Being Her Idiot... Exclusively

10. Being Free

Shaking my head, I entered and started walking behind her.

"So what do you want to ask?" She asked in her mellow voice and I just wanted to shake her and cry and ask her everything.

"So mo... I mean maam..." Damn, I dont know what to ask her. What do I do now?

"You can call me Sonam."

"So Sonam maam... Tell us something about the NGO?" I tried my best to sound like an interviewer.

"I have been working with these people for 10 years now. Here, we teach the ladies to sustain themselves and their kids, to stand up for themselves and such things. They are taught and told the need to have their own identity. I like to see the smile on their faces every time they achieve something huge. I came here from Varanasi for this only and I am really happy with their progress." She said with sparkle in her eyes.

But this made my heart drop down. She had really forgotten about me. She didn't mention Lucknow, the place where she came as a daughter in law, the place where I was born. She has totally moved on from us. Why am I even here? Is there any point to all this?

"... As of these kids, some of them all orphans while others were abandoned by their parents. It is really difficult to re unite them. After all these years of separation, neither the parents recognise them, nor do they. Even if parents do recognise them, they don't want them back because they have moved on from them and don't want any new beginning or addition in their otherwise stable life." I knew she was talking about something else... But this sentence pinched me in my heart. I just want to throw up now. I dont want to do this anymore.

"So will this article appear online?" She asked me and turned towards me. I hurriedly masked my emotions... Well I have mastered this covering of my emotions after all these years of practice and nodded in affirmation.

"Will you let me know when you post this? You know, there is not a lot of awareness about this issue and people don't really care about it. Kids who have been abandoned at a young age get very depressed and its really hard to bring them back to their normal selves. They grow up to be commitment phobic and mostly under confident and are neglected by the whole world. They grow up in a shell and don't let anyone near them or into their heart as they are scared that everyone would leave them." Right now, I just wanted to shake her and shout at her.

I followed her to her office and when I stepped inside, I was shocked to say the least. On the mantelpiece, I saw me. Different stages of my life. It was covered with my pictures from age 13 to age 18. Every important day of my life was there. My dance rehearsals, my birthdays everything was on the mantel piece in the form of a picture. Was she in contact with my grandparents? Why didn't she ever come to meet me? Why would she do this?

"She... she is my daughter. Sanyukta!" She must have noticed me looking at the pictures and I kicked myself. What am I doing? Why am I making everything so obvious? Am I an idiot?

"So Sonam maam, did you have to sacrifice a lot? You know, it is a time consuming work and stuff." I looked closely to catch her reaction.

A guilty smile came on her lips as she kept quiet for moment thinking about my question.

Taking a sip of her now cold coffee, she spoke, "I made a mistake. An unforgivable one at that. I hurt someone very close to me, someone who should never have been hurt at the first place, who didn't deserve anything that she had to go through. She was supposed to be my angel and I hurt her. Not a day had passed since then that I haven't cursed myself for this. I tried a lot to contact her, to apologise but every time I chickened out. I just hope she forgives me." She looked at me and as if realised that I was a stranger. Clearing her throat, she chuckled, "Look at me, boring you with stuff like this. I am so silly."