is it spicy? is it sweet? is it bitter or sour? what is the taste of life?

The car was going at a pace of about 80. She was literally racing against the wind. She didn't care. She didn't care that the rain was pouring heavily, she didn't care that visibility was almost nil, she just wanted to keep driving. She wanted run away from everything. She was angry with him.

10 years earlier, when they had made their marriage vows, life was so much easier. They had tried to spend every single minute possible together. But now somehow things had changed. He needed more space... yeah that's what he had told her "You can't keep clinging on to me. I need some space of my own". That had hurt. she had not meant to be so nagging. All that she had ever wanted was to spend time with him but for the past few years, after all the promotions at work, he could never make enough time for home.

Things had reached to a point where just seeing her gloomy face every single day was irritating for him. He just did not want to come home. Everything around her seemed to fall down and shatter into a thousand different pieces that couldn't be put back together, she was drifting deep down into a deep abyss... she wanted to run away from it all....

She had reached her grandpa's place when the car screeched into a halt. Her grandpa came out with a huge stick and torch He was not used to late night visitors.

"What are you doing here at this hour in the night?"asked the old man. "don't ask me thatha. just wanna stay here for a few days", said Anita. "Ofcourse! first change your clothes and sleep... we can talk in the morning". His voice was so feeble and weak and yet it had the extraordinary strength of soothing all that she was suffering from. It had been over a decade since her grandmother passed away. That old man was living there all by himself. the whole family had tried to make him sell the place and live with them. He wouldn't budge. There was something about him that made her go to him every time she had faced problems in life

Ever since she was a little kid, he could make her smile. Even during those times when she used fall down ever so often and had to go to the doctor to get a tetanus injection, she needed her grandpa's hands to hold on to. He had taught her to read books, he had taught her the length and breadth of music or rather the absence of a boundary to it. She had had the best of times just going for an evening walk with him. They would discuss anything under the sun. Anything from bhel puri to Einstein's theory of relativity.

She was there for almost a week now. She was not answering calls. She was not even stepping out of the house. She wanted to break herself away from everything. The only thing her old man was worried about was the fact that she had just stopped talking. The girl who was pretty much the life of their family, who could speak volumes ever since she was just five had just stopped talking, had stopped expressing herself.

They were walking along familiar roads in the evening around 6.30. she could feel the cool breeze just blowing her away. There was a chat stall around there. "lets have pani puri!" said Anita with a childlike excitement in her voice. "You have it! lakshmi would never approve of it!"

"thatha! its been so long since lakshmi paatti passed away. how come you are still living in this house? arent you feeling lonely? why dont you come and live with us?" asked Anita while they were having a quiet dinner

"She is here! she may not be physically present but i have never felt her absence. Sometimes it dosent matter if the people whom you love are with you or miles away from you. You just know they care. " It made an ocean of sense. May be she had been wrong after all. Somehow she had never put herself in his shoes.

"Sometimes in life we all make mistakes! don be so angry with everything.", he just had one sip of the rasam and quipped "you know what, your paati always used to put more chilli powder in the rasam than was required... and now I really miss it. It dosent taste the same anymore"