The Lost Piece of Flesh and Blood......

Sometimes life acts very mercilessly. While on one hand it brings happiness and hope, it snatches away something that is priceless.........

Some things are unsaid and somethings do require words, words that have emotions, tears and one such sorrow is the pain of losing  piece of your own flesh and blood, your own child.







She was happy when she came to know she was expecting.The whole house was preparing for the birth of a child. It was too early, yet every person was seen  happilly busy with suggesting  names of the child, clothes and how he/she would crawl, walk, talk..........





She herself was seen sometimes gazing when the thought of her child came to her mind. She felt the shiver of joy and a sense of achieving something.She was going to be promoted in life from a wife , a daughter-in-law  to a mother, a complete woman. That's what a woman is " a mother."



Everything was fine to say, that she never missed vomitting. Everday took pills for the sake of morning  sickness and slept restless nights. Her condition deteriorated  with every time she ate something or felt like eating. She could not even drink water for whatever she consumed made her  restless than ever.The doctor who she consulted only gave her pills to slowdown  her uneasiness and  help her eating.While she  did whatever the doctor told her, she felt something was wrong.





Everybody in the house was tensed about her condition but nobody mentioned it, just trying to ease her restlessness.The first trimester was coming to an end and the time of her first sonography approached. But some days before that all of a sudden she had fever. High fever to say. The doctor prescribed her a medicine. She took the medicine and was relieved of the fever but with that something strange happened. Something that could not be explained, something that was scary.......



At night sometime about 2.30, she felt a shiver, she was in fever, she took the prescribed tablet. Her mother was sleeping beside her. But something made her feel restless. She was shivering now, not with fever but something took over her ears. She could not sleep. She changed her posture of sleeping. She was feeling something terrible is going to happen, something she can't understand but she knows. She tried to sleep again.





Suddenly, she could hear something, something like the sound of a woman reading aloud some mantras, she could not hearclearly what she was saying, but the sound was like that woman was doing something magical, something destructive.The sound of manjiras was what accompanied the mantra. She suddenly had a feeling of a tight twist inside her , like someone holding  her baby and pulling away. She screamed with pain, she tried hard but could not resist the pull.The mantras were louder than ever, so loud that she could not hear the sound of her own screams. Her heartbeat sounded louder than the sound of the manjiras  and that 30 minutes or so she felt there was a battle going on inside her.



Suddenly everything stopped, the loud mantras, the sound of the manjira stopped.And she felt that something inside her was travelling far far away from her.She stood near the bed in sweat and tears. The pain was still there but it was of the shattered hopes.She woke up her mother and told her about that. Her mother only said it was a bad dream but she knew for she was the witness of that battle.The battle where she lost, lost the piece of flesh and blood, her baby.

The Pickle Jar.....

                   

 Under the kitchen slab, rested the large pickle jar. The old lady of  the house was the sole manufacturer of the contents in it. Sometimes raw mangoes my mouth is already sour, sometimes lemons and sometimes I don't know what she added in that jar.

                         Every 2- 3 days she used to shake the jar and the sound  echoed till the roof with us eavesdropping upon the moving delicacy inside. Sometimes I stole a little piece only to find her standing and staring  with scorching eyes and lips opening to say,"Don't you dare break the jar. I love pickles  like anything."

     

                         I loved pickles yes, but not the oil in it for it would always burn my throat and  irritate my stomach. Every now and then I would swear that I won't have it again but the greed always emerged victorious, when I saw everyone enjoying it with delight.

     



                         Then one day, the old lady packed the tiffin box with chapattis and aloo gobi ki sabji to be sent to her husband who worked at a distance from home. The lady was enjoying her meal when the Tiffin waala bhaiya  arrived asking for the tiffin. She ordered her son  to put the tiffin in the bag and hand it over to the boy.While he did the job, the lady screamed my name to bring some pickles from the jar.

             



                         I searched here and there but all in vain .For my dismay cannot find the jar.I went upto her and said in a busy tone "Where is that bloody jar???I could not see it. May be I am blind". She said ,"Go again, you can find God if you want to." I returned to the kitchen, trying to find where the jar could have possibly gone may be for a stroll or may be to the bedroom to sleep, haahaa....





                        Under the slab,I was seeing when suddenly, something disturbed my minute inspection. It was something that was shinning on the slab near the gas stove. It was something I could not understand. I ran to the lady to tell her my findings. I asked her in a confused tone,"Do we have another set of tiffins  similar to the ones we send everyday??" She noded no .I said ,"Then what did the brother give to the tiffin waala.....???



                            

                        The burst of laughter availed her lips that I had never seen in my entire life as if I am 2000 years old haaaaaa...aaaaaaaa. Brother was arrested and questioned and he admitted his crime with a blush. Now the sentence he was awarded was To take the tiffin to the work place without BUTTS and WHATTS and WHY......