The mother attempted a smile, but it faltered, fragile and unconvincing. "You know how it frightens me," she said softly, " when you fall into these silences."That night, sleep would evade her once more. All the old memories had resurfaced, sharp as shards of glass.
She continued, her voice laced with quiet anguish, "I am truly afraid, son, whenever you withdraw like this without warning. Your silence pierces me to the bone and leaves me trembling."
She feared the night ahead, knowing the old wounds would reopen—those scattered fragments of childhood, the tangled memories of Rani and the others—haunting her mind and heart.
Sometimes silence stings more cruelly than any words. She felt its sting now, deep and unrelenting. "All I want, Bittu," she pleaded, "is that when the world grows too heavy on your shoulders, you do not retreat into yourself. Speak, even if only a few words.. Tell me what burdens your heart?
As your mother, this silence of yours torments me beyond endurance."
She paused, then added gently, "As long as you remain entangled in the ghosts of the past, you will never learn to live in the present.
Why torment yourself over someone who has vanished without a trace?
Turn your thoughts instead to those who are still here—your own people, and yourself.""Life stands before you, smiling," she whispered. "Rise and greet it with joy."
The mother went on, her voice steady yet heavy with remembered pain. "People spoke of it in hushed tones, but never in front of you. No one dared mention Rani's family when you were near."
She drew a long, deep breath. Arjun's voice cut through the quiet. "Why not?"
"Because you were consumed by a kind of madness for her," his mother replied. "You would have done anything—everything—for Rani. Everyone was afraid of what you might do."
She continued, recounting what she had heard. "After they left here, they lived for a year or two as tenants in a rented house in Chandan Nagar. Then they disappeared. No one knew where they went.
People say that during Puranmasi, Chaman Lal Das took his family to Baba Vishwanath's temple in Kashi for darshan. While bathing, Rani was swept away by the river's fierce current. No one could save her. Ever since Baba had thrown her into the water as a child, she had been terrified of even dipping her feet in. She never learned to swim. Perhaps drowning was written in her fate by the gods themselves."
In Banaras, her father had finally fulfilled his dark intention and rid himself of Rani forever. He had cast her into the swollen floodwaters, and no one suspected a thing. Not a whisper of doubt had arisen.
"Today at the ghat, I met that lady from the red mansion—the one they used to call Kaki," the mother said.
"She told me all this. She asked for my phone number, so I gave her yours. They had rented from her family back then."
"Maa, that is my number," Arjun snapped, irritation flashing across his face. "It is not prasad from Satyanarayan Bhagwan that you can distribute to anyone you please."
His mother sighed. "I had always believed Ganga Maiya had returned her to us as a blessing, that she must have been kept safe. But it seems that was not to be.
Perhaps the goddess simply gathered Rani into her arms at last. After all, they say that from Manikarnika Ghat to Tulsi Ghat, for a kilometre and a half, the Ganga flows backwards."
That dangerous man had succeeded. He had taken her to Banaras and freed himself of her once and for all.
Arjun's voice was low, almost broken. "Maa, what father can become the enemy of his own daughter?
What threat could Rani have possibly posed to him?"
His mother looked at him with sorrowful eyes. "Rani was not his biological daughter. To adopt another man's child, to raise her, to let the world call him her father—it was never easy for that man. It was not merely a burden of responsibility. It was the daily weight upon a heart that had to keep convincing itself that some bonds could exist beyond blood."
He had never truly accepted her as his own. Year after year, he had sought new ways to be rid of her.
For Arjun, these words were a mirror reflecting a bitter truth he could see clearly yet refused to accept. He wrestled with them, desperately trying to deny what he already knew in his bones."She is not dead," he whispered. Even now, a sliver of doubt lingered. His heart was simply not ready to believe it.
He rose and walked to the window. Below, the streetlight cast a pale yellow glow on the empty road. He stood there for several minutes, lost in thought.
Suddenly he turned. In a quiet voice he asked, "Maa, do you remember that fair?
The one where Rani suddenly vanished into the crowd?
I searched for her for what felt like hours. Every step was suffocating, as if my breath itself had caught in my throat. That was the first time I truly understood the terror of losing someone you love.
And perhaps, that was the day the first stirrings of a different feeling awakened in my heart for her."He fell silent for a moment, eyes fixed on the floor. "
It is strange, Maa. The ones we hold dearest are the ones who slip away the farthest. As if the gods test us at every turn.
Why does it happen like this?
The person your heart desires most leaves you at the very bend in the road, before the journey is even complete."His mother gazed at him with eyes brimming with compassion—the accumulated wisdom, pain, and tenderness of years.
She knew her Bittu was passing through an unbearable torment. His heart still trembled at the threshold of acceptance.
*According to legend, when the Ganga descended from heaven to earth, her current was so fierce that she swept away the seat and kamandal of Lord Dattatreya, who was meditating at the ghats of Varanasi. To return his belongings and beg his forgiveness, the river flows backwards for a kilometre and a half in Kashi before resuming her normal course.Though the Ganga generally flows from south to north, in Kashi she curves like a bow, turning eastward. This creates a whirlpool-like effect between Manikarnika and Tulsi Ghats, where the sacred river appears to flow in reverse.
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