Legacy of tears

It was a boring rainy afternoon in Mumbai and Shweta is moving from one window to another in her laptop. At times it’s an Excel file which has got the underwritten calculations of her latest client, then the e-mails and sometimes some browsers which are opened with her regular favorite sites. But she’s actually seeing nothing; it’s one of those days when nothing feels good without any reason. Even she didn’t take Varun’s call twice from morning, sent a text saying busy in a meeting.

Shweta gets up from her cozy chair and slowly goes to the wide glass window of her cubicle. Pushing the blinds behind, she puts her face touching the glass and her breathe makes a vapor mark on the glass. A frail smile came to her lips remembering the childhood days that she spent with her cousin brother drawing figures on vaporized glass windows in Jaipur. Just by that time a crowded Mumbai local went through in front of her; rain-scared urbanites trying to reach their home in earliest possible time.

‘Home’ – is that the word bothering her from this morning? She thought for few moments. Ma couldn’t see her working; else she would’ve been the happiest person on earth today. Babuji left them unattended when she was just two years old with some other woman and Ma lived rest of the few years of life in belief that her husband will be back to her one day. Shweta was just six years when her Ma passed away! From then, her life took a u-turn. Her uncle brought her in his place in Jaipur where she studied, grown up and now the chief underwriter of a top insurance company in Mumbai.
Shweta doesn’t remember her father’s face, doesn’t even remember when she had seen his photograph for the last time. But Ma? There’s a pale silhouette of a Rajasthani lady with colorful saris and one more thing. She could remember her weeping sound every night. And just like Ma, these days she feels Babuji will be back some day to see her. He’ll first go to their village and will found no one there. Then he’ll come to Jaipur, will take Shweta’s address and will drop in to see her one day; in a rainy day like this!

The phone rings on her desk, as if bringing her back in her today at her workplace. The display was showing it’s a call from the desk of the receptionist.
‘Yes’, Shweta couldn’t recognize her own voice. As if all letters & words which are stored there in her mind for last twenty-six years are trying to come out all together!
‘Ma’am, here’s a person wants to meet you’, the lady on the other side replied.
‘What’s his name?’ Asked Shweta. This time it was much better.
‘Varun’.