"If, If, If....."

"So many unwanted things accumulated over all these years... I need a dust mask to get out of this place alive. You could give me a hand you know! instead of staring at me and smiling while I struggle to handle this absolutely unimportant worldly load of crap", cribbed Rahul as he had been doing for almost an hour now.

Rahul and Sonia were shifting apartments to make room for the arrival of their life's most awaited responsibility.

"Dont you crib! all this crap belongs to you. You and your practice of never giving away anything that has dust and mites in it...clinging on to your LKG books and 1st standard report card as if they were some kind of Pirates' treasure. We cannot even proudly show them to arpita coz you have not even made an "A" in them", quipped Sonia after cautiously casting away the report card on their couch.

"I don't like the name arpita... We should call her Priya"

"That is so old fashioned" cried Sonia and threw a couch cushion at him.

and lo! there had started the most important fight that they have been having for the past 6 months now... the name for their baby girl

Amidst all this wrestling with baby names, his hands came across a small plastic bag buried among some old debris in the topmost shelf. Time, had showered upon it a feel of ancient antiquity. He blew the dust away and slowly opened it. His hands froze, his eyes were locked upon its contents....

He remembered how he had acquired each and every one them .... even after all these years he could remember vividly how for the very first time in his life he had mustered enough courage to go and talk to a girl. He had always been in a boys school and the transition to college was something he never knew how to cross. She had been his first friend who was a girl. She had held his hand during every single occasion he had felt low or depressed... She had been the one face he had almost broken his neck for by craning it in every possible angle so that he could see her better during college class hours.

Every single thing in the packet had once been very dear to him, a paper that they had used while playing "Hollywood" with a couple of country names scribbled upon them, the wrapper of a chocolate that she had given him during her birthday, a 2 inches long pencil that she used to term as her lucky pencil, a graph paper that she had drawn for his physics practical assignment, an old rusted keychain with the letter P etched on it which she had got for him as a birthday gift and a 'letter'... A letter that Priya had written to him right after their last fight... he did not even remember the reason anymore... He was still in a state of daze where he couldn't figure out what was reality and what wasn't. He couldn't help thinking "if, if, if, if only!"...

"if- a two lettered word for futility"!! how true the sentence seemed now!

"Hey i have made some pakodas and coffee for the guy who has worked so hard all morning and whose report card i can never show to any of my kids", said Sonia with a beaming smile.

May be it was her eyes or may be it was her pakodas... somehow the packet did not matter to him anymore. He realized that what he had was probably much more than he had ever deserved. He did not have to cling on to his past to find a foothold in the present ever again.

"You know I have actually started to like the name arpita", said Rahul.

"Finally we agree on something!", exclaimed Sonia with a question in her eyes... which had every probability of remaining unanswered.




P.S: "if- a two lettered word for futility" is quoted by Sydney Sheldon in the novel "If tomorrow comes".