Ahh aithe rakh!" Shehnaaz could hear her mother in the kitchen. They were done with dinner, the woman instructing the maid to put the leftover sabzi into the glass container and then the fridge. It felt eerie being home, but it was peaceful, and what Shehnaaz had been most surprised by was her parents, the harmony between them, the calm and the ease of their existence. Shehnaaz could not believe that she gad prayed and wished for their divorce seeing them hate and despise each other in her childhood and adolescence. Maybe all couples eventually fall into this harmony, maybe it come to them one day, she thought. But was that harmony enough, for the pain they had endured and caused her. She looked up, the starlit sky. Oh! The wonder of her hometown, she wondered if any other sky could compete closer to this. It had stars and satellites and a small crescent of moon, the barking of the dogs in the distant street, the cool but not chilly air, this was her home. This made her feel at home. She kept looking up with her mother and sister and dad providing the background of household chatter, but all she could focus on was the stars in the sky. The bright, the dim,.the orange the silver all kinds of. She could make the Ursa major and minor in the sky, she knew them by heart, all her childhood she had been fascinated by those stars, to an extent that she had at a point of her life thought that she could be an astrophysicist. Shehnaaz smiled at the memory. She had never in life, with having lived and traveled in distant lands and countries seen a sky as mesmerizing as this. The cool breeze of her home with a starry night.
"Arey aise serve karoge guests ko...."
She had a cup of coffee in head, the reminders of upcoming future would occasionally strike her ears, but Oh boy! She was stuck, almost calm, serene her eyes in the stars and in her head, well the sky was same that blanketed her and Siddharth. She missed him, almost remembered him, but most importantly she hoped that he was happy and okay and she prayed for him. Nothing could take him away, no tomorrow and no yesterday. The heart and love had a starnge rhythm. He would be hers, in her heart, forever! The cold breeze carried his scent, the sounds from the streets ,people moving, the door opening, the windows closing, someones tv, some car on the road, Oh all of that sounded like him. "Do you mind spending a night with me!" She remembered him asking her very early in their acquaintance. She smiled. His memory made her smile, his words made her smile. He was precious, happy memory, the wave of nostalgia hitting her. She wondered where he would be? What would he be doing? What would he have for the dinner? She could call him, maybe text him, but that wasn't right. She could not keep him in her life and let go of her at the same time. She had to let him go, and that meant a complete let go.
"Saanu?" She heard her mother call her name, the word echoing through the bacony into the garden she was sitting in. "Ki kardi payi aa? Aithe aa? Kapde vekh le aa k! Fer chakh chakh karu gi, mummy aa sahi nahi aa sahi aa!" ( What are you doing? Come here? Check the clothes, otherwise you'll bicker this ain't good that ain't good!)
"This one,.look its for Sahib. Thats okay. Haina?', the woman asked looking at Shehnaaz. She smiled, touching the fabric of the cloth.
"Yeah, you have asked me a hundred times. " Shehnaaz replied looking at her mother, as her sister, Gurnaaz bought them the camomile tea.
"Aa lo! Mom Kato eda stress layi jaande ho. Shehnaaz doesn't care, look at her face. She isn't even listening!" The girl spoke playfully, hitting the sisters arm. The joke being centered around the fact that though Shehnaaz was a lawyer by profession, she would often have no clue in her non professional life, almost always zoned out.
"Ae, i wasn't lost. " Shehnaaz replied back, smiling as she took the mug from the wooden tray placed on the table.
"Sahib is handsome sure, but itna bhi kya that you are lost in his dreams!" The girl spoke again.
