Five years after marriage, a little girl was born into a home.
Her arrival brought a different kind of happiness to the house.
She was their only child, born after five years of marriage, and from the moment she came into their lives, she became deeply precious to both of her parents.
They named her Aarna.
After 5 years
She loved watching the children from the neighbourhood play outside,from the window of her room.
One evening, unable to resist any longer, she went to her mother and asked, "Mumma, mujhe bhi bahar khelne jana hai."
Her mother looked at her and replied, "Chup-chaap so jao, warna raat ko padhte time jhumogi neend se."
Aarna's excitement faded, but she didn't argue.
She quietly went back to her room.
From her window, she could still see the children running around and laughing.
Aarna watched them with a quiet longing, imagining what it would feel like to run around with them,
laugh without worrying about the time and return home only when someone finally called her back.
She stayed by the window until the children slowly disappeared from the lane, and only then did she return to her bed.
The years passed, and Aarna grew up.
Until Class 5, she consistently came first rank in her class.
Then Class 6 arrived, and the world around her changed because of COVID-19.
That was when Aarna received a laptop of her own. It was meant for her online classes, but for Aarna, it quickly became something more.
It was the first thing she had ever received that felt completely like hers.
Once her classes were finished, she would sometimes sit in front of it and watch videos.
She wasn't allowed to spend the entire day there, but she had around thirty minutes for herself, and those thirty minutes slowly became her favourite part of the day.
Five months later, Aarna came home from school holding a test paper.
She walked towards her mother slowly, already nervous.
"Mumma... mujhe test ka result mila hai."
Her mother looked at her. "Kitne aaye?"
Aarna lowered her eyes before answering.
"Seven... out of twenty."
Her mother's expression immediately hardened.
"Aur mat padho! Kitna bola hai tumhe padhai karo, lekin tumse kabhi hamari baat maani jaati hai? Itna samjhate hain aur phir bhi ye marks laati ho!"
Her voice grew louder, and Aarna instinctively stepped back.
Science had become difficult after Class 5.
She tried to improve, but her marks in Science continued to fall.
One test became another, and then another.
Every time Aarna received a lower score, the fear inside her grew.
She would stare at the paper before going home, wishing she could somehow change the number written on it.
Her mother became increasingly furious with every Science test, while Aarna became quieter with every result.
Then, one day,
her mother's anger reached a point Aarna had never seen before.
Her mother shouted so loudly that Aarna flinched. Before Aarna could say anything, her mother grabbed the laptop.
"Aaj se ye sab band!"
Aarna's eyes widened. "Mumma, please-"
The laptop was thrown onto the floor.
Aarna froze.
She stared at it, unable to process what she was seeing.
The screen was cracked, the body damaged, and the one thing that had become a small source of happiness in her life was lying broken in front of her.
She slowly looked at her mother and then back at the laptop.
It wasn't just a laptop to Aarna. It was the first thing that had ever felt completely hers.
Those thirty minutes of watching videos had been small, but they belonged to her.
And now they were gone.
Aarna quietly went to her room, closed the door and finally began to cry. She tried to hold herself together,
but the tears kept coming as she sat alone with the feeling that something she loved had been taken away from her.
Outside, children were still laughing and playing, just as they had years ago when a little Aarna used to watch them from her window.
Only this time, she wasn't watching them.
She was sitting alone in her room, trying to understand why something that had once made her happy was gone.
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YOU ARE READING
Was It Really My Life?
General FictionIt is the story of how a little girl slowly became someone even she didn't recognize anymore-and everything she had to go through before she could understand herself again. Because sometimes, people don't change all at once. Sometimes, it happens qu...
