Yatharth comes home

It is amazing how a single day can sometime stretch into innumerable days, Reena sighed. Yatharth was coming home today. Two flight changes and then a train back home, it would be late, he had told her. She had smiled and told him she would wait.

After weeks, there would be a proper dinner , she thought and busied herself deciding the menu. Besan kee roti like Amma made was Yatharth's favorite. She would crumble the roti with her hand and add ghee then mix it with curry and yogurt and then give it to Yatharth. This was exactly how she had seen Amma serve roti to all of them. Papa would top it with lot of onions and Amma would make a face, now you will have onion on your breath whole day. Reena shook herself out of the reverie. It was easy to take a journey back into the past when one had so much of time in hand. Time that she needed to kill!

She dragged herself from early morning till the afternoon. Switching the tv on and then switching it off. Listening to Pink Floyd and then turning to Bryan Adams. She had never missed home like she did today. From a fiery, hyperactive Reena she had mellowed down to a soft spoken and gentle Reena. Perhaps that was the outcome of keeping quiet for days.

Reena was still living her life in the hulla baloo of Kolkata. She had yet to immigrate in totality to this foreign land of lakeside and hills. Switzerland the dream destination was still dream like and not reality. Her mind still wandered to the puchka wallahs and moori wallahs back home. The building where she had lived with her parents had several people living in them. In their 7 storyed building here, Reena thought it was only she who had an apartment. She never saw a soul wandering in the corridor. THe doors were all shut, and she had to resist the urge to ring the door bell of the apartment opposite to her. Dropping in for a chat, to get to know your neighbors , was probably not acceptable here, this Reena had realized early on.

Then she had taken to herself. Her life centered about Yatharth when he was home. ANd when he wasn't her life was thrown off the orbit. It was true she tried hard to discipline herself. She kept her house clean and cooked good dinner. But if Yatharth was not coming home, she did not care to make the bed, cooked once a day, ate leftovers withour reheating them, had cereals for breakfast, lunch and even dinner.

But life had changed had it not. She had found a new path to orbit. Swapnil had tiptoed with too much of hope. Hope for days filled with storytimes, talk times, feeding the baby. She was so thrilled these days that she cooked meals in time. Ate a hearty breakfast and gave up coffee for milk.

She looked at the watch, it was just lunch time. Solitary luncheon, she murmured. But they will all be together in dinner time she told Swapnil, when she retired after lunch for a little nap.

In her dreams, she saw Yatharth smiling on the door. She saw Amma holding Swapnil...