I looked at the calender on my table.
Pushing the sheets aside, my feet touched the cold floor.

After cleaning up myself ,
I wore a crisp black suit. Keeping phone in my vest pocket , I took the briefcase while going out of my room.

I was about to step out and when I heard my mother calling me.
" Arjun,
have your break fast and leave "
she said arranging a plate for me.

" no maa ,
I don't have time now.
I'll have it in the office " I said kissing her lightly wrinkled forehead and went out of the mansion.
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As soon as my car stopped in an alley, the driver stepped out and guarded behind the car.

I changed into a set of clothes and stepped out of the car.....
feeling the cold breeze ,
I shrugged and covered myself with a  brown shawl.

I walked along the foot path in the deserted street while reminiscing the past......
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Third person POV :

Anita and Veer saw their son leaving again with an empty stomach. They came to know that from past one month , he wasn't having his breakfast and lunch in his office....
And neither was he having his dinner along with them.....
he leaves early in the morning and come backs late at night.....

As soon as their son left, Veer and Anita quickly got in their car following behind their son's car.....
while maintaining a distance....

As soon as they reached a deserted street, their son's car stopped.
After a few minutes, a man stepped out of the car and started walking away...

Veer and Anita immediately got out of the car and went near the driver who was standing near the car.

The gaurd was shocked seeing them and bowed infront of them paying his respect....
" where is arjun? " Anita asked unable to contain herself.....

" boss has left " the driver said looking down..

" the one who stepped out now? " veer asked perplexed.....

" yes master " the driver said and Anita was shocked knowing that he was her arjun...she didn't want to believe it....but there was no one other than him and the driver in the car....

" where to? " veer asked and the gaurd said that he dosen't know as no one was allowed to follow him....not even the secret gaurds who usually keep a tab around his surroundings... He ordered his men to do so....

Knowing his, Anita and veer quickly started walking in the direction in which their son left....
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They kept on looking for him and they couldn't find him any where... The worry for him marred on their faces thinking of all the possibilities of something happening to him....

He is alone !
This is risky for his life...
There are many waiting for such an opportunity to harm him....
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After walking a km ,
they were more tensed for their son as they still couldn't find him....
Veer was about to call his men but stopped as soon as he felt a tug on his arm.

He saw his wife grabbing his sleeve tightly while looking some where else....
She covered her mouth with her other hand, muffling her sobs....and tears dwelling out of her eyes....

Veer followed her gaze and he was shocked for a second. His heart broke seeing his son in front of the temple in muddy clothes and a torn shawl covering his head and shoulders.....

There is a bowl infront of him and he was sitting there quitely on the steps looking up into the sky while few people were putting coins in their bowls....

Which parent would bear to see their child like that?  Once living like a king is now on streets like a beggar....
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Staring at the blue sky
With heaviness in his heart.....
Even though it has been long since she left....
But the pain never leaves him....
And he dosen't want it to leave him...
Maybe because this was the only thing he can feel....of her......

Every 3 months in an year,
He sits in infront of temple with a bowl in front of him....
Filled with
Emptiness
Loneliness
Regret
Guilt
Are the only ones which accompany him.... Since that day.....

When she left him before
He had a hope
That she was there some where
That she is some where breathing

But seeing her burning infront of his eyes,
That hope too burnt along with her...
Vanishing into thin flames....
She was his hope...
His new found meaning to his life.....
Which is no more....

Not even ones did he enter the temple infront of which he is sitting and begging....
Even god won't pardon him from his sins... He knew that....
And he didn't want to be pardoned....

His life became meaningless....
An empty shell....
Numbness filling him up....

The sounds of metal clanking got him out of his thoughts . He looked at an old woman who left behind a coin in his plate.

' Maybe I'm still selfish.......
Because, every time a coin hits my plate, it gets me out of my revere of thoughts of her....'

He leaned back on to the wall adjacent to the steps and drifted off into his own world of grief....

He only eats the food that people leave behind in his plate....
Sometimes it's a coconut or banana...
Sometimes it's Prasad from the pandit.
Most of the days he is on empty stomach.....

' This was how I treated her right?
Threw a morsel of rice on the floor and made her eat with her mouth...
She should have been hungry...she has a big stomach....'
He smiled remembering how she used to stuff food in her mouth when they used to eat together , while a lone tear escape his eye and a painful lump formed in his throat remembering it....
He can't forget anything related to her....
her happiness
her pain....
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After sitting under the blazing sun with torn clothes and muddy face, his parched lips pained and his bare foot had blisters.....
he collected the few coins in his bowl. He counted them which summed up to 27rupees, he bought a biscuit packet for those 2 kids who were sitting infront of the temple opposite to him...
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His parents were still standing there far away from him and watching their son who is begging on the temple steps....

