Meri Cousin Behna ✔ (Ehmmbh Season 2)

10. Meri Behna? I love that I can never hate her

'But, even if it did. Then why is this file here? Why isn't it at Rishikesh?'

'Well, let's see what it says?'

On reading the summary report, we couldn't make out much technical words but we did see three words which scared us both.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

_

Cancer?

My mother had cancer?

My own mother fought cancer and I'm so clueless? What kind of a daughter am I, if I don't know what happened to my mother?

Wait, did she win the fight? Or did she die because of the cancer? But badi ma didn't have that right? And I did see their bloodied bodies...

What is this family hiding from us?

'Janvi, hatt ja.'

My thoughts were halted as someone pulled me away from the kitchen stove, a black smokey cloud now making me cough.

Vanshi daadi opened the window and switched the gas off as she asked me if I was okay. My moong halwa was ruined and so was my trust.

'Sambhal ke beta.' She addressed me lovingly, 'Kya soch rahi thi?'

My Vanshi daadi was in her sixties, wrinkled face, greyish hair but a very pretty smile, now that I see she had exact same eyes which my Paa has.

'Kuch nahi daadi, bas yuhi.'

She touched my cheek lovingly, 'I am happy that you decided to not go to Rishikesh this soon.'

Smiling, I took her hand in mine, she was my grandmother.

My!

All this while I addressed her as Mansi's grandmother, and although I loved her the same, things were different.

This was my grandmother. As much as Mansi was of the Chaudhary's, I was of the Vadhera's. Then it pained me on the very thought of how a mother stayed so far away from her own son.

And then it pained more to know how much my own family kept so much from me.

Didn't they ever feel to acknowledge me as their own? Like whatever the reason was for the separation, and even if they did shower much love to me, but couldn't they just for once, feel like hugging me as their own?

'Paa ki yaad aa rahi thi, so socha moong ka halwa bana lu.'

'Virat ko moong ka halwa kabse pasand aane lage. Usse toh Maanvi ki haath ki kheer bhi na pasand thi.'

I thought it best to not enquire how she knew that and went with the flow, 'Muje moong ka halwa pasand hai, toh mere saath Paa ko bhi shayad aacha laga.'

'Aisa hai toh, muje bhi chakni chahiye.' She beamed at me and I nodded.

While I took a new pan, Daadi helped me with the basic ingredients, 'Daadi?'

'Bolo?'

'Meri maa' I gulped, thinking about other ways to approach this matter, 'Apne kaha tha ki woh bhi dawai nahi leti thi. Kya hua tha unhe?'

Vanshi Daadi's face lost the colour which brightened our conversation, 'Um, normal, sickness, cold and cough you know. Your mother was always sick.'

'I have been told.'

Before anything else unfolded, she left and I promised I'd give her some of the halwa. After that my mind completely lost track thinking why my own father hid the fact that I'm a daughter of a mother who fought cancer.