet?”, Sunitha couldn’t suppress her worry anymore.

Afterall, it was her idea to let Amy return home alone after school. It was her desperate attempt to show the world that Amy was capable of living independently.  And it had been going fine for a week now.

But now, it was 5 pm and Amy wasn’t home yet.

With a pounding chest, Sunitha dialed Rajeev’s number.

****

They searched every nook and corner.

They searched the school area, they searched every road.

They searched the city, they searched the neighbourhood.

8 pm. 9 pm. 10 pm. 11 pm.

Amy was nowhere to be seen.

At midnight, when it started raining, Rajeev got a call from the police.

Their daughter was found. But not how they had expected.

****

They pushed through the crowd to find their daughter lying cold and motionless on the ground.

Her clothes were torn.

Her curly hair was tangled.

The midnight rain washed away the dirt from Amy’s face.

But it could not wash the hopelessness that had surrounded her parents’ life.

It could not wash away the monster called grief.

It could not wash away their tears.

Above all, it could not wash away the memories of an innocent girl called Amy, who had every right to live.

                                                                                

Down The Memory Lane

Going down the memory lane,

It all gushes back.

The books tucked behind the shelves,

Hidden, saved from the accusing eyes.

The hours spent with the dishes,

A spoon in hand. No pen.

The wolfish stares of a hundred men.

The hands of society, always holding back.

The chains I fought so hard to break,

Changing shapes with changing time-

The father, the husband and now the son.

The tears – bitter, but never ever weak.

The battles fought for a good chance in life.

The walls, the hurdles, big and small.

But down the memory lane,

Some things do not change –

The smile that does not waver,

The hands that do not shake,

The spirit that cannot be dampened,

The soul that will not be crushed.

Then, now and tomorrow, my voice remains,

I am a woman and proud to be.

Moving Out

She stared around her room, wondering where to start from. 2 cup-boards,  2 book shelves, a table – she had to sort out the stuff inside all these before they moved into the new apartment.

She decided to tackle the biggest challenge first - the cup-board. 

She pulled all the clothes down onto the floor and picked up one by one, folded them and started organising them into cartons. 

She dreaded any kind of arranging and cleaning. Just a waste of time! But this time she agreed on packing her stuff cuz she didn’t trust anybody else with her personal things. She liked her privacy.

Deep inside her mind, she felt miserable. And it had nothing to do with packing. She felt miserable because she was leaving this place – her room, her home – soon. 

Well, she thought, no point in getting all teary-eyed now. Better concentrate on the work at hand. That's when she noticed what she was holding – her favourite black n red tank top. She had worn the very same top during her IT Quiz finals. And during many other quiz competitions, so to speak. It was her lucky charm. She was unbeatable if she had it on. And she remembered mom’s orders – “ throw away anything that’s old and used up. Take only necessary items into the new apartment”. Yes, the thing was obviously old. But how could she throw away her lucky charm?

She decided to tuck it into some corner of the carton and continued her “sorting-out” job. She came across the red skirt she had worn when she met him for the first time. And there was the purple pull-on, a gift from grand dad just 2 weeks before he died. And the black shrug – the tantrums she had throw to get her hands on that last  year! And her denim jacket, she thought she had lost it. The more garments she pulled out, more special moments and memories flashed in her mind. Never ever in her life did she think that folding clothes could get this emotional!

Enough is enough. 

She moved on to her book shelves. The real nightmare, she knew, were the stacks of paper “adorning” a whole shelf. Carefully, she lifted a stack onto her lap and examined the papers one by one. Most were just rubbish, stuff that had accumulated just because she was too lazy to carry them into the garbage bag outdoors. Still, in many of the stacks there were things that caught her attention. 

Like the notes she and her friends had passed  back and forth during classes. She remembered with a laugh the times they had been caught in the act.

Then there were her revision notes which comprised mostly of names of singers and authors or her favourite book quotes rather than what she was actually supposed to revise. 

There were friendship cards and birthday cards given by her friends. There were dozens of maps and outlines and she remembered her horrifying map-drawing assignments with a smile. There were incomplete projects, picture charts, question papers, answer sheets, impositions sheets and song lyrics. And each of them had a story of its own.

She picked up books and started piling them in cartons. There were books she had forgotten about. She was surprised that she had actually read some of those kids stuff. She saw the GK books that had saved her throughout her quizzing.  And then, there were the classics – she always took the longest time to read those. Many of them were gifts from her friends and family, and she remembered the numerous occasions. Definitely, she was NOT going to leave even a single book behind. She could not resist the urge to flip through their pages and skim through some of them. In her mind, she saw her transition from a little girl who loved Goldilocks and The Three Bears to the young woman who enjoyed A Thousand Splendid Suns. She had come a long way..

On the table, there were her school books. And they were arranged neatly. Ofcoz, she wasn’t surprised. Only things that were used got disarranged. 

After keeping the last book into the carton, she stood back and gazed around. 

The shelves were bare, the cupboards were empty and her table and bed didn’t have the usual litter on it.

It dawned on her that she would never walk around this room again, mugging on the eve of exams.

She realised that she would never have a pillow fight with her brother on this bed again.

She realised that she wouldn’t dance around in this room again, singing her favourite songs.

She realised that she would never look in the mirror on the wall again and curse her pimples or exclaim her long lashes.

She realised that she would never again be able to stand in the balcony and cry after a fight with her parents. 

Her safe haven did not belong to her anymore.

                  
With a single tear running down her cheek, she realised that she hadn’t only packed up her things, but she had relived those unique and special moments in her life. She had gone on an emotional roller-coaster ride of memories.

She knew that she wasn't just leaving her old home. She was leaving a big and irreplaceable part of her life.

Yes, she will miss this place badly.