The Name of a Mother

Confessions

The name of a mother. How simple it sounds? A name. A name for an orphan. In this century when we are taught to live with our own name we still find names behind it. A mother's name. A father's name. A name to be identified. A name to be judged. A name to be known.

Tarika never actually understood the strategy behind it. She didn't understand why these so called long processes to adopt a child? Child were being abused everywhere and when someone wanted to adopt them they threw hundreds of obstacles on their way. They said they wanted to protect the child. Tarika couldn't help but laugh. How many times they actually paid visits to those adopted children for whom they made the parents to undergo series of trials? And hence, the ones being abused always got abused. The ones who'd suffered always suffer.

She never had been a part of this adaptation process. Once upon a time she wanted to adopt some children, to raise them. Once she got busy with her career and all she hardly got time to think about it. She indeed paid occasional visits to orphanage and fund them but that 'adaptation' thing actually never happened.

Once there was a nice little girl of 3-4 years she met at Kolkata and was deeply attached with her. The desire of adaptation was bloomed seeing her and she wanted to take her with her. The adaptation never happened. Her proposal had been denied and the child was given to a family with no child. The cause showed her was, she, Tarika was an unmarried single girl and the authority highly doubted she could take care of the child. Tarika still laughed remembering this. After that she never tried to adopt again. She took care of two girls' education and did other charities for kid but never gone to adopt a kid.

Looking at the mirror she set her saree and returned her mind back from the past. Blue. Blue had always been Abhijeet's favourite colour. She liked it too. The colour was intense, deep. He called it gorgeous though. Her phone buzzed on the dressing table and she picked up.

''Ready?'' Came Abhijeet's voice from the phone.

''Almost.''

''I will be there in 10 minutes.''

''I am waiting.''

Tarika hang up and again looked herself in mirror. She set her hair. Abhijeet was sounding very happy. Of course he was. They were going to meet Shriya after 1 month. Last night they had done a lot of shoppings too. All her favourites. Shriya had insisted Tarika to come with Abhijeet. Last time they met when they admitted her on a boarding school. Tarika liked the kid very much. She's always happy. She's the one always striking conversation with Tarika. Conversation, which she needed help from Abhijeet to understand. She couldn't help but felt embarrassed. On that Shriya used to say in sign language that its okay and they could communicate with writings.

Shriya never forgot to message her on weekend. Most of the time topic used to be on Abhijeet. Abhijeet loved Shriya a lot and Shriya was grateful to Abhijeet. Tarika could feel. In all these family bonding she found herself a little distant, though not unwanted. It wasn't like she minded it. She knew the bond shared between Abhijeet and Shriya was something she didn't have place for. And yet she tried to cope up.

Setting her saree with one last pin over her left shoulder Tarika remembered the day when Abhijeet asked her to be Shriya's mother on papers. She could feel her emotions changing from shock to awkward and then a little sad. It was indeed a mere request from his side. She could say no and he would have been perfectly fine with that as he had said. She, had thought to deny too. But again, he will find someone else to sign the paper but not as willingly as he was asking her. It was hard for him too, to ask her. She tried to understand him, his perspectives. It was hard for him to ask but was harder not to ask.

For a moment she had thought to say no to him, just to see his reaction. She wasn't overjoyed with the proposal. She took the news as a mere request like she would have taken if being offered by someone else close to her.