As he was rubbernecking right into the mirror, feeling the warmth of his tears dripping down his cheeks,

eyes puffy and red, he heard a voice a hundredth time, “Run! Darpan beta!” He sloshed the chilly water
running from the tap onto his face, trying to get rid of those muddied thoughts. “I didn’t want to run
away Maa, I love you, I wish you were here,” uttered Darpan with his raspy morning voice. “I’ll be with
you someday, beta”, a reply came as Darpan turned and sighed. He attended to the crying baby,” what
happened to my Mahi baby, is she hungry? Didn’t mommy give you food yet? Shalini! Shalini, aren’t you
ready yet? We’re getting late for the photoshoot, we have to pick papa too, come on hurry up! And our
daughter’s hungry too, and when she’s hungry she becomes just like you, HULK angry. Come down fast.”

“I’m coming, I have fed her already, take her out while I call Mani about cancelling my weekend shift”,
hollered Shalini from the dressing room in her piping voice, putting on the diamond pendant Darpan
gifted her on their anniversary. Darpan and Shalini have been married for two years now and it was only
a month ago a little angel entered their lives. Darpan named her after his beloved late mother Mahima
Devi.

“Yes, mama’s grumpy and late and… very beautiful… Are you wearing the diamond pendant that I gifted
you when I wasn’t unemployed?”

“Shut up Darpan! I am not late and get into the car. Yes, they are, by the way, Mani says he misses you
and is inviting us for dinner, for the third time this month! I wonder how you managed to have me when
you clearly can’t even make friends!” Shalini got into the driving seat clutching her silky black hair at the
back of her head.

“I am not going to dine at this pretentious house of I-am-such-a-friendly-boss who fired me during the
lockdown in the name of downsizing. And who needs a friend when I have you and Mahi. Shalini we
have to be on a highway, let me drive, it’s not safe.” Darpan said looking at her daughter and then at his
wife in a dark olive coloured chicken Kari suit, in awe of just how amazingly beautiful she was and how
their daughter resembles her and his mother. He often saw Mahi in a state of shock that how could he
even love someone so much. After he lost his mother he thought he’ll never love anyone the way he did
her but Shalini certainly proved him wrong, when he first met her at his workplace. Although he had lost
his job during the lockdown and had zero friends due to his anti-social nature, yet looking at his wife and
daughter he knew even if he loses everything, he’ll still win the world if he has them.

“Darpan come on! You just treasure your car way too much, but just trust me. I know how to drive, I
have got my license too now, so just sit back and relax. Papa called me he said he had already reached
the photographer’s place, we can directly-“

“Woah Shalini!” shrieked Darpan as he stretched out his hand to turn the steering to stop the car from
getting on the divider as Shalini got engrossed in talking to Darpan and justifying how well could she
drive now.

“I am sorry… It won’t happen now..”

“Shalini just shut up and focus on driving now” Darpan instructed Shalini sternly. Mahi was asleep in his
lap in a strawberry stew red frock made out his mother’s saree, which his father gifted.

His father, Sukhdev Surajdhwaj, was a reputed and wealthy lawyer of the Kayastha community in Gujrat.
Sukhdev Ji, an enchanting man with shrewd character, was infamous for his overt views on caste and
religion. In February 2002, during the Gujrat riots, while he was busy meeting with politicians paving his
way into politics, he lost his wife, house and will to live. Sukhdev Ji then decided to live by the principles
of his wife Mahima Devi, of living an austere life and shifted to her birth town, Ujjain, about fifty-four
kilometres away from Indore, the city where Darpan and Shalini live today. “I wanna spend my life
teaching in the orphanage your mother used to live in,” said Darpan’s father whenever he used to force
him to stay with him.

“My darling Mahi has come to dadu. How is she, oh! Look how beautiful she looks in the frock! Now
we’ll get a family photo clicked. Mahi will look the best in the photo, right Mahi?” gibbered Sukhdev Ji
stammering like a child, chortling and kissing his grandchild as soon as the car stopped and Darpan
opened the gate. He saw how his gloomy eyes with dark circles brightened up just like fireflies in the
night.

“Only if your mother was here too!” tearing up a little Sukhdev turned to Darpan. Quickly they got done
with the family photos and were taking solo pictures of Mahi while Shalini forced the photographer to
send all the photographs on WhatsApp.

They spent a great evening together, reminiscing the good old days of Darpan’s childhood before his
mother died. He wasn’t vocal about it and shied away whenever anybody tried to talk to him after the
riots.

“Darpan let’s go now, I have a shift tomorrow morning,” said Shalini touching Sukhdev’s feet. Sukhdev Ji
couldn’t stop himself and said “You all should come here more often. I know covid and lockdown and
everything, I can’t leave the orphanage for long but you people can come.”

” We will papa, surely we will,” said Shalini grimacing at Dapran as if accusing him of not getting out of
home at all after he lost the job. Darpan turned to circumvent any conversation and sat in the car.
Shalini got in the car and they took off.

