Chapter 1

Solace

Antara was lost in her thoughts.

A single drop of tear was dangling in the corner of her right eye, waiting to fall and obliviate into the soil anytime now but still not quite ready to leave its birthplace yet. Antara kept standing motionless, staring at the picture. Before her, stood the dark mystic walls of the Bhimbetka caves.

She was on a weekend trip to the Bhimbetka to find some much-needed solace after what had happened. She just wanted to stay away from the pitiful eyes around her and lose herself to the gloomy emptiness of the caves; which was just a visible representation of what her heart had become. But as they say, "you can't run away from yourself," she couldn't either. One glimpse of a particular drawing in the cave wall brought back every memory that was trying to swallow her whole, infront of her eyes like a projector to a screen.

The picture was simple. A child was at a pose of half sprint, and a woman stood a little away from him. Both of them were represented by stick-like lines, and the ancient cave picture lacked details. But still, those few sticks were more than enough to turn Antara into a statue with only a drop of tear trying hard to set itself into motion.

That one glance at those figures put her into a time machine and took her away to years ago when Rishi learned to walk for the first time. Starting from the day she brought the 2-year-old baby home to the day she saw his big angelic smile for the last time when she gifted him that vicious cursed motorbike on his 18th birthday, the gift that returned to her crumbled along with Rishi's lifeless body. The picture reminded her of every time she tried to feed him milk, and he made her run behind him with the glass. He would only come to her when she would pretend to cry, and little Rish would run towards her to wipe her tears. Every single time he fell for that trick and every time she caught him and fed him the milk or the baby medicine he hated. Rishi could never tolerate her tears. And now even her teardrop doesn't dare to fall into the ground as if even the tears had a mind of their own where they knew that no1 was there to hold them anymore. She had never dared to shed even one drop of a tear since that damned phone call from the police had come after the accident.

Being a single mother of an adopted child was never easy. The first time she decided to adopt a kid was when Maya left her. Maya, the love of her life. Maya, the sparkling fire to Antara's blissful calmness and serenity. But as we can't judge a book by its cover, when the actual struggle came, Antara was the one ready to fight for love, whereas Maya decided to succumb to societal pressure. She can't blame her, though. She was already an independent lady of 34, had her own successful business whereas Maya was only in her early 20s, living with her parents and working as an intern in her company. Still, when they first fell for each other, love conquered everything. Only if it had lasted. But then, she would never perhaps have gotten Rishi. So she regrets nothing. Even after Rishi has left her, Rishi has left her forever, even then she won't trade a single moment with Rishi for the crown of Paradise.

"Tara?? Hey, Tara?"

The sudden voice pulled down Antara to the earthly world from her trance and she felt the ground under her feet collapse. How can she hear that name now in the middle of nowhere? The only person who called her Tara was the one who called her the 'star' of her eyes. How can the sound of that name reflect inside the walls of this dark deep pit? Has she gone completely out of her mind? Has she already moved on from Rishi's memories and hallucinating about some long-forgotten romance? She was about to fall into a deeper trance while a hard pat on her right arm made her wide awake and with that pat, the teardrop fell into the hand that was stretched towards her to hold hers.

"Maya?" Antara gasped in an almost inaudible voice.

"Omg, Tara? Look at your condition. Are you alright? Are you sick? What are you doing here alone? Who is with you? Why are you not on Facebook? Gawd, I can't believe it's you. Is that really you? Oh, my g..."

Maya couldn't finish her words as her voice was starting to choke with overwhelming emotions. And with the one sound of that teary voice, Antara suddenly broke into a shower of uncontrollable tears. It felt like she was taking a dip into the cold water of the holy Ganges in her childhood hometown Hrishikesh after long abstinence of 1000 years.

Antara fell into the ground, trembling and flowing like an ocean in an earthquake. Maya sat down with her, took her head in her chest, kept caressing her back, and kept saying in a small voice, "Hey, hey it's ok, it's ok, I am here, it's alright, it's ok," just like she used to do, just like her Rishi used to do. 

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