Sameer stood up from the chair, his eyes rounded in shocked surprise. Was he seeing right... or was he hallucinating?
He rubbed his eyes, opening them slowly... expecting the image to vanish...
But Vishakha was still there... right in front of him...
He looked around... except Rahul's parents, everyone had the same shocked expression as him. One thing was sure...
She was definitely here... in person.
Suddenly, Sameer's felt a tightness grip his heart... is she here to stop the marriage... like last time... had she been to Naina's house?
He took quick strides towards her, panic and fear making the distance appear too much between them.
"Aap... aap... yahan... kaise... " He was finding it difficult to put his apprehensions in words.
"Mere bete ki shaadi hai... agar nahi aati toh shayad khud ko kabhi maaf nahi kar paati." Vishakha's choked voice was new to him.
"Sh... shaadi?" He gaped at her, unable to believe that she had accepted his marriage, and was here to be a part of it.
"Arre beta... tumhari mummy shaadi ke liye aayi hain... itne hairaan kyon ho rahe ho... chalo baitho... pagdi pehnne ka muhurat ho gaya hai." Rahul's mom pressed his arm, comforting him.
He looked at the soothing grip on his arm, then glanced up at the smiling face of the woman who had given him more love and care in last few days than what his real mother had given him in entire lifetime.
"Jee aunty, aaiye, baandh dijiye." He smiled at her.
"Main nahi, ab tumhari mummy aa gayi hain toh wohi bandhegi na." She patted his cheek.
Sameer looked back at his mother, "Woh shayad na karna chahen."
Vishakha felt his jibe pierce her heart... but she had no one to blame. Blinded by her own need to make a place for herself in the new family, she had forgotten about the small boy who had lost not one, but both parents. She thought her father was enough for him... and had turned her back to the repeated cries of her son whenever she called up from Delhi. And slowly, the constant comparisons with Rohan and harsh words of her husband and his mother regarding Sameer's performance and unruly behavior turned her cold towards him, thinking that he purposely did all this to make her feel bad.
She didn't realise when he stopped calling her, when his pleadings to be with her became silent, when he stopped complaining about her absence on his birthdays... when he stopped addressing her as 'mummy'. Losing herself in the new family, and her daughter born a few years later, the memories of her first born became faint with each passing year.
Only in her last visit did she realise how blind she had been... her husband was a step father... but she had become worse. After all, being a step mother, she hadn't been so insensitive to Rohan.
But it was too late now... after what she had said about Naina, she didn't think Sameer would ever speak to her. All her reactions were based on the assessment of her mother in law who greatly influenced her husband... and ruled her own thinking too. Under their dominating demands, she had pressurised Sameer repeatedly to get married to girls of her husband's choice, that would bring him benefit some way or the other... and failed to see what gave happiness to her son, who had been devoid of love almost all his life. Now that the veil dropped over her eyes by Somani and his mother finally lifted, she could see the distance she had created between herself and Sameer... and she had no idea if she would ever be able to reduce this vast distance.
But the realisation did not deter her from coming now... she couldn't stay away from him on such an important day. She had been dying to come for last few days... to be here for all the rituals... put haldi on her son's face, adorn his palm with henna, dance at his sangeet... but her leadened feet did not move... till today...
