Enchanted Pursual (Complete)

Chapter 1

Mitali Jain

Summer, 2008, came as a huge surprise to us when the temperature began to fluctuate at an alarming rate. The number of diseases, deaths and uncertainty of the weather had many of us in wonder, if this year they would just pass it by or make something out of themselves.

When 5 months back the brutal winters had hit us up, me and my family had made plans, plans that were so sure that I had thought that I was already out there in the states of Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and what not.

However, Bombay had been successful to amaze us. The weather being one of my complaints - the way the mornings would turn out to be filled with fog around the cars waiting for the kids to draw various patterns on them, to the mid mornings which would make you ready for the unbeaten heat like that of the deserts, and finally ending up with stuffy and chocked up homes with a cool bizarre environment, as the night would took its charge.

It was interesting the way my social media, which I had hardly got any chance to surf, would always be filled with the memes on the weather or some crazy girl styling her not so fascinating scarf around her face, neck etc. only to make sure that the face would be secured from the harsh U.V rays.

To say we were leading a battle each day to survive was an understatement. But life in Bombay wouldn't just be that. This was India and unlike people having a habit of minding their own business, I lived about people who – had a huge house with lavish lifestyles, their eyes and expressions hidden behind their large sunglasses, their 'okays' always sounding as unsure as which would be the next world cup that India would win and a large number of secrets up their sleeves, just that they wouldn't be just theirs but all the 500+ contacts that they had saved in their cell phones...

And, not to forget the highly private life, where my mom would know what was going on in her sister's daughter's best friend's sister's life. – Now go ahead and figure out what private actually meant.

With these many people as my surveillance camera, I had never expected to have easy life, but again what would have been its definition? I never understood, and never had guts to ask my elders what that even meant.

But I was happy, I was happy because I was amongst those 10% of the population who had been lucky enough to live their 23 years of life the way they want to. Bombay, that had long back become Mumbai, was fortunately or unfortunately my home for as long as I could remember.

The first rains, the traffic, the local trains, the bus, the fights and the mafias, none had escaped from my knowledge. Though most of them were from experience, certain things in my life I realized the hardest way.

For instance, the fact that Parents teacher day was supposed to be attended by both, the father and Mother. That's when my family comes into the picture. Though Mumbai is said to be huge city, my family was luckily something, which many Guajarati family weren't – a Small nuclear family that held, obviously my parents and an elder brother by 2 years and me.

People thought I was lucky, I was the younger one, hence was supposed to be pampered, I was a Guajarati hence was supposed to be loaded, I was a girl hence I was supposed to be the apple of everyone's eye.

But somehow, things couldn't always be the way everyone wants them to be. My Dad, who went by the name Vilas Jain was a business man, one for whom the nights and the days would be the same. Yet there would be times when late at night the nightmares would concur my dreams and I would be wide awake in my bedroom of our three BHK flat in the south Bombay, my dad would always be by my side, as his humming would always put me back to sleep in minutes.

Those weren't the only things that I remember of my dad during my toddler days, though it had always been my mom who would be the scale and the chocolate of our family, dad would be someone who would teach us the in and out of being a human.