LIFE'S CALLING

“Dear amma & appa,
By the time you read this, your daughter Priya will be no more. I know it’s very hard for you to take. I’ve tried, I’ve tried my best and I guess it’s better to throw away your life than staying a dead wood. I am sorry pa, I am sorry ma. Tell Sindhu I love her.
Bye
Priya”

Priya stood there at the edge of the cliff, staring at the rocks that floated on the sea far below. She had to be strong to make the weakest of all decisions. Not a drop of tear left her eye. All these two decades of betrayal was enough for her and there wasn’t a drop left in her eye to be shed.
First it was appa.
“But appa, I wanted to do become a journalist”, cried Priya.
“Priya, with that rank, you will get admission in the city’s best medical college. And are you a fool to go for journalism? What guarantee do you have in it? And what would the people say?”
Priya stayed there in silence. Like always, no one argued to pa.
Then it was amma.
“All the time you are in front of the TV or computer. Have you ever thought of helping your mom in the kitchen? I know you are up to something with some boys in that computer, you wretched girl.”
“Amma, these are just friends. I am not up to anything.”
“Hmm! Friends. Girl! Even I’ve crossed your age and I know very well what is going on in your mind.”
And then it was Balu,
“Oh! Priya, I thought you were…oh…and Priya meet Monica, she’s a eh…eh…”
“Enough Balu! Just continue, continue kissing your new babe!”

But Sindhu was the sweetest being of all. She will miss her. No! It will be Sindhu who will miss her. How can someone dead miss somebody? Priya hoped her sister wouldn’t end up with this fate.
The giant red sun was beginning to go under the sea. The silhouette of the ubiquitous trees and hills around would be the ultimate sight any eye could see. But Priya chose not to watch them and closed her eyes, left herself to float in the air.

Thud! What a miracle! An overgrown branch with a leaf as big as a bed in the middle of the cliff! Priya clinched to the branch tightly. The Gods didn’t want her to end the life so soon. She thought how stupid she was. Suicide was not an answer to anything. She was six feet below the edge of the cliff. Priya climbed it with the fortitude she never realized she had. She reached the top and kicked herself for coming up with something like this and thanked her God for saving her. It started raining and Priya started to run towards her home.
How beautiful the rain was! The gentle touch it made to her skin. The smell it made with the soil. The sound it made when it hit the leaves. And the breathtaking sight it provided to the eyes which seldom sees good. Priya loved them all. At home she saw her mother ready to scold her naughty little daughter. Priya planted a kiss on her mother’s cheeks before she could open her mouth and whispered in her ears, “I love you, amma!”
Her father was sitting in the couch, catching his daily dose of evening news. He was interrupted when a girl came and gave him a tight hug and heard her whisper “I love you pa”, which was something no one else said to him before.
Priya ran off to her room and gave a tight hug to her sister.
“Oh! You made me all wet.” groaned Sindhu.
With the exaltation of reclaiming her life, Priya went to the balcony to feel the rain. But it wasn’t raining and not evens a drizzle. There was no appa, amma or Sindhu. The sea had adopted her soulless body. Her dream of a second had vanished. Priya had set with the sun, deep under the water.