Queen Of The Hills

Chapter XI

BACK TO DEHRADUN

Simmy was sitting at the Waiting Room of the Dehradun City Hospital. Her mother was in Deepak's room in the Hospital and would soon come out and take her to meet Deepak. Simmy had to go through a lot of trouble to manage this hastily arranged trip but then she had made up her mind to meet this rare specimen of a man who had aroused such extreme emotions in her normally unflappable mother.

Finally she entered the room and found a tall and athletic albeit sickly looking man, lying on the bed. As Vinita had informed earlier, Deepak had just had a chemotherapy session performed on him related with his metastatic pancreatic cancer. But there was something different about the sheer presence of the man. His medical condition could not hide the fact that the man was remarkably handsome. She could only visualize how the man would have looked in his prime; certainly good enough to knock a young eighteen year old girl, off her feet!

'Hi Simmy! Nice to meet you! You are a mirror image of how your mother looked at your age. Do you know what sobriquet your mother has given you? It is Queen of The Hills,' he said pointing out of the window towards the faintly visible outline of the mountain range in the direction of Mussoorie. Both Vinita and Simmy had had some great times in Mussoorie in the past and Vinita felt that Simmy should share the nickname of Mussoorie which is called 'Queen of The Hills' since British times.

Simmy could only grin embarrassingly.

She watched intently as her mother helped a tired looking Deepak prop upright in a sitting position on the bed and assisted him with his medicines.

She couldn't help but wonder at the strange ways of destiny and how it crossed, uncrossed and then re-crossed the paths of two people who loved each other so dearly. Was it a case of all's well that ends well, she wondered. At least it was so in terms of what a noble soul like Deepak deserved.

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GOODBYE NOBLE ONE

It was a foggy evening at the Lakkhi Bagh Cremation Ground in Dehradun. A funeral procession had just arrived at the ground with a body, to perform the last rites. In the last leg of the journey, two women, a mother and a daughter, broke the Hindu tradition of only men being part of a Hindu funeral procession, and been two of the pall bearers of the open casket, carrying the body in its final earthly journey. Some people from the Army were also a part of the procession.

After the body of Deepak was mounted on the funeral pyre, it was Vinita who lit the pyre which gradually consigned the body to the blazing flames, watched by Simmy and her friends, including Jamie. The noble soul left for the heavenly abode after casting loving looks on the two people who helped combat its loneliness during its last days of earthly presence.

The last rites completed, Vinita and Simmy moved somberly towards the entrance of the cremation ground. A familiar figure was waiting for them at the entrance and Vinita looked startled as she recognized the person.

'It's time for all of us to go home. Both of you must be drained out,' said Ranjit, reaching out his hands towards them.

......THE END.........................