Realised Embraced Sacrificed

Chapter 12 : The Love That Sacrificed

My smile widened.

Later that day, I couldn't bring myself to go to work, so I stayed back at home.

I spent the whole day lying on our bed, mom and dad kept calling me outside, but I just didn't want to leave the bed.

I got up to eat my breakfast and lunch, but then again, dropped myself on the bed, feeling a different kind of warmth, which I began missing as soon as I left the bed.

The evening soon fell, and I was still lying on our bed, thinking about Kabir and our little one, when, abruptly, my phone rang.

It was an unknown number.

Thinking it might be something important, I picked it up.

A man's voice came from the other side,
asking, "Are you Capt. Kabir Sethi's wife?"

I answered a shaky yes.

And then he said something, the words that shattered my soul, pierced my heart.

"I regret to inform you that Captain Kabir Sethi has made the ultimate sacrifice for the country. He is no more."

Kabir was no more.

My Kabir was no more.

I couldn't believe it.

I irritatedly asked the person from the other side if he was joking.

He again repeated the same thing.

I broke down on the floor and shouted, calling for the man I loved.

My in-laws came running to me. Dad took the phone and talked to the caller. He, too, slumped down on the floor.

And, just like that, I became a widow.
My child, even before coming to life, became an orphan.

Everything around me crumbled.

The whole day, a deep numbness settled over me, as if my emotions had been replaced by a vast, empty void. The news of Kabir's martyrdom played on a loop in my mind, each repetition driving the knife of reality deeper into my heart.

The next day, I shook off my pain as I got ready in a pink kurta.

Kabir, during our dating days, had once commented, "You look so lovely in pink." And from that day, I had filled my wardrobe with pink.

As I tied my hair into a bun, my gaze remained fixed on the sindoor box resting on the table-a stark reminder that it's bright colour will no longer adorn my hairline.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, as I wiped my tears and tried to smile. That's how Kabir always wanted me to see - smiling and glowing.

I rushed off the stairs as we waited for Kabir for the last time, to welcome him on his final visit to his home. This time as a lifeless body in a box clad in the Indian Flag.

The moment I saw his body, I felt my heart breaking, shattering into pieces I will never be able to collect.

Kabir would always ask me to be strong. He reminded me even on that last day we spoke.

He hated my tears!

All through our relationship, he kept repeating it, sometimes teasing me for being a crybaby, sometimes copying the Rajesh Khanna's dialogue Pushpa, I hate tears and sometimes getting angry when I cried.

"Meera, you really wanna break my heart, hai na?", he had once asked.

"Aree, Kabir, why are you speaking like this? Why will I break your heart?", I had questioned.