The sound of the insects filled the valley...The sough of the sea too was getting audible...Niyati popped herself up and checked her grandmother...She was in deep sleep now after having a long session of reprimand why Niyati hadn't woke her up at the time of Daya's departure...A faint smile curled at Niyati's lips as she patted the hair of the old lady with affection...After about five minutes she almost tugged the clock from the side table and it indicated exactly 2.30 A.M...She heaved a long sigh and then pillowed her head over the fluffy pillow...She closed her eyes forcefully but sleep denied to descend upon her...A cool gale dashed upon her impelling her to fling her eyes opened...She sprang up and left her warm bed slowly coming towards the opened window...
fleecing cloud was floating in the aquamarine sky illuminating the earth in its beauty...She stared at the sky with a reflective face that was slowly turning hardened...A sense of loneliness that had been haunting her since the last ten years started seizing her further...The dangerous hollowness inside her,with which she had been fighting relentlessly,was gnawing at her further...But why? Why did it come back again? She had been able to make herself believed that that hollowness was nothing but the stress of working hard since a long...but now...it seemed that she spelled everything wrong and...a scare slowly instilling into her that she wouldn't afford to analyse the reasons once more...Her eyes turned blurry and misty as crowd of question gathered in her mind...Would she muster courage to ruminate about all those had been piercing her heart since the last long ten years?
A rueful smirk came into her face as she thought how she had condescended to even think about the feeling that was welling up inside her like surging waves of tsunami...
She hurried back into her bed in order to be oblivious about everything around her that was making the incessant wave of emotion intensified inside her... Without much thinking she drank a full glass of water and then slung herself onto the soft bed..
For about ten minutes she kept listening to the tick tock sound of the clock failing to sink into sleep...She wished to whip her emotion being stringent as anger was seeping slowly inside her,making her irresistibly restive...To her consternation she had to leave the bed and going to the washroom she splashed her face with cold water...An unbearable clod of agony as if slipping down slowly from her throat,pressurising the centre of her chest...She gazed at her flummoxed reflection for about a minute before coming to her study room with sluggish steps...
Switching on the table lamp she tugged the writing pad roughly,desperately and started scribbling fast..." I didn't meant that. Perhaps it's always my fault...perhaps I always sound like an aggressive cynical odd creature...perhaps I always do something so stupid giving everyone the opportunity to misunderstand me...Perhaps when I want to express humbleness,my face pathetically turns priggish...but what can I do? I am like that...and...'her fingers trembled writing anymore and she darted her face here and there unable to settle her glance over the page...
After a long pause,she came back,with a hesitation as her pen wrote,"you...can treat ...' she stopped further and now she replaced 'you' with 'world' and then carried on,"world can treat me as a supercilious vainglorious pampered woman...but...believe me...I find myself in guilt whenever I boast for something...Whenever I flash a sneer of disdain, whenever I look at someone with cold snub,my heart seems to get contracted as someone's picture conjured up before my eyes...Someone...who with just a grin had been able to efface all these undesirable qualities I had...and...' her hand trembled once more listening to the voice of the old lady..
:'Niniiiiii' she called her loud,affectionately...
Niyati,closing the pad in haste,rushed into the bedroom,:'kya huya nani?' she looked worried and vexed..
The old lady grizzled quite childishly,:'neend khul gaya...'
Niyati sighed and slowly a tender smile crossed her face but she almost startled to get more,:'mujhe thori verandah me le jayegi?'
She was astounded and it reflected through her face as she exclaimed,:'abhi?'she shook her head with disbelief and then added in an air of reprimand,:'nani tumhe pata hai ke abhi adhi raat hai?'she smirked while the lady persisted with a huffy face,:'tujhe le jana nahi parega...' she paused and then to niyati's consternation added,:'Daya ayega to main use kahungi mujhe le jane ke liye...' Niyati felt her heart lurching in a scare...Was it a scare? she wasn't sure and neither she had the time to analyse as she promptly countered,a little brusquely,:'kyu? main tumhe le nahi jaati hun verandah me?'
The lady remained silent and for couple of minute,it couldn't be understood what was hidden in her mind, until she revealed at last,:'neend nahi anewala hai abhi...kya karu...'
Niyati within as if in a trance,accidentally divulged,:'is adhi raat me...us kharoos ko yaad karoge...to neend kaise ayega?'her eyes deepened and fixed at some unknown object...It appeared as if she was ruminating about something very deeply...The old lady now replied in a teasing tone of voice,:'achcha? tu kis kharoos ko yaad kar rahi thi phir? tu kyu jag rahi hai?'
colour sprinkled over Niyati's dusky face and she as usual covered the embarrassment with a smirk with feigned nonchalance,:'mazak achcha kar leti ho ttum...chalo...ab let jaao...' she advanced to make her grandmother lied but she still insisted,:'let sakti hun...magar ek shart pe...'
Niyati's brows drew together as she muttered looking at her dubiously,:'kaisa shart?' she was scared and apprehensive about something which she even afraid of thinking at that moment...
:'Kal Daya ko ekbar ane ke liye kehna...' the old lady was quick to reveal her wish and Niyati was even quicker to avert her glance...
:'bata...Daya ko ane ke liye bolegi na?'The lady kept repeating making Niyati standstill in something akin to mixture of fear thrill and anger...She was gobsmacked noticing her own patience as she hadn't screamed so far and swallowing a lump she jabbered,:'mmujhe..uska...number pata nahi...'
The old lady started grumbling with displeasure as it was unbelievable to her,:'tera dost hai...aur tujhe uska number kaise pata nahi? kal kaise leke ayi thi tu use? are...is se to achcha hai ke bol na...ki tu is burhi aurat pe meherbaani karna nahi chahti hai...haa...?' She was talking quite garrulously which Niyati noticed with a staggered expression...It was incredibly difficult task to persuade her to say something,because at one point of time, the lady used to sink in a sullen state, neither reacting in anything, nor talking on anything and she was habituated with the morbid silence that prevailed in her residence...
She kept cogitating deeply until the grumble of the lady increased and she had no other option but to lull her with a momentary lie,:'achcha thik hai...mmain...un ko...' she hesitated as an uprush of shyness seized her irritably,:'un ko ane ke liye...kahungi...'
It took almost half an hour to send the lady into the sleep and when she found herself further with the throbbing silence of the night, her eyes gleamed unkowingly, abnormally to think how she would approach the man to come there further to entertain her octogenarian grandmother...Would it be right to request him after such an indecent manner in which she bade him goodbye? She kept twiddling with her fingers sinking deep into the thought...A frisson of fear passed through her spine as she picked her cell phone and checked the number of the man which she had saved almost nine years back when she used to work in forensic department of CID Mumbai...But would he be using the same number after so many years! It was highly possible that he changed his number and in that case it would be a void number...but...' she felt that if she stressed her brain a little a thudding sound she heard in the back of her mind,indicating her that she was damn tired and she needed a sleep but she ventured to open her eyes to decide about the matter that what she would have to do in the morning to fulfill her granny's wish...but...her eyes got closed when the lark of the birds was audible...