Story audio in Tamil
Dazed and Clear
When Sugandhi woke up from her daze, she felt as if she was lying on a mattress in the middle of some room. She couldn’t move her head due to the immense pain and realized that her head was bandaged.
“Where are we? What are we doing?” she thought to herself, and then she remembered fainting from a blow. After a while, she struggled to sit up. There were marks of drips on her hand, indicating that she might be in a hospital. She couldn’t see much through the window and looked around for the door, which seemed to be behind her.
She tried to get up slowly, but couldn’t. Was her head spinning? Or was everything around her spinning? She couldn’t figure it out. She sat back down and the betrayal of her husband stabbed her heart like a thorny bush, causing immense pain.
Young Lady
Even after all this, she still remembered his face, pondering the depth of her love with pride! Should she feel shameful for trusting him completely? A faint smile appeared on her lips, feeling it would have been better if she had reached her destination. Even for that, there seems to be no merit. Her mind, as always, wandered thinking of various things at its own whim.
She heard the sound of the door opening and tried to turn around. A young woman in a dark blue salwar kameez, with bright eyes and a blooming smile, entered the room carrying a glass. Her smile was so infectious that Sugandhi smiled back.
Caring Attention
“Aunty, how are you?”
“I’m fine, dear… Who are you? How did I…”
“Aunty, please don’t strain yourself by talking too much… I’ll tell you everything,” the young woman said, helping Sugandhi sit comfortably.
“First, drink this,” she said, handing over a glass of pomegranate juice.
Sugandhi didn’t feel like refusing her offer. There was something divine in her smile. Lost in admiration of the girl’s smile, Sugandhi slowly started drinking the juice, feeling soothed by the girl’s comforting demeanor. She wondered why her troubles seemed to melt away in the girl’s presence, and she sipped the juice slowly.
“Aunty, stop thinking about everything else! First, drink the juice.”
‘How did you know!’ Sugandhi’s eyes widened in surprise. Realizing this, the girl said,
“I won’t leave until I answer all your questions… Don’t worry! We can talk a lot… First, you need strength to ask everything, drink the juice.”
It felt like ages since someone cared for Sugandhi this way. It had been fifteen years since her mother died. Her mother used to take care of her like this. After her, had anyone else cared for her? Only now did she realize that no one had.
Fruit Juice That Quenched Hunger
Patiently, Sugandhi finished the glass of juice. For the first time in three days, she was having something to eat. She savored every bit of the juice, feeling it go down her throat, through the esophagus, and into her stomach.
Sugandhi thanked the girl with a look as she took the glass from her hand and sat beside her, pulling a chair close.
“My name is Sakthi, Aunty.”
“Nice name… I like it,” Sugandhi said, looking at Sakthi, feeling like she could keep looking at her face forever.
“You were hit by my car,” Sakthi said, but Sugandhi wasn’t shocked. She had not come wrong to hit her! She herself had fallen without any hold.
Frustration and Calmness
“Aunty, it has been three days since you were injured!”
Her mind exclaimed, ‘Oh no, three days!’ but her brain said, ‘What now? Who’s going to look for us?’
Seeing her silence, Sakthi asked, “Aunty, why aren’t you saying anything?”
“You said you would tell me everything, right, dear?”
“I thought you might be shocked knowing that they’ve been searching for you at home for three days!”
“They would have been… but not now!” Sugandhi said with frustration.
No Surprise
Sugandhi was genuinely not shocked. There was no tension that people would search for her and pity her. Instead, she wondered if they had searched and felt sad not finding her, or if they had been happy.
Sakthi looked at Sugandhi as if seeing something strange.
“Why are you looking at me like that, dear?”
“Nothing, Aunty.”
“Okay, tell me, Sakthi… how did I get here?”
“You were bleeding from the head after the accident… We took you to the hospital and got you bandaged… you were unconscious all this time… We didn’t have any of your details… so we brought you to our home… and after two days, you just woke up today… Actually, if you hadn’t woken up today, we planned to inform the police.”
“Thanks a lot, dear… how did you manage all this alone?”
“I live with my brother and sister-in-law, Aunty… we three took you to the hospital… and brought you home.”
“Where are the others?”
“They went to buy a lot of things. They’ll be back soon… as soon as the car arrives, I’ll drop you at your home, Aunty.”
“Okay, dear… don’t you have your parents?”
“I don’t have a mother or father, Aunty!”
“Oh!!”
“My brother is my distant relative… we both shared the same interest in one thing… My college friend also shared the same interest in the project we were working on… my brother and she fell in love… they got married last year.”
“Okay, dear… when’s your marriage?” Sugandhi asked, feeling like she knew Sakthi for a long time.
Sakthi remained silent.
Pain Given by Life
“Sorry, dear… I asked too many questions… It felt like we’ve known each other for a long time, so I asked!”
“Aunty, I didn’t mind your question… I was just thinking about what happened in my life… Marriage will take some more time.”
“Okay, dear!”
“Aunty, do you want to call your home?”
Sugandhi wasn’t worried about her husband. But after all, she is a mother! She felt sad thinking about her children. The guilt of not thinking about them due to her anger towards her husband gnawed at her.
Call Not Answered
She took the phone from Sakthi and dialed her number. The call wasn’t answered. Although she tried many times, the call didn’t go through. She had no desire to call her husband. She didn’t feel like calling anyone else either.
“They didn’t answer,” she said, handing the phone back to Sakthi. “I’m going home anyway, right?”
“Okay, Aunty…”
There was silence for a few minutes.
“Aunty, do you have any problems?” Sakthi broke the silence.
“Why are you asking?”
“You seem very detached… I mean, you seem uninterested in anything… so I asked.”
Sugandhi felt comforted by her question. As if someone had been waiting to ask her, ‘What is your problem?’ tears started flowing from her eyes.
“Oh no… Aunty, why are you crying?”
“No, dear, you are a young girl. I don’t know how to tell you my problems!”
“Aunty, if you feel like sharing, please do… I might be able to suggest a solution.”
“A solution?” Sugandhi smiled, wiping her tears.
“There’s no solution to my problem, dear!”
No Problem Without a Solution
“Aunty, there can’t be a problem without a solution… The biggest mistake most of us make is dwelling on the problem instead of finding a solution immediately!” Sakthi said, looking at Sugandhi. Sugandhi felt like listening to her without interrupting.
“Not just worrying about it… we imagine many things along with it… making a small problem huge! Then we fear how to handle such a big problem!”
Sugandhi had heard all this from many people before, but listening to Sakthi felt like hearing it for the first time.
Sakthi’s Eloquence
“Now, consider this tumbler as your problem… if you keep holding it like this,” Sakthi said, placing the tumbler on her right hand.
“As time goes by, our hand will ache… but the tumbler remains the same! Our problem is also like this, the more you think about it, the more pain it causes… but the solution won’t come! Can we change what has happened, Aunty?”
“No!”
“Then? What are you going to do thinking about it? You need to come out of it and think about the solution!”
What Sakthi said was true. But would it apply to Sugandhi’s situation? Hers wasn’t a small problem! It had taken away her life itself!
(Continued…)
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