Heart-strings

Chapter 1

Loud noises reached my bedroom when I was sleeping peacefully. They penetrated quickly through my ears and woke me up from the deep sleep. All of a sudden I sat straight on my bed bringing myself to consciousness. After a few seconds, I made my way out of my bed searching for the place where this hubbub took place.

I had a gut feeling that it was Dad who was shouting so loudly on Veena Maa. I quietly walked towards their room and peeped inside through the door. "What the hell is wrong with you, Veena? You have been here since 14 years but still you are not able to do a single work. It took me years to build this mansion, set up my business, stand on my own feet and it seems that you are too ignorant of the fact", Dad up roared. Veena Maa hung her head fixing her eyes at the ground. He shouted again, "Where is that file which I gave you to keep last evening, do you even know that project is too important for me? Speak!". "I kept it in your office's cupboard but I don't know where it has gone. I searched for it...", Maa replied calmly. "You are too careless to know the value of money", Dad exclaimed cutting her off in between.

I lost my temper and was about to enter the room when Maa shook her head to stop me from getting into their matters. I didn't stand there even for an extra second and walked to my bedroom angrily. That was surely not the first time that this happened, I was seeing this since I was 5 years-old. I lost my Mom when I hardly knew what death meant, I lost her before I could know what detachment meant, before I could understand her importance and before my life even started in its truest sense. Veena Maa was my step-mother but she was entirely different from those step-mothers someone would have seen in movies or daily soaps. She was a superwoman who grew me up and took care of me even more than my own father ever did. She could fight with anyone when it came to me and Aarohi, my step sister who was of the same age as mine.

I stood in front of the glass window, crossing my hand and pondering that why did Veena Maa always tolerate Dad. Suddenly I felt a gentle touch on my right shoulder which dragged me out of my thoughts and made me turn back. "Nandini, what happened? Where are you lost?", Veena Maa asked me. "What happened, really? Why don't you reply to Dad when he speaks so harshly to you? Why do you let him dominate you? What does he think that he is doing us a favor by giving us these so-called high standards of life? Why did you stop me from speaking?", I blurted out because I could not hold anything inside me. Maa said, "Do you think that these fights will do us any good? It will just end up making this house hell". "As if we are living in a heaven", I said shaking my head to my sides. "Listen, I know that it's difficult also for you all to cope up with these daily fights but if I too start replying to him or retaliating, the hatred deep inside him will never be replaced with love.", she said. "Work hard then because I don't think that a man with heart as hard as stone can be melted with silence and love", I replied in anger and left the room.