The Ex's At War

Chapter 28 - The Way Back Home

 “Thish ishh my teddy”, Manini shrieked noisily doing a literal tug of war with the lady official who was trying to take it from her for custom inspection, “Mommy shee thish blahh aunty ish not giving me”, she turned her pleas to me cringing her nose. I was busy scouring my head to find a way out to get out of the mess that I was in currently along with my daughter. We were detained by the airport officials for routine check because we were caught without our passports, VISA and other valid papers. In the whole war like situation that I had been surfacing in the last few days I had conveniently left every essential thing of mine including my heart with my crazy husband.

I still couldn’t believe how the whole celebration thing turned into utter ruckus and the credit went to US, Manik and me. Well he definitely deserved 80% of the applause and the rest 20% was bestowed on me for fueling the fire and then fail to do the damage control. I sighed trying to forget the nightmare and turned to my stress buster. Manini now had spread herself on the king size teddy that Manik had gifted her hugging it tight with both her hands and legs. Gosh!!! she was another trouble.

“Kaddu..get up baby”, I rushed to her and pulled her to stand up but she was in between a war and brushed the dust off her dress.

“Mommy I want my teddy”, she continued her tussle making warning face. Warning! as in, if nothing was done by me immediately she will shot up her vocal cords at the highest pitch.

“We are just doing our job Mam...can you please cooperate with us”, the lady official stated bearing a local accent in her tone.  I was careless enough to not cross check before leaving and now there was no other way than cooperate with them. So I turned to Manini who was instead looking at me with hopeful eyes.

“Mommy”, her lips wobbled as she anticipated that I wasn’t going to be of any help to her she preferred her Daddy under such circumstances.

I knelt down before her and cupped her cheeks affectionately, “Kaddu please baby...give it to them...they wont do anything...they will just check and give it back...okay...you are my good bachha na”, I cajoled her to let go off the teddy.

“I wont give my teddy..whel ish Daddy?”, she made a cry baby face and looked over me to find her Daddy but he wasn’t there. I kept quiet without a reply because even I didn’t know where Manik was. I couldn’t even call him for help as my phone was seized too. I wasn’t even allowed to make a call until there inspection was complete and god knows how long that was going to take She was missing him dearly, I picked her up and kissed her tenderly and she cozened into me. The officers spluttered the clothes in every direction from my bag and I stood there bewildered with growing expressions of an angry bird.

“Officer I said there is nothing in it...will you please stop cluttering my luggage”, I suggested in a tone that sounded out right irritated and why not, it was for the last one hour that I was pleading and begging them that I was no terrorist. It was just that I didn’t have my passport with me but just because I looked Asian all his doubts was on me. The officer picked his face from my bag and looked at me as if I was holding he had found a fat packet of cocaine from my bag. He narrowed his eyes to study my annoyance which according to him seemed non-cooperation and blabbered something in their local language which bounced over my head. I was aware of the grave situation I was in and ransacking my head to be able to get in touch with Manik, even Manini was getting restless in my arms. Letting her on her own would be worse, what if she decided to pull their hair out to get her teddy and being Manik’s daughter she was quite capable of doing that.

“Daddyyy!!!”, she squeaked suddenly with a whole new excitement. I turned back to see Manik entering the detention room. I sighed in peace as my eyes fell on him, I didn’t waste a second more and rushed to him and threw myself onto his chest somewhat squeezing Manini in between us.