She appeared in my dreams the night before....Draped in pink and brimming with life...

It was a usual evening....and I was relieved awfully to see her home....like I had always been...

Being late from work was one of mumma's old habits that she didn't quite mend....I'd fret always, believing she must have died in some accident...and that I'd have to shift to "His" place, therefore.....this fear was such monumental, people sometimes suggested I saw the councillor....

But when mumma was home, I'd be back to my cheerful self....of-course, only after having fought with her and shouted at her..

I quarrel with her this time, too....in the dream... where she dazzles in pink...

"This isn't done.....Do you have any idea how I had been.....ever cared to know? and don't give those excuses.....it's 23 years of them now..."

"And where exactly had you been to.....what so important?"

"Well....well....I just went for a break....on a spiritual voyage kind of....don't you recall.....how frail I had become? And now look, I'm so agile and gay ....and replete with energy, too!" she explains.

I look at her.. Keenly...she's right....the dress, and the elan with which she wears it.... her calm face and the radiance that emits from it- all are testimony she merited the break..

I nudge approvingly: "Bhaalo Laagchho (Looking pretty)"

but before she could beam a smile, memory whispers truth to my mind..

"You were dead....Yes, you were dead....We cremated you....How...How on earth is this possible..."

"Was all that a dream....a horrid dream, that thankfully now has passed?"

"No...not a dream...we have had the Shraddha, too.....people were there....I was there....all my friends were there, too."

"Mumma, how have you come back, how on earth?"

"And what do we do now....Oh....it's all mercy of the Goddess...she's being kind to me....thanks Goddess, thanks....But, mumma, what would we explain to people...what would we tell them?"

She stops me.....and holds my face gently between her hands: "Fear not." "When I'm around, you needn't do anything... I'm here to settle your worries."

I hold her hands, too....but, perhaps unwilling to believe, I craft a plan: Yes, we needn't worry....How on earth can anybody prove you were cremated....the pictures, the cards, the videos, the death certificate- everything is with us...And I'd destroy them all...."

"And, live happily ever after..............like in Grimm brothers......"
It's a rainbow of smiles in the moonlit night!

XXX

I'm awakened by my brother, who has come to tell me how mumma had appeared in his dreams...

XXX

I tell him I saw her, too......the same night....around the same time (before daybreak...!)

XXX

Was mumma telling me that she's fine.....and has recouped from all illness?

The glow in her face justified she is!

XXX