Always with you!

Chapter1 Mumbai

There is no such thing as an untold story. If it's untold, its Memories...

Vanshika found momentary peace in a trance as she looked at the rain-drops on her plane window while it landed, and as she got into her taxi, the time had passed, at least enough to steal the last fragments of the daylight and welcome the night. The closed windows of the car nevertheless had allowed the sound of the city to massage her mind. The dense crowd of skyscrapers glittered in yellow and white light. As the taxi passed through Mumbai, a city travelled by almost a million people daily, and among the millions of flats in the city she chose the one she was, maybe destined to live in. 503 Building no 4: S enclave, Thane (W).

When she got to the building, she stopped by the gate, as if it would say something, maybe she had something to say. She was now in the middle. Too far from where she belonged, unpretentious abandoned, left without a ground, nevertheless the guard gave her a hard look as if demanding a speedy entrance and she walked in with an empty thought. She was curious to consider, life had led her to where she imagined would go someday, where she would land and even better, find herself. She was fervent to pursue it for a change and not be captivated or influenced to think about it. She had built a dream of the place and how it would be like to be there. Now she was.

The keys were mailed to her. It jiggled the same as she drew it out of her navy blue bag with the grey bottom, the keys had the same marks it was bent the same slightly as the previous owner had struggled to open the stuck door, but as the doors opened, it was a new home, New freedom, she would never recognize that the paint was different, the aesthetics had changed yet it was the same sofa, the same bed, the faded wardrobe still serving as proof of an entire existence before her.

Vanshika had never left home she was always in the company of loved ones, she was always protected and as she went to bed, anxiety and worries didn't leave her and simply robbed her of her sleep. She was realizing that waking up from the cold alone is a very bad feeling. She woke up in the middle of the night alone in a cold concrete house, she wrapped herself in a blanket and sat by the window all night long, she looked up but there were no stars. In Jamshedpur, Stars were always clearly visible; she sat and looked at them sometimes.

She was missing her home, after all she belonged there, because only there vanshika can be found in her entirety. She cried that night and sobbed even longer, the sound of her breaking breadth broke the silence of the night every few seconds, and tears fell and stayed like dews on the white marble floor. Rarely, she wiped them, from her cheeks but when she did, like a cute child with fists gently passing over her cheeks and eyes red with the lingering sobs.

She escaped her mind and thought about a new day. She was a week early in Bombay. She had taken this time deliberately to make her dream apartment decor with little quirky things she picked up everywhere she went. Perhaps rightly so, as even an apartment in the heart of a city asks a good proportion of time and money to make it fit for a young woman to confine herself to. Yet there were things she was unaware of......

It would be her world her sea, she was too introverted to get around people, she has layers and layers of heart she carries in her. People didn't know her. Her oddness wasn't her; it was temporary like seasons transition from autumn to spring, and she...as beautiful as she was. She was different. She never explained herself she never sought approvals. She was the seabed topped with a lot of layers of water that your eyes couldn't see. You can only find it when you dive in with faith and with enough oxygen because only then you could find the beauty she hides. So blue from the Surface yet a kind soul with a genuine heart, you could only ever hope to meet.

Still, as long as she sat on that ledge by the window she thought, how incredibly far her lives drifted from where she knew with all certainty it would go. How little today resembles what yesterday she thought it would look like. As she reflected on one of the most life-shaping experiences of her life in that dark room as she calmed down. She now realizes that, in a very different way, these experiences have prepared her for the rest of my life. She never knew what's around the corner moving here for her was sudden.

It was her first job and she had analyzed everything that could happen. All the situations she can be in and still wondering how would it be? Trepidation was washing over her at the thought but it's ok. She knows the decision she made was for her good. The most difficult thing she had to do was she had to leave the city of her comfort, her family, and go into the wilderness of her intuition. It was also the first night after so long that her mom didn't come up with a glass of milk or her dad didn't put up that mosquito net with a flower design that hid the bare white ceiling but now the ceiling was as bare as she could feel.

Vanshika was caught in a carousel of thoughts. Every idea, notion, and event of the day and before, replayed in her mind, demanding analysis before she could be allowed to sleep. And then finally when the carousel came to a stop and her mind was able to meander freely, in the random thought that is the precursor of sleep, her eyelids got heavier with every minute of the moving moonlight. She was close to drifting off. She thought about her mother, she thought of how She was blessed with a mother who was in a constant state of wonder...And whenever she'd complain or be upset about something, her mother had the same advice: "dear you are stronger than you know" and that gave her the courage. She realized that her anxiety would start the carousel up all over again yet as her consciousness ebbed, her mind went into free fall, swirling with the beautiful chaos of a new dream.