"Madhuri, what would you like to eat?”
Madhuri looked sulkily back and told Anand,
“We’re so late. We were meant to be here one hour earlier.”
“It’s not my fault that my mother didn’t know how to use the television. I had to explain it to her.” Anand said rather irritated.
“Well thanks to your explaining, it’s almost eleven o’ clock. I’m really hungry!” Madhuri said impatiently.
“Relax. I’ve heard waiters in the Taj Hotel are extremely fast. And stop acting so childish, what example are you setting for Diya?”
Madhuri was subdued. She looked at her five year old daughter cheerfully talking to a spoon and a fork. She sighed. Diya would never grow up. At the age of twenty, she would still talk to unanimated objects.
“That’s my child-wife.” Anand said pleased with his blackmail.
Madhuri laughed. She could never stay angry with Anand for a long time.
She looked at her watch again. It was almost eleven. She was dying to go to her hotel room and sleep peacefully. Tomorrow their vacation would end, and she would have to return to dreary Delhi and be content with teaching hyper six year olds.
The Taj restaurant looked as jazzy and glamorous as she had imagined. There were sparkly lights on the ceiling, and the place had been decorated so lavishly it looked like a bulb explosion.
She observed the tiny specks of dust on the carpet, the golden hands of the clock ticking away to glory, and she noticed that one bulb was flickering. The cool atmosphere of the restaurant made her feel drowsy.
Tick tock. Tick tock. The hands of the clock kept ticking.
It was a wonderful idea of Anand‘s to take them here for dinner. A dinner she would perhaps never forget.
Tick Tock. Tick tock. The ticking was beginning to annoy her.
She twisted the handkerchief around her fingers and listened to Anand ordering fried fish and chips and a glass of coke for her. She smiled. Anand knew her choice. He always did.
Suddenly everything seemed a little too quiet. The occasional chinks of forks and knives had stopped, and she felt that there was an eerie silence. A silence which seemed to indicated a noise that would never stop.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock. It was eleven.
“Why is everything so sil-” she started. She never got to complete the sentence.
There was a massive explosion in the next room. The noise was so jarring that Diya started wailing immediately.
Whatever happened next seemed like a complete swirl. People rushed here and there, while her legs seemed to be lead. She could feel Anand ‘s strong hold on her arm and him saying,
“Madhuri, we have to go!”
For a brief second she caught a glimpse of his face. His expression was so deathly pale, and there was fear and tension etched in every corner of his face. He was carrying a crying Diya, and trying to push her along as well.
Life sprang back into her legs and she rushed along with Anand. A sea-fog mist of pure fear had clutched her heart, and she could barely breathe. They made their way to the entrance among a hundred other hapless souls.
Just as they got out, Anand stumbled and fell.
“Anand! Diya!” She screamed.
She tried to come back, but the people in their stampede pushed her forward. The Taj staff were issuing instructions as quickly as they could. She numbly heard the word ‘terrorists’ and ‘four’, but she couldn’t put them together. All she could see was Anand trying to get up along with Diya, but he was unsuccessful. The force of the stampede was too strong.
And the terrorists came.
She saw it through the opposite window. She didn’t know how she made it through the choking smoke, or how she was even living. She was seeing the gunmen snuffing out lives with bullets.
They did the same to Anand and Diya.
She stood at the window and watched. Her entire body was cold and numb. She saw the terrorists mercilessly shooting Anand and then hitting Diya on the head with the rifle.
She felt nothing.
She felt utterly weightless.
The happy life of six years had been shattered with a bunch of bullets. Everything she had lived for and loved so completely had been taken away with hardcore ammunition. Her entire life had been wrenched away from her.
She continued watching though. She saw Anand giving up the lost war and lying in his pool of blood. Diya had been thrown aside, of course.
Anand saw her. He closed his eyes.
And life closed for her.
She didn’t know what happened next. In fact, she didn’t know that she had been forcefully taken to another room. She didn’t know that she was hiding in the bathroom with six others. She didn’t know when the NSG team came two days later and she was evacuated. She vaguely remembered a fresh breeze and rustling leaves. She didn’t recollect the cameras and the shrieking reporters.
All she remembered was collapsing on hard concrete with a dry sob.
