Reflections!

It rained heavily, accelerating her thoughts. The droplets seldom failed to inseminate inexplicable thoughts in her otherwise irksome mind. It was already midnight and she was almost dozing, but she didn’t want to let her thoughts evaporate. She took her laptop out. She realized the sound of anklets with increasing intensity as time progressed. The thunder ruthlessly played its part in terrifying her. And in less than a minute she could hear her room’s door getting knocked. The shock numbed her senses and her roommate went to open the door. ‘Anamika?’ uttered the warden. (During midnights, it is never the ghosts but the warden in hostels, nah?) . She managed to get out of bed, putting her laptop aside. “Didn’t you sign in after your return?” the warden asked and she snatched the book to sign.

She reformed, felt heavenliness in every rain drop that met her hand while closing the door and decided to lay foundation to the biggest dream of her life- writing a book. As a small girl she had always wondered about how her mother remembered every single silly anecdote of her college life and she found the reason as she experienced that short span of 4 years for herself! Ananya was Anamika’s close friend in college. They had perfect wavelength, and so did their lives. They talked about everything from their childhood to what they would name their children as! Their parents’ anniversary fell on the same day and so did their date of births. They found things and thoughts exchangeable everytime and Anamika always found it worth a thing to be amazed about! Her fingers started typing their life stories and she fell asleep on her laptop in no time.

As days passed, Anamika lost hope in her talent - all time unrecognized. The memories she created with Ananya in the remaining days, however, remained etched in her memory. Both of them got selected to work for the same organisation but unfortunately Anamika’s parents insisted her to get married and she had to agree. That marked the first outlier of their otherwise ‘together-happenings’ in life! A year had passed and they found themselves not the way they used to be. Technology had failed in keeping them in touch, but their hearts succeeded. It was then that Anamika’s husband introduced to her, his colleague’s family! And when the two ladies started talking about everything under the sky, came the topic of ‘writing’. After two hours of genuine views, they had dinner together and left home.

Vaibhav, Anamika’s hubby was driving and she had fallen asleep in the seat beside. It started drizzling and Vaibhav started admiring the sleeping beauty, with his favourite song playing in the radio as the background! Lost in her beauty, he failed to close the window through which passed the tiny droplets that landed on her hand. She woke up after getting wet considerably! She recalled every minute they had discussed about writing. She stared at the sky intrigued by the failure of these heavenly droplets all these years!  She had decided to complete what she had started during her college time-the book. She realized even if she had to be a bad writer, she still, would be a writer. She turned Vaibhav’s way, not realizing what he was upto. “Can you drive a bit faster?” she asked him, tensed about her irresponsible memory that had forgot in what name her earlier work was saved as. She felt like the people before them drove like no one on earth had any work, whatever was the number their vehicle’s speedometer pointed at!  

They reached home and Anamika hurriedly opened her laptop, found the name of the file she had penned her earlier feelings in. It was storming and the windows started making dreadly sounds. “Anamika, close the windows” yelled her mother-in-law when something contacted the floor with a sound louder than the thunder. It was a photo frame nailed on the wall. It had a picture of Vaibhav’s uncle. Anamika moved to the room from where the sound had seemed to have come from and saw her mother-in-law almost in tears! She started grumbling! She related everything with this activity of nature - she mentioned that the frame had fallen on an auspicious day, about the glass that had got broken in the kitchen, about the rotten coconut she had received in the temple, etc.  Vaibhav heard his mother’s voice and stepped into the room. He started convincing her. Vaibhav signalled Anamika to leave the room. Anamika went on to continue her script. She wouldn’t let the wind that blew the frame, wash away her thought-flow too. She was too good in a state she didn’t consider it as a bad omen. She started pouring out all her feelings in the form of words. She heard her mother-in-law calling all their relatives and spread the feeling of numbness among all.

There was perfect silence after her mother-in-law went to sleep and she rejoiced every moment from then. She fell on her laptop, this time after a long time. Vaibhav, who in a perplexed state was struggling for sleep, saw her lay on the laptop and gradually took the gadget away, holding her hands and making her lay so as to ensure comfortable sleep.

A couple of weeks had passed while Anamika was almost done with her book owing to an average of 13 hours she had spent everyday. She was hunting for a title when the phone rang in the hall, alarmingly. Vaibhav picked the call only to find out that his uncle was in a forlorn state. The entire family started to the uncle’s place. Anamika saw her college that was en route. The car moved but her mind stopped. Reminiscence, for a second, took her to a different world. She could recollect two more instances when herself and Ananya were on a similar stand.

They reached their destination. People all around were talking about the cause for the condition of Vaibhav’s uncle ignoring the one who was in his deathbed, still alive. Anamika was seated amidst all these voices and her instinct started to guess the reason for uncle’s illness. Why is it that very often all of us ponder over the most natural happenings in life-happenings as natural as birth and death?

There started the fight between science and superstition with Anamika’s heart as residence. Science said it was the power of belief – that negative belief that something was going to happen. Superstition pointed fingers at the glass, coconut and photo frame. When there was this vigorous war taking place between the two, Anamika’s heart encountered a third possible reason that answered two of her ponderings, one about the reason behind uncle’s condition and the other, the title for her book - COINCIDENCE!