Drabbles and OneShots

A Pair of Us

Suman wore a burgundy color middie with a lace of lemon belt rounding off her waist. She looked once in the mirror and heard her Aunty scream her name again. 'Suman!' This time the scream was just too near to be adjourned so she looked towards the door in better compliance. 

Beena squinted her eyes as she let them roam around the room in a lazy fashion. 'So..' she stretched her vocals in order to catch any peculiarity. But seeing everything alright she awarded Suman with a space of correction and let her indifference tear through the vacuum. 'Give this to the Malhotras.' she had packed up a tiffin which looked foreign to Suman. She knew it was coming. Of course, she did, or who was mad enough to get ready in a rather good looking dress for apparently no reason.

'You- got-ready?' Beena placed a surprising glance at her casual-ready self.

'I heard you.' she said, in blithe dismissiveness of her Aunt's growing doubts. 'So, I got ready. I knew what you had to tell me. Future-ready me..' Suman did an odd hand move at which Beena rolled her eyes. 
Before Beena could ask more, Suman just grabbed the tiffin and moved ahead. 'Plus, the Malhotras don't live there anymore.' she flicked her hair in a certain direction stating facts.

'But Shravan and Avni do.' Beena huffed her way through the stairs.

'Because they were asked to.  The ones living and owning the house are Jains.' Suman looked amusingly at her Aunt who had clearly forgotten that detail. 'Onions?' she further reminded her of another fact that horrified Beena.

'Avni gave this to me. So give it back to her. And Malhotras do eat onions.' Beena pulled over a mask and rode off the place leaving Suman bobbing her head.

'Bless me.' she rubbed her temples, remembering the Jains leaving for a day out in Bhopal an hour ago.

So that counts up Avni and Shravan alone in the house which Suman had once regarded as her future residence. 


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It was raining.

Extremely light.

So much so that Suman didn't really realize it, not until she had reached the main door of her house. Feeling extremely lazy to pick up an umbrella she thought that a little rain won't be too harmful. Even if she had got ready. It just doesn't matter anymore. At 25. Not too old but exactly neither too young as well.

Suman pushed open the door and a strange fragrance of rain and soil endorsed her nostrils. She could feel her lungs filling up with enormous anxiety of taking something extremely pure that it hurt for a moment. She didn't attempt to pull over the hair that had fallen over her visage. She just shut her eyes and felt feverish to make any movement. She wanted to run back and give the tiffin to Veer or Kanchan or Damru- anyone, and tell them to deliver it. Her Aunt will of course think her to be insane but will it make a difference?

She opened her eyes and frantically looked towards the neighborhood she was supposed to visit. 

He was there. 
He hadn't gone away to take milk or some other non-important thing.
He was right there. His laughter was tearing her eardrums. His jeep stood rigid in the parking. He was so there and this made her feel weak.

She wasn't going to let this opportunity go. She had to tell him. Maybe tomorrow his jeep won't be there anymore. His laugh. The smell of his presence. So, she had to go. And give this damned tiffin to him and tell him that she didn't despise him anymore. That all these years, even if, his absence was the only constant in her life, she had appreciated it. And if all that looked extremely bizarre to comprehend then she had to tell him that it was his fault, that she was driving everybody crazy.

Suman chuckled at her thought.

Blimey!

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Suman pushed apart the gate to a white-blue house. The one that had resembled her safe heaven. It did. The white clouds and the clear blue sky, here on the earth. And? Her savior angel living inside.

She didn't know for how long will she feel the same fuzzy feeling whenever she would trace the steps to this particular bungalow in her neighborhood. Her own house was just a fence apart- but it felt like entering something so different yet warm.