Shalini often compelled Darpan to go out of the home, but he seldom did and almost never after he lost
his job. To his defence, he said he had seen the worst humans can get during the riots and that changed
the way he looks at humanity and lockdown showed him the way of living he always wanted to live.

“I am seeing the photos and we are not going to have the conversation again, so you can drive Shal and
stop gaping at me like that” mumbled Darpan, swiping each photograph. He saw one eerie photo in the
album, he clicked on it and when he saw the photograph his mind got blank, his heartbeats got faster,
his throat got drier and he quaked in fear “Shal, Everyone is posing in the photograph, including MAA”

Shalini got perplexed and asked, “Maa?what?” Darpan frozen with fear without thinking anymore
showed his phone to Shalini with his limbs feeling numb. Shalini shrilled “Darpan!!” There was a
candescent blinding light, horn so loud it almost deafened him and unexpectedly he felt a strong haul he
never felt in his life. He saw the phone rolling up and down, he felt something but couldn’t process it, he
held his daughter tight into his hand. He saw Shalini unconscious as her hair swathed her face, blood
oozing out of her forehead dripping over the green suit she was wearing. The car rolled thrice,
shattering glasses and pieces of mirror all over. Darpan felt a sharp pain in his torso as he felt warm
blood gushing out his body. Everything happened so quick, he clutched his daughter closer to him but he
didn’t have her. Before he could say anything, he saw his daughter lying a foot away from him with cuts
so many, he could barely see the skin beneath the blood. He saw a piece of mirror stuck into her throat,
he tried to move but the metal in his torso cut through more in him as he moved. Somehow he
stretched his arm out and took that piece out of her before he passed out.



“Why don’t you go out? Go to a doctor at least you’ll be able to differentiate between reality and
imagination.” Mahima Devi insisted Darpan.

“Maa you know if I go to the doctor I’ll lose you, I can’t afford to lose you now. I have lost enough.”
Darpan quivered.

Each minute of solitude had been so hard on him that had lost the track of time. After losing Mahi and
Shalini to the accident he had no reason to live, he often tried to kill himself but every time he dwelled
in the darkness of such thoughts his mother would appear. The frequency of appearance has increased a
lot since the accident, and he liked it. It gave him a reason to not die, if not to live.

“Maa I still remember how they killed you. I was standing beside the car when they entered our house. I
was so terrified I didn’t come in. I was so cold that my head began spinning when I heard you scream. It
was already late when I gathered the courage to save you. I am sorry Maa” sobbing with his face ducked
into his hands, crouched on the floor beside Mahima Devi sitting on the chair in the same cotton
lavender-blue saree she wore the day she died.

Mahima Devi saw how Darpan’s appearance had changed drastically. His shoulders sunk, his eyes got
blurred, red and swollen which was accentuated due to the enlarged eye bags. His lips were chalky
white and chapped, his colour darkened due to malnutrition.

She had seen Darpan waking up daily sobbing, moaning for the loss he had just experienced, looking at
the mirror for hours that he took out of Mahi’s throat. He would scrutinise it and say he could hear Mahi
and Shalini from it. Talking to her about how much he misses them day and night. Even after her
perpetual efforts to convince him to go out, try to meet people, he wouldn’t listen to her. She finally
decided to just be there for her baby.

She choked and said” No Darpan, don’t be sorry. You couldn’t have done anything. They killed me for
the name we took, Surajdhwaj. Little did they know orphan children get their name irrespective of their
religion. Who knows they killed a girl of their tribe? But alas I was punished for the name I bore.” That
day Darpan cried and slept on his mother’s lap.
The next day when he woke up, the first thing he did was glare into the mirror piece, today he heard
those voices reverberating more than usual. He felt his heart racing again as he saw his wife and Mahi,
in the car again. “I don’t wanna see it again. Why can’t I stop having these thoughts?” grunted Darpan as
tears started wetting his face.

But this time he saw his father in the car where he was seated. She was driving fast, just like that day he
saw the car being rammed in a fraction of a second and he closed his eyes. Darpan screamed in horror,
he couldn’t feel his arms, his face numbed, he groaned so loud to call his mother but she was nowhere
to be found.

“What just happened? Was this what happened that night? But why couldn’t I see myself there? Shalini
was wearing different clothes, papa was sitting at my place? And… and… why didn’t papa ever come to
meet me? Why don’t I remember anything that happened after the accident? Oh god Maa what is
happening to me? I can’t remember anything. What is happening to them? They… they are dying Maa
plea…please help me Maa… help them..”

Darpan started crying hysterically on his knees, his face grounded onto his lap, bewildered when he felt
something beside him. He saw everyone this time, Shalini in the same suit she was wearing in the mirror
a few minutes ago, Mahi and his papa with his mother. Darpan looked down and saw he was wearing
the same clothes he wore when the accident occurred.

He took a deep sigh, wiped his tears and stood up to kiss his wife and daughter, hugging his mother and
father tight.

” I can’t believe I had seen you all dying to gain something I urged for all my life. Maa, I have my family
all together with me now.” whispered Darpan with a heavenly gratifying smile on his face.