She sat
brooding over her diary. Had she been a dutiful daughter? She kept wondering.
She wished for a time-machine that could take her back to the good old days of
happiness and togetherness. ...the times when she was still her dad's little
girl, laughing at his jokes, finding comfort in his sturdy hands.
It was all gone. The life ahead was
solitary. She had to wipe her own tears. She had to stand for herself.
Everyone thought she was happy. She
would often smile. She had learnt that a smile was the best tactic to avert
questioning glances. She had observed that her smile could hide the guilt she
felt at having left her mother alone. So she would often smile.
Sometimes, she wondered why she felt so
guilty. Sitting on her imperial blue sofa, she would frown and look down at her
diary. That diary was her confidante. It was another matter that it was
wordless. Every time, she tried to write, her eyes would well-up and tears
would roll down her cheeks on to the blank pages. As a result, the pages had
become stiff - very much like her own life. The moistness, the vitality was
lost somewhere.
She had no right to be far from her
mother when she needed her the most. She had no right to live a life of her own
when her mother was weighed down by sorrow and loneliness. No, she had not been
a dutiful daughter. She felt bad. She felt guilty. She had failed. Would she
fail in other duties as well? Would she fail as a wife and as a mother?
Perhaps, she had failed there too.
Anxiety gripped her. She hoped
for a time-machine that could take her and her mother to some cozy place where
the two could smile. But then guilt possessed her again. Would it not be unfair
to the people they would leave behind? She looked down at her diary. She picked
up her pen. She wanted to write that she was dutiful. She wanted to write that
she loved, she cared, she felt pain, she too cried. But instead of writing,
eyes welled up again and tears rolled down.
She called it a day.......
This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.
