Madness and Magic...❤️

45

"Sara, you only said you will have paneer paratha," Shehnaaz said trying to keep her patience.

"Why aren’t you eating?"Sara didn’t look up. She was sitting on the floor cushion with a tablet propped in front of her, watching some cartoon with vacant eyes.

It had been fourteen days since everything changed for her,since everything shattered yet life went on.Yesterday was the last day of the rites. The final prayers to say goodbye to her Dad and Reema.
Shehnaaz hadn’t really slept in the last 14 days.
She could hardly remember anything from the first few days. Just people coming and going, hushed voices, hands on her shoulder she didn’t really feel.Even now, she hadn’t really cried. It was as if something inside her had gone numb to cry.

Her every morning after a sleepless night started with the same ache,the guilt that her father had loved her so much yet she couldn't reciprocate and the shame that she was born from her mother’s betrayal. It killed her a little every day.

And the worst part was she couldn’t even tell all this to the one person who had always been her strength. Sidharth, who had done everything,while she just stood there, was unable to say more than a sentence or two to him all these days.

Rajiv had come during the funeral. But she hadn’t looked at him even once.He had left the same day.Just the thought of seeing his still made her stomach twist in panic.

There was something else that made her unbearably uncomfortable.Rajiv wasn’t just her biological father,he was also Sidharth’s masi’s husband .If she tried to make sense of it, it made her sick because technically, that could mean she and Sidharth were…cousin...step-cousins may bd and this twisted connection sat like a stone on her chest.

One night,she had actually googled it whether it was wrong. Whether it made her marriage a sin as in her community, cousins, whether distant or close,were treated like siblings.for her it was a bitter yet necessary relief that they didn’t share a bloodline.Still, it didn’t erase the discomfort.Because Meera,was now pregnant. And she liked Meera. Meera had been kind to her. She had tried to talk to her so many times in the last few days but she couldn't talk beyond a few words

She didn’t consider Rajiv her father,she hated him. He was just a man who had destroyed the sanctity of everything but that didn’t stop the thoughts and the panic yet Rajiv's connection with Sidharth made everything too tangled.Too complicated.

"I just want to go far away from all these people,from all these ties... These twisted truths" she had thought many times.

Sara had been extremely quiet. Even now, she barely spoke. Right now too she was just staring at the screen, pretending to chew her food.

"Please, Sara,"Shehnaaz tried again.

"One bite more" she said,Arman was asleep in the next room. He had become extremely cranky these days, crying for no reason, calling Mum..mm...." and "Dada...da..da"over and over in his baby voice.

"Good girl ..chalo jaldi se chew karo"
She touched Sara’s hair lightly. Sara was still trying to cope. Trying to believe this was real.It felt like grief had settled over all of them like a dense fog, and no one knew how to clear it.

She was in her father’s house. The elders had said it's better to stay at the deceased home until the mourning period was over but now everyone had started saying and even she believed that staying at this place will make the kids remember their parents more.

But She wasn’t there alone.Maya and Amar had been a supportive ,unwavering presence since the day everything fell apart. They had stayed with her for seven days straight, putting aside their life in mumbai.They had left for a few days to tend to work, then returned again for the prayer meeting.Amar had gone back last night, but Maya had  decided to stay one more day.