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Maid of Honour.

By Asmita Javdekar in Stories
Updated 22:26 IST Feb 20, 2019

Views » 759 | 2 min read

Divya was turning 17.
This was her first year away from her family.
Back home, birthdays meant a fragrant string of jasmine flowers, snugly perched over her tightly oiled bun of thick black hair.
She would visit the local deity to seek blessings and her mother would prepare rice and jaggery kheer; a staple at all family celebrations.
Besides this, her birthday was like any other day of her life.

This year however, there was a vibe of uncertainty.
Divya was in Banglore, a big city.
She was not with her own family.
Clearly, the local deity or the kheer was not even in the picture.
In fact, no body around her was even aware of her birthday.

She had gotten used to sweeping away these emotional nudges.
She woke up, had her bath, prepared dabba for the kids of the household, made tea for the family, pulled out the eggs, bread, cereals, peanut butter for everybody’s breakfast and went to wake the kids up for school.

Never before was their bedroom door locked!
She gently knocked on it and called out to the older kid, Risha.
No response.
Her knock and her voice picked up pace as she called out to the younger one, “Myra”
Again, no response.

It was 6.40am already!

A wave of panic passed through her as she thumped on the door.

This time, there was a frenzied noise of the mortise lock in the socket.
The door fell open with a Boom!

Divya screeched as the confetti cannon exploded on her!
She was covered in streamers and sparkle.

In between fits of laughter, the little girls 
pounced on her singing Happy Birthday Didi, at the top of their voices.

She hugged them both and whispered a “Thank you.”

At seventeen, Divya discovered a new birthday ritual and found her own little family in the big city, as well.

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