Their tears didn't stop.....
this was the first time Veer Singh rajput has ever let down a tear....
seeing his son who was his pride,
is now mourning over his mistakes by spreading his hands infront of people....

By seeing him all along,
They knew that he is not seeking for forgiveness in front of the god....
But rather punishing himself by reliving his past.....
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It was 4 in the evening.....
As soon as they saw their son leaving , they followed behind him and saw him getting in his car....

Veer messaged the driver to not to inform arjun about them .

As soon as they sat in their car, Anita let out a painful cry from her mouth seeing her son like that....
Never had she expected to see her son like that... She cried more thinking that he has been doing it since one month as he didn't have his food in the house....and realized that since lakshmi left, almost 3 months of every year he wasn't home.....
Her heart was breaking more and another painful mourn left her mouth....

Veer sat still in front of the steering wheel seeing his wife but didn't dare to make a move to console her.... He didn't even know how to console himself...
How can he console the mother of his child? When he himself can't bear it...

After sometime, he held her hand and pressed it lightly.
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It was night when Arjun has returned to his home. He smiled at his mother and then nodded to his father while going back to his room....
As if nothing has happened , as if evrything is fine....

This ached the hearts of those parents who are watching him silently.... Anita knew that her son  hasn't eaten anything except for a banana which was put in his bowl by a lady....

She wiped her tears and quickly went to the dining table, served all the dishes in a plate hurriedly with a fear that her son might not be able to bear hunger.....
She was about to take a plate to his room but was stopped by Veer.
" he won't " he said looking at his wife's painful eyes....

" h....he must be hungry
He hasn't eaten anything...
How can he bear it?
His health will spoil...
Let me talk to him, I will not allow him to do this to himself " Anita said choking on her own tears , while tears again rolled down her cheeks... It hasn't even been a couple of minutes she stopped and she started crying again remembering the morning....

" he has set his mind Anita
Only he can ease himself " veer said wiping those tears from her cheeks...

" but she has passed away!
Why can't he get over that ?
I can't even imagine how terrible he was when we found him in hospital...
He was paralyzed for a month with shock veer! He wasn't even able to get over her.....

We had been with him all the time trying to make him forget his past.....
Those nightmares he had at night,
Those days when he isolated himself from everything....he became mentally ill!!  I can still remember how he used to sit for days in a corner in the cold dark room while looking at the ceiling....
I can never forget it...

Finally when I thought that he has moved on,
he is sitting on temple steps and begging?

For what?
Begging for what!!
Will he get her back?
If he beg
Will god give her back to him?

Does he not care about us? How much it's hurting us to see him like that...
Why can't he cry infront of us?
Why is he still smiling infront of us and hiding himself from us ?
Did he think that his parents are dead? " Anita started speaking out her mind....she didn't know what she was talking.....she was letting out her pain.....a pain she has been hiding since the moment she saw him on the hospital bed with burns....

It had been very hard on her seeing her son on the hospital bed after knowing about the blast.....in which her daughter in law was burnt infront of her son.... She couldn't even fathom the grief and pain her son might have underwent.....because she saw her son working sleepless nights to find her....

Seeing his blank orbs everyday in his room while taking care him scared her.... She prayed to all the gods to give her son back to her.....

Though she knows that her daughter in law was treated cruelly, she can't let her son succumb into his shell of grief and lose himself....
She is a mother after all....
And no mother would want this.....
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Arjun is staring at the ceiling while imagining her.....
how she used to cuddle with him in sleep....
Her thoughts never left him in these past 4 years....

A lone tear escaped his eye as he remembered that not even her ashes were retrieved from the site.... As the floor collapsed and with the dust,
it flew away....

" you must have hate me so much that you didn't even want me to touch your ashes..... " he asked looking at the ceiling....

Maybe he wouldn't have let those ashes of her leave him....

He turned around as soon as he smelt her jasmine scent....
There she is.... smiling at him while lying in the bed on her right side....
A small red bindi in between her eyebrows and black khol adoring her doe like eyes....

The slow breeze from the balcony behind her let those loose strands fall on her face....
shining under the moon light.....
with a smile on her face while laying on her right hand....
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" what happened? " she asked him softly and he looked at her concerned orbs....with a lump forming in his throat and tears brimming in the corner of his eyes....
Before he can touch her, she disappeared....in the dark room....

" why didn't you listen to me!?
I wanted to talk to you!!
please
Come back
c.....come back... " his voice cracked in the end while a painful cry left his mouth and a lone tear escaped from those orbs.....

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She flew away

Along with the breeze

In the night sky

Under the moon

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