Parsaai

Chapter One

They’d just let her go.

Abba Jaan hadn’t even accompanied her to the airport. He’d only nodded solemnly as she’d said goodbye to him before leaving the house, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. Ami Ji, who wept during her pointless drama serials, hadn’t shed a single tear as she’d bid her a safe trip. She’d simply pushed her daughter—her only child’s—luggage at her feet and then slowly turned on her heels, weaving her way back through the crowd towards the airport’s exit, leaving her to find her own way to the correct terminal.

Now, sitting on a small, cramped airplane, Pari remembered her parents’ last words to her, the ones her Father had said before she’d left the house, and the ones her Mother had repeated as she’d driven her to the airport. “Don’t get there and embarrass us even further.”

The single sentence had stung more than the false accusation that had been placed on her. Her parents believed she had done something she never had. And now, through their caustic words, they had made it evident that they were convinced she was capable of doing worse. Unwilling to listen to her side of the story, they’d callously agreed to send her to another country, claiming the time away from home would make her realize what she’d done and change.

But, Pari knew why they were truly prepared to ship her across the world, to the place where she had been born, where they too had spent the majority of their early years. It struck her like a shard of glass, tore at her heart and made her want to collapse into tears once again. Her parents, her own Mother and Father, were ashamed to admit she was their child any longer. The girl that had gotten into the University of Cambridge on a scholarship, the daughter of a Cambridge professor, had shamed them. They no longer felt pride or trust in her. That was the true reason they couldn’t forgive her, regardless of how much she wept or pleaded with them.

Even now, as she waited for her plane to land, her eyes grew moist at the thought of her parents curtly dismissing her tears and profuse apologies the night before her flight, despite seeing her clasped hands and tear-stained face. They had still carried through with their punishment by sending her off the next day, to a foreign, strange country she hadn’t visited since she had been a small child. She would have no one she could rely on there, only distant Aunts, Uncles, and cousins she barely remembered. Practical strangers.

“Excuse me, Miss?” a voice broke Pari’s train of thought. She turned her head away from the small window to her right and met the eyes of an air hostess who stood in the aisle next to her row of seats.

“Oh, I…sorry. Y-yes?” Pari asked, her cheeks flushing with heat.

“Everyone has gotten off,” the air hostess informed her, smiling amusedly as she eyed the disheveled-looking girl sitting before her. Pari felt her eyes widen in surprise.

“What?” she asked, glancing past the air hostess down the deserted aisle of the aircraft. The seats around her too had all suddenly been abandoned, litter scattered on the floor around them. “Oh, God.”

The flight attendant smiled and reached above Pari’s seat, silently unlocking the small luggage compartment located there. She pulled her duffel bag and small suitcase from inside and set them on the floor by her feet.

“Come,” she said, motioning for Pari to stand. “I’ll escort you to the passenger pick-up.”

Pari hesitated before nodded and standing reluctantly. She reached for the handle of her suitcase, but the kind woman gently swatted her hand away, a playful smile tugging at her red-painted lips as she grabbed it herself. She circumnavigated around Pari and led her towards the plane’s exit, her suitcase trailing behind her. Pari followed her wordlessly, her skin flaming with embarrassment. This poor woman must think she was an idiot.