Her mother died.
One summer night
Her mother died.
She woke up next the morning
To find her mother’s form still, unmoving.
She called her relatives and friends.
“Why isn’t she crying?”
They all questioned.
She sat beside her mother’s saree-clad body;
Sat as still as a marble carved statue.
Unmoving, unfeeling,
Not shedding a single tear.
“Why does she not cry?”
Her friends tried coaxing her into crying.
But she didn’t cry–
Not a single tear fell from her eyes
Not a single scream escaped her lips
She just sat there,
Watching her mother’s saree clad body
A serene smile in her lips.
“What kind of heartless person doesn’t cry
In her own mother’s death?”
The relatives questioned at the funeral.
She didn’t seem to hear
Performing the last rites with equally detached manner;
No sign of grief, no sign of tears
No sign of despair in her face.
“Such a cold hearted girl!”
“No one deserves a daughter like her!”
A year later she’s in France
Strolling along the Banks of the Seine
“Ma pose properly!”
An elderly saree clad lady tries posing
As her daughter takes the picture.
She smiles.
That night she returns to her empty apartment.
The tears don’t stop
The screams keep growing louder
The grief that she’d held to her heart
Breaks free.
That night, she finally cried.
Debolina Motilal is a B.Com graduate and CA aspirant from Kolkata. She writes to make sense of everything going on inside her head.