My dear husband is the busiest person, who doesn’t even have time to drink the morning coffee properly.  He is so busy with his work that sometimes he gets very sick.  But he is a really fun, warm and fascinating person. Sumi and Nomo are mischievous but adorable children. They know what should be done at what time.

We were going out together for a picnic after a long time, may be after a year. Sumi and Nomo were so excited that they couldn’t stop smiling and looking at each other, as if they were talking to each other with their eyes and were sharing their glee.  I was sitting in the front seat listening to Hindi songs from the eighties as Zishant was driving. Zishant really enjoyed driving. We all were enjoying the drive a lot.

After one hour we reached Nagarkot. Finally my children’s wait for the family picnic had come to an end.  We reached the top of a hill where I could see a huge machaan, and there were other families and couples too who had come for a picnic as well. I laid a piece of cloth on the ground and put all the food items on it. My children till then were busy playing with each other. As Siddhant was helping me arrange the food, he said “Tejashwi, don’t you think time has passed very fast? It seems like we met just yesterday, and see now, we are the parents of two sweet little dolls.” I looked at him; I could see a strange smile on his face. “See, this shows we are getting older now,” I said teasingly. “Well, in that case it’s only you who is getting older, not me. I am still young enough,” he said again for a laugh and called out to Sumi and Nomo to come eat. All four of us sat down to eat.

“Yummy! Is this what Papa baked, Mummy?” Sumi asked, without moving her eyes from the pastry. “Yes stupid, of course Papa made it for us,” Nomo replied before I could. Sumi was happily eating the pastry, whereas Nomo, as usual, had no interest in the food, but was drinking the juice.  Zishant was contentedly looking at the two little girls as if they were the most precious beings to him. “These are your sweethearts, right?” I asked him. “Yes! They are. I am incomplete without them,” he replied, looking at the girls. I could not utter a word but just smiled. I was happy to know that though Zishant was really busy with his work, he had a special place in his life for the children.

Nomo said she wanted to hear her name echoing off the hills, so I took her to the end of the hill and told her to shout her name, “Nomo,” she shouted.

“Nomo….Nomo….Nomo…” the sound came back from the hills. She jumped with ecstasy and left my hand. She was so happy, and suddenly everything was hushed. Someone fell downhill.

Zishant rushed to see who it was. I looked at my children and told them to hold my hand. Strange! They didn’t hear me. I tried to speak to them, but I could not see either of them saying anything to me, and they were looking past me as if I didn’t exist.  But that was the truth. I didn’t exist!

The person who had fallen down the hill was ‘me’. As they brought up the carcass, I glanced at the body. I saw myself dead and my husband could not even budge, seeing me in such condition. He just stared at my body. And suddenly tears burst out of his eyes. Sumi and Nomo came running near my body with shocked expressions on their face and didn’t know what was happening. My naive children were not aware that their mother was dead and that they could never see her again. Zishant was not in a condition to explain to them about what had happened, but somehow after sometime he managed to control himself. He hugged Sumi and Nomo securely.

Nine years have passed. Sumi and Nomo are now 16. The twin sisters have somehow managed to live without their mum these nine years, and Zishant, he is trying to live for our children. He didn’t marry, though I wanted him to marry and start a new life.  But I am happy that he is not so busy now and has started taking care of himself. I can see a new thing in the living room. They have hung my huge photo on the wall and there is a note below it: ‘Our loving late mother’.

I still visit them every day, though they don’t realise it. I am satisfied to see them happy. Finally they are trying to forget that incident. I know they still miss my presence a lot but one day Sumi and Nomo will be so busy with their lives that they’ll not even remember that they had a mother; and Zishant, I will always be visiting him, every day, though he will never know, and I’ll always be taking care of him.  It’s a promise of a wife to her husband and a mother to their daughters. Even death couldn’t do us part...