Her fingers idly roamed over the name on the wedding card, her wedding card as she felt the smooth stroking of gnarled fingers in her hair.
"You must be wondering what sort of a name it is, isn't it?" she heard the voice speak and it was then had she realized an act of hers, she herself not paid much attention to till then.
Turning her head to face the older woman she had come to love so much in just a span of two days, she shook her head in negative only to have her nose pinched affectionately.
"Liar" she said with an affectionate pat on Khushi's cheek, while Khushi caught the older woman's hands and pressed a kiss in her palm.
It was two days since she had stepped her feet in her motherland, the country she had only seen through the eyes of her mother; the country where her roots lie, and the country where an important phase of her life would begin.
And it has been two days she had met the woman she came to love dearly.
Parvati Naani.
His grandmother, and now hers.
A fierce protective mother hen who would not let his cousin's incessant teasing touch her, a wonderful comrade who would push her to rest amidst pre-wedding rituals, stealing her off of all the rituals, and bouncing anyone's questions about her with a glare, a close confidante who understood her silence, a mother who would let Khushi hide her fears, and the numerous questions of her bleak future, letting her hide herself by sleeping in her lap, Naani was someone Khushi loved more than a grandmother.
Khushi clutched the older woman's palm in her grip and put it beneath her cheek, as she snuggled closer, making the woman smile at her.
"So you are going to tell me you are not drawn to the name?" Khushi could hear the smile in the voice and she had to squeeze her closed eyes tighter for a moment... just a moment, before she blinked back to face the older woman with a hint of smile.
"You mean the uncanniness of it? May be partly" she said with a cheeky smile, only to have her ear twisted playfully.
"Badmash!"
The loving reprimand of Naani, had made her giggle, which was accompanied by the older woman herself, a beat later.
As her hands continued to thread among the hair of the young girl, Naani's eyes glazed over, as her eyes caught a faraway look, that age bestowed on her easily.
"Amarjeet Singh" her voice felt as they wafted from a faraway land; a land of memories.
"It was his name, my husband's"
Khushi had to close her eyes, even as she pulled Naani's hand beneath her cheek closer. Talking about the dead was never easy; neither for her, nor for any other, which she knew. Yet, she was surprised that when Naani recounted memories of her deceased husband, it always felt like a story of two people from an alternate world.
A Major in Army, a person who had fell for Parvati at first sight after sighting her at his friend's wedding, and pursued her relentlessly for three months henceforth, Late Amarjeet Singh had already won Khushi's heart over.
The events Naani recounted now; events from the life they shared from the initial courtship days and in those years when he was alive, had only warmed Khushi's heart, yet made it heavy with something unintelligible. Losing someone so precious was not something she was alien to. She had lost her mother, yes, and the grief she had faced was enormous. However, after hearing to Naani, she slowly understood what had her father been going through since her mother's demise.
"How was he like?" she asked several moments of silence later, and observed Naani's glazed eyes snapping out of reverie.
Naani didn't answer the question outright, yet the small smile at the corner of her lips remained pronounced.
"My Amar was exactly like your Amar" Naani said, "In looks and otherwise" she said with a small smile.
"No wonder my daughter named him after her father"
Khushi smiled and turned her head to hide her face in the older woman's lap.
Your Amar...
The words drifted in and out of her waking conscious as sleep finally embraced her tired eyes.
[...To be Continued]
*
Apologies for the delay in the update. Hope to make it up to you guys by updating more frequently from now on.
PS: Missed you all.
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