“It’s as if she drew open the curtain and found herself in a new world…” Aashima said, with red eyes. She cast a nervous glance at the red door. It wasn’t opening.
“She says she’s with whom?” Rhea said wearily.
“She’s sitting with Anand and Diya.” Said Aashima starting to cry again.
Sure enough, that’s what Madhuri was doing. She was smiling, laughing, and talking to precisely no one. But in her mind, there was a very clear image of Anand teasing her, and Diya sitting in the corner.
“Linda is a beautiful place, Anand! I love it!” She said enthusiastically. She could hear Anand‘s laugh and him saying,
“It’s only for you, Madhuri!”
Diya ‘s little chuckles echoed all around. Suddenly those chuckles turned into repeated shrieks of anguish, which rang through Madhuri‘s skin like fire. She started running in the direction of the crying and screaming,
“Diya! DIYA! Its okay, Mummy’s here!”
She couldn’t find Diya. She groped the ground in fright, and hit it hard. She pounded her fists against the floor and then hit the wall hard. She kept beating the wall, till she saw blood on her hands. Her hands shook and she stepped back and burst into wild sobs.
She felt strong arms around her and she said gratefully,
“Anand!”
“Madhuri, it’s me! There’s no Anand, there’s no Diya, and there’s no place called Linda!”
Madhuri burst into a wild shriek of laughter. The voices in her head could be so funny. If there was no place called Linda, where was she?
She felt someone shake her hard. She saw a white-faced Rhea staring at her with red eyes and saying,
“I’m Rhea! Your sister!”
“Oh yeah.” Nodded Madhuri as if she was hearing that for the first time. Madhuri smiled and said,
“Glad you came to Linda. It’s an ancient Greek city.”
“There’s no place called Linda, Madhuri!”
Then Madhuri spotted the blood on her hands. Disturbing images swished through her mind….Anand lying dead somewhere….gunshots….and she collapsed on the floor and burst into fits.
Rhea summoned the doctor next-door who gave Madhuri and injection. Madhuri fell unconscious immediately.
Madhuri got up drearily. She was in an extravagant suite in Linda. Anand had just gone to get her a cup of coffee, and Diya was sitting in one corner playing with a torn-up teddy bear.
Linda was a beautiful place. It made her…feel…free. It gave her a sense of a strange freedom, a queer exotic pleasure which she couldn’t explain away.
She looked out of the window. Her eyes were rather bad, she thought. She could only see blurry images of beautiful mansions and buildings. She turned around and found that even Diya seemed slightly hazy.
Madhuri rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t see Diya anymore. The cold fear clutched her heart and she scanned the room wildly for Diya. Then she saw Diya toddling around the room, trailing her teddy bear on the floor. Her babyish laughs echoed around the room. Madhuri sighed with relief. She then heard a female voice. It sounded like Rhea.
“There is no hope, Aashima. She needs severe psychiatric treatment before she does more harm to herself!”
Madhuri tried to listen to what Aashima was saying. But she couldn’t. Aashima‘s words seemed incoherent and distant. What were they doing in Linda anyway? It was not even their vacation.
The words sank into her like slow knives. Psychiatric treatment. They thought that she was crazy. Why would they think that? She had to talk to Anand about it.
Anand came up to her and said in a singsong voice,
“No coffee today. Why do you look so stricken?”
Madhuri clutched him in panic and said,
“They want to take me for psychiatric treatment!”
Again Anand had the same white expression.
“Now, now Madhuri. You don’t need that, you know. Come on now. I’m going to take you for a lovely walk.”
Madhuri smiled through her tears and said to the laughing child sitting in the corner.
“Come, Diya.”
She could strongly feel Diya clinging to her finger. Anand hugged her tightly and gave her a light kiss on the forehead.
He held her hand and walked ahead. The place suddenly changed, and she saw a beautiful temple.
“Now let’s walk up these steps!”
She walked on the steps. With each step she took, she felt even more liberated and at ease. She didn’t need any psychiatry. She just needed her husband and daughter with her.
She could vaguely hear a shriek coming from far away.
“Madhuri! You’re on the edge of the parapet! Come away!”
“Just one more step.” Anand gently reminded her.
She took that one more step. She disregarded all the shrieks and cries. She could just feel Anand‘s warm hand on hers, and Diya clinging on to her finger.
At last, she was free.
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