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I wanted Time to stand still. Here I was, leaving everyone once again. I had to do it for my family's happiness. I love them too much and they mean everything to me. So what if I have to visit them only once in a while. It would be worth it to just see Chachi smiling. I can do this. My mind strays to Sumo. haven't said goodbye to her yet.
I knock at her door with our special knock which we alone know. She opens it and I look at her, memorizing her face until I see her next. I can see the sadness in her eyes. She doesn't want me to leave, not so soon. But she has to understand my reasons for leaving. My Sumo will get this. I bid her a heavy hearted goodbye, I do not know when I'll see her next. I'm in my car on the way to the airport, my mind uneasy about something. I glance at my fleeting surroundings,as the car zooms past the darkness around.
Suddenly a car screeches to a stop in front of me. It is Sumo. I am ridiculously happy to see her again but have a vague sense of alarm. She comes closer and I eye my phone in her hands and my heart calms down. I take it from her but her eyes seem to be conveying something else. My jhalli Sumo is frantically trying to speak through unsaid words. She is trying to make me understand something. I get impatient after all it is time for me to be at the airport and I shake her roughly and will the words to come out. And time then stands still, in an unwarranted manner.
Her words swirl around me but I wish to block them all. I can hear no sound now. I'm worried if I cannot hear anymore. My mind is blank, the world stops spinning. Cars screech to a halt, plants stop swaying, air seems to have stilled and my legs give away. It isn't possible. Something like this couldn't happen to me, not once again. I feel like I'm drowning, I try coming up for air but something seems to prevent me. I blink and the world hasn't stopped. Time hasn't stilled. People are moving, cars are zooming across me. But my world has come to a stand still.
Sumo takes my hand and I walk around in a daze. I want to tell something to appease her, to answer her frantic questions about my wellbeing but my mouth has sealed shut. I will myself to say something, anything but I feel like I'm spiraling downwards never to get up. I think about my father, of all the unsaid words. My thoughts are in chaos, there is so much of noise around me but I feel like I'm trapped in a vacuum never to emerge.
I arrive home and watch my family come towards me, as if in a slow motion picture. I wish to say something to them, to comfort them but my mouth seems to have been forced shut. I fall down in my haste to go to my father's room. I badly want to feel his soothing presence and that one room is my refuge. Moments rush one after the other like a film reel. I will Time to go back now.
Anupamaa
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
Indian Mythology
Sampoorna
