MishBir: Someone You Love(d)

|15| Tape and Glue

Rajshree had always been a little too soft and a little too worried about almost everything in life, but loosing her daughter, her Akshara entirely unexpected had grounded her in too many ways, majorly teaching her that worrying would get her nowhere. What's fated would happen either way. And she had then taught herself to be stronger, especially when she had realized that her granddaughter Naira would often seek her mother in her. She had thus helped Naira and subsequently Kartik in every way she could, going to extreme lengths for the couple and help them solve out their differences to even showing Swarna the mirror when she just wouldn't stop blaming Naira.

But when Devyani had requested her to take in Mishti and she had brought the heart broken teenager home after that, all of that had again changed. She had again started being worried about anything and everything, and she had known why.

In Mishti, she always saw the ever so visible shadow of Akshara.

And the fact that Mishti was bewitched with her Taiji, so much so that she would listen more to Akshara than her mother, so much so that the little girl would miss Akshara so much more than everyone else, painfully so and probably them being Akshara's family was the reason Mishti had accepted them all so whole heartedly - Rajshree and Visambhar both have known it, had made Rajshree a little more attached to Mishti than she was to any of her other children.

But today as she stood by the pillar of the temple she religiously visited, her eyes focused on his tall figure sitting on the opposite pillar, his knees drawn to his chest and his eyes focused on the holy idol of his partner, but a forlorn look clouding them, Rajshree realised there was no body more like her Akshara then Abir, her heera.

No matter how much Akshara had done for her family, she had been on the receiving end of heartache a bit too many times. Even though the Singhaniyas were good people, and she could not have asked for a better husband for her daughter than Naitik,  she still couldn't deny that time and again, her very loved ones had caused Akshara immense pain.

Abir's fate seemed like the worse version of Akshara to her, for Akshara still had the support she needed in someone or the else at every point, but Abir had been left alone to deal with the weight he had been carrying around, simply because he didn't bother to complain, or maybe because no body paid enough attention to him to notice how he had been crumbling on the insides.

Nobody but Mishti, Rajshree sighed at the thought, nobody understood him like Mishti did - and now she could clearly see the devastation Mishti's absence in the last few months had caused Abir. She cursed herself too, for she had met him every week religiously, at this very temple, and yet failed to see through him.

The vibration of her phone broke her chain of thoughts and she hurriedly picked it up.

"Yes....Yes come up, I am inside", she spoke into the phone and a few minutes later watched Mishti run up the stairs. She was panting by the time she reached her Badi Maa, but her eyes didn't stop at her at all, she immediately began to scan through the temple to find that one person she had been restless to see since morning.

Rajshree saw the case Mishti was tightly clasping in one hand over what seemed a red coloured diary, and took a step forward to pat her shoulder. Mishti tore her gaze from Abir and looked at her Badi Maa, her eyes filling immediately. Rajshree shook her head and lovingly gestured her to go ahead.

"Talk and take whatever time you need, but I am taking both my children home by the end of this", she stated in a firm tone and Mishti found herself nodding tearfully yet happy.

Walking to the side Abir was sitting, Mishti kneeled down beside him and kept one hand on his shoulder. Abir simply tilted his head, not at all surprised.