The Trail to Spring

Chapter 38

Grandpa died the night my brother was admitted to the hospital.

I don't know whether fate had already decided that Grandpa would never get to meet with his grandson again. Mom and Dad informed me about him when we were driving back home from the hospital. Strangely, I did not cry. Maybe I had been numbed by all the events that had happened recently or maybe I already knew that something like this would happen and had hence already prepared myself mentally.

My brother was discharged from the hospital two days later and we performed the funeral rituals of Grandpa for the first time as a family in fourteen years.

A few nights after the funeral, I dreamt of Grandpa. I was sitting on a bench and he was sitting beside me. He was telling me a story about lions and dragons and fairies in a land called Jeebon.

I woke up from my sleep abruptly and found myself engulfed in the blackness of the night as I lay down on my bed. I clutched my pillow and finally cried for Grandpa. I cried to my heart's content, relieving myself of the pain and anxiety that had been cooped up inside me all this while. That was the first and last time that I cried for him.

The next few days passed by in a flash. Arjun shifted to our place, leaving behind his two room apartment in 26 B. B. Ganguly. He enrolled in a masters course in Physics to continue his search for 'the meaning of life and etcetera etcetera.'

A few days before my first year of college started, Atifa came to meet up with me.

"So that lizard detective turned out to be your lizard brother, huh?," she asked as we sat in the living room.

"Yeah, I guess I should have known that it was him from the very beginning," I said, scratching my head.

"Anyway, we are going to South City Mall tomorrow, right?," she asked as if to ascertain that I hadn't changed my mind again.

"Right," I replied, "Just you and me?"

"And Rahul...."

I raised my eyebrows. After all, it was she who had proposed a girls' day out.

"Don't look at me like that! He wanted to come with me and I couldn't say no....," Atifa said, her voice slowly become fainter and fainter, "You have any problem with that?"

Before I could answer, Arjun entered our house through the front door and Atifa immediately sprang up on seeing him.

"Well, well, if it isn't the lizard detective slash brother!," she said in a sarcastic voice.

"I find lizards awesome," Arjun said in a bored voice, slumping down on to the sofa.

"Where have you been to?," I asked.

"Shruti's place. I simply had to tell her about how you solved the case of the missing sibling," he said. I blushed on hearing him.

"Oh, is she your girlfriend?," Atifa asked.

Arjun looked up at the ceiling, closed his eyes and continued in his same bored voice, "So typical of you to ask that, missie. She's my childhood friend."

"But you didn't answer my question," Atifa said, winking towards me.

Rakesh gave out a sigh of exasperation.

"I was hoping that you would come to Grandpa's place with me today," I said.

"Sure, let's go," Arjun said, standing up again in a flash as if he was waiting for an excuse to do that.

Mom and Dad had decided to sell off Grandpa's place and most probably an apartment building would be erected in its place. So I wanted to visit his house for a few more times before everything was reduced to rubbles.