MaNan FF - Angel In Disguise

#32- Agony of a Ruined Childhood

#32- Agony of a Ruined Childhood

Sometimes life has a roundabout way of teaching you something. It will walk you off your feet searching for that one thing you desperately want, all the while keeping it right in front of your eyes. It teaches you the power of faith. The faith that every single thing has its right time to enter your life, to make make you realize its value, and for you to treasure it forever. It is teaching you to have a closer look at life, at the people who you see every day. Look through their eyes, each one of them carries a story within themselves, a story that may just connect with yours, a story that can show you how colossal the world is and your problems.... not even a grain of sand.

"Mere yaara tere gham.... agar payenge,
humein teri hai kasam... hum sanwar jayenge.."

Nandini settled the girl in her arms, wiped her tears and gave her some chocolates as she started humming with little drops streaming down her own eyes. Anita and the caretaker stood very quietly in a far corner of the room, enough to not make Mishka conscious of their presence.

In the next room sat Manik, closing his ears and wanting to deny the fact his mind had put forth. Luck didn't have him in favour that moment, when Nandini sang a pitch higher than before, crumbling all his denials to pieces.

"hoo...Mere yaara tere gham.... agar payenge,"
She cupped her chubby cheeks.

"humein teri hai kasam... hum sanwar jayenge.." she kissed her forehead.

Nandini kept the lump of grief to herself and let out a melodious song to distract the girl.

"Do yeh saugaat tum, toh zamaane ki hum,
Do yeh saugaat tum, toh zamaane ki hum;"

She sang, not for a moment looking away from the one in her arms, sometimes playing with her hair, sometimes giving her a peck.

"Har khushi se mukar jayenge...."

There was utter silence. The winds blowing through the room caressed Mishka and Nandini's face putting the little one to slumber. Manik soon leapt back towards her room but couldn't get himself to cross the doorstep. He leaned at the doorway while his heart was thumping loudly against his chest. He feet wanted to run away before making him come to terms with the fact that the girl singing inside the room was Nandini, that all this while, all his futile attempts at searching for that one voice he had started craving for, were nothing but a nasty prank that life played on him- making him go for rounds and rounds of frustration, craving and impatience, making him search for her in everyone except the girl he confided in, his little desperate secret. He couldn't take it.

Staring at the scene wide-eyed, he waited for Nandini to prove right all that his logical senses disagreed to - that Nandini wasn't the only singer in the room – that he may have found the girl, but the girl isn't the one he has often dampened the spirits of – that he hasn't committed the sin of repeatedly dampening the hopes of a girl whose heart is already broken.