Finding Home

Pilot

I watched as the flames devoured my mother's corpse. Isn't fire so strange? How it shows no mercy when it spreads? It doesn't matter who it is and what it is - fire will just spread the way it normally does. It won't stop or slow for anyone.

Once the priest said something, it was time to leave the cremation area and head back home. Home. I am not going to lie - the place where I have spent the last 10 years in growing up have never felt like home to me. To be very honest, I have been alive for 22 years and I have never felt at home wherever I have been - not even at my apartment in Mumbai. I moved out a few months ago to live in Mumbai for my job. I only came back to my mum's town Delhi for her funeral.

"Anika, do you want chai?"

My stepfather Ramesh asked me as I sat on the sofa, scrolling through my phone.

Me: no I'm good, thanks.

Ramesh: you know for someone who has just lost her mother, you don't seem very upset?

Me: she wasn't really a mother to me so why should I be missing her?

That was true. Tina Mehta was never like a mother to me. After all, what type of mother wouldn't fight to keep her daughter when she was a baby? She only took me back in when her aunt a.k.a my carer died. She was more of a mother to my half siblings - Riya, Khushi and Nirvan. However, I was not the only one who Tina didn't act like a mother to.

She didn't act like a mother to my real sister.

A sister I never knew about until yesterday before my mother breathed her last.

"Anika, come in."

Tina said to me as she took a sip of her water and coughed. I entered her room and took a seat on the chair near her bed.

Me: make it quick, what do you want?

Tina: I'm dying meri Jaan, can you act less hostile to me for now?

Me: why? Why should I? You abandoned me when I was a baby! Gave me to your aunt and you took off!

Tina: I didn't abandon you. I wanted to be a mother to you even if I was just 17.

Me: but you didn't. You didn't fight with your aunt to keep me. You just let her keep me and took off. I needed my mother and I didn't even get her till I was 12. Even when I finally got my mother, you fucking focused more on your new family! You can't even tell me who my dad is!

Tina coughed before saying: I'll tell you something then.

Me: really?

She nodded.

Me: who's my dad then? Is he still alive? Where is he and why was he never there for my life?

Tina: your dad was called Akash Kapoor. We just met at some party and that's when I got pregnant with you.

Me: and then you two spilt after that?

Tina: kind of, it was meant to be a one night stand thing. After you were born and my aunt kicked me out of the house, I travelled to Surat from Baroda, worked as a waitress there for four years and when you were one, I met your dad again and we got into a very brief relationship. I thought I could get you back and when he found out about you, he was angry at me. Angry that you were with my aunt, instead of him. He tried getting you back from her so we could be a family but....

Me: but...

Tina: she called the cops on him. He got a bail but we both got a restraining order of five years away from her and you. I got pregnant again when you were two. With your sister. Your real sister.

That stunned me. I was too shocked to speak. My brain had stuttered for a moment when I heard what she said and my eyes took in more light than normal. Every single part of me went on pause whilst my thoughts tried to catch up. It's not every day that you get told that you have a little sister who you never knew about.

Her name is Aastha Kapoor. She is two years younger than me. My father took her once she was born to spare her from being taken by Tina's aunt like me. Apparently Tina begged him not to take her, but he did. Far. Cut off every contact with Tina and made sure Tina couldn't reach him or Aastha.

Yet again....Tina could have fought for Aastha. She could have fought for her, even if she didn't fight for me. But she didn't and just like that, she let down both daughters. Two daughters who just needed their mother at the end of the day. She let down me, a daughter who needed her father. She let down Aastha, a daughter who needed some sort of mother figure in her life.

Although Tina had faced some challenges when it came to us, she should have fought harder because I know I would if I had a baby and someone tried taking my child off. Was she really that weak that she couldn't have fought for both of us? She could have freed herself from the guilt, but no. She chose to live with the guilt and when I came to live with her, she treated me so nicely but it was out of guilt. Not because she genuinely wanted to treat me nicely, it was because she felt guilty.

How did I figure it all out?

Well I screamed once at her stupid ex boyfriend who was Yash two months after moving in with them and she kicked me out for three days. That's how I knew how fake she was. Oh that's another thing, she cared more about her boyfriends than me. Yash is Nirvan and Khushi's father, and Ramesh is Riya's father. She broke up with Yash a year after I moved in with her then a couple boyfriends later, she dated and married Ramesh when I was 16.

Anyway, now that I have given Tina's life story, it was time to find out about someone and their life story....my baby sister's.

I needed to find her.

I needed to know how she was, what her life had been like, how our dad treated her, everything! And to do that, I needed to find Aastha.

And how was I going to do that?

I excused myself from the living room. I didn't need to hear people talking about how amazing Tina was when she was alive. 'Amazing friend' 'amazing wife' 'amazing this amazing that' - couldn't she at least be an amazing mother?

I went upstairs to my old bedroom and took out my laptop from my suitcase. It was time to do some stalking to find my baby sister.

Aastha I'm going to find you and maybe once I find you, I can finally feel like I've found home.

Because after being alive for 22 years, I would really like to feel at home for once. 

Guys, I have finished my exams at least and I never have to do another exam again unless I get into university. Hopefully I get into my dream uni for September but we'll find out in August. Anyway I got writer's block right now and I tried writing chapters for Anika VS Mishka, the King's daughters, this book that book but writer block is horrible so hopefully this book will get me out of this :)