Ayesha is 20 when she loses her grandmother to whom she was very close.
Her grandmother had told her to find the magic and embrace her destiny.
This bewildered her. What's the magic grandmother was talking about? Is it a hypothetical way of talkin...
Ayesha was devastated. She stood in the room where she had spent the happy moments of her childhood, the room where she came to hide from her parents when she was about to be punished for some misdeed, the room where she hid her chocolates- the ones her grandmother gave her secretly! Everything was there, apart from the person.
Her grandmother was no more. She died last week. It was all so sudden! She had been ill for quite a long time. But never in her dream did Ayesha think that she would die....all of a sudden. And that too at a time when Ayesha was far away from home. Home....she wondered if she could ever call this house home again!
She stood still, tears dried up in her eyes. She didn't feel like talking to anyone. She had an agenda- to discover the magic. The magic....what did grandma mean by magic? Last time when she met her grandma, it was a few days before her death. Ayesha never felt that it was the last time she was seeing her grandma. What she told her didn't bewilder Ayesha at that time. It did later.
"Sometimes, you need to take a break, my perfectionist child. There's so much to life you are yet to witness. You should open up a bit and embrace life. Discover the magic and traverse the journey that would take you to your destination."
Ayesha felt grandma was talking about the magic of life- the small moments of happiness and joy, excitement, love, passion- life is full of magic! She had always been an introvert and had hardly reveled life, always being busy with her academics, always trying to be a perfectionist!
It's the night that grandma died when her words came haunting Ayesha in her dream. "Discover the magic and traverse the journey....find the magic...it's high time now... it needs to pass on to the worthy successor. You must carry forward the legacy..."
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Ayesha woke up from her dream with a start! Was grandma really talking hypothetically about magic that day? In the dream it didn't seem so. She seemed so alive, yet distant, shrouded in a layer of mist. In the dream it felt like she was talking about MAGIC magic! Out of curiosity she feels like asking someone in the family about it. But who would believe her talking about such fantasy stuff? No. She has to discover herself.
And now Ayesha stood inside grandma's room. If any place was a good start, it was definitely this room. Something must be here. She searched under grandma's pillows- had she left her something? Like a letter? It could be beneath her pillows, knowing that Ayesha would definitely come to this room, cry alone and probably sleep on this bed and discover her letter. No, it was not there. Could it be behind grandpa's photo? She lifted the photo frame, even opened the backside of the photo frame to check if anything was there. No. It was so difficult to search for a clue when Ayesha had no idea what it could be or where it could have been hidden. And that is if at all grandma really spoke to her in the dream and it was not her imagination! No, I can't lose hope, Ayesha thought.
Beside grandma's pillow was a book. Ayesha lifted it. It must have been the last book grandma read. It was a story she often read out to Ayesha when she was a kid. She loved this story. It was a world of fantasy, of adventure- a story which makes one feel that there is a victory of the good in each and every story of life. Whenever Ayesha heard this story, she imagined herself as the princess. The princess, who was born with a magical power to save her kingdom from the evil.
Again, magic! Is this just a coincidence that this particular book was the last one grandma read? Or did she leave it behind intentionally? Was this a clue? She turned each and every page of the book to see if there was a letter from grandma. There was nothing. Ayesha was disappointed. Then it suddenly struck her. What if the clue was hidden in the bookshelf? May be this book is a message that the magic is real and the clue to it lies amongst books? She went up to her grandma's bookshelf with a firm heart. This was the last place she would search. If nothing was to be found here, she would know her dream to be a mere imagination and would give up. She unlocked the bookshelf and started searching each rack till her hands touched a wooden surface. Ayesha was surprised. What's this? As she pulled it out, she found it was a wooden chest- an old and archaic one. Did this belong to her grandma? She had never seen this before. What did the box hold within it? Ayesha wondered!
