This short story is participating in Write Story from Picture India 2012 – Short Story Writing Competition.
WSPI-2012-02
Photo credit: Nevit Dilmen
JANUARY 2011
What a wonderful night it was! It was my fifth birthday. I am five months old now! Unlike humans, we drops count our age in months. Life has been a learning experience till now on Himalayas.
I was two month old when this devil Sun made me leave my pond in Delhi. I was born as a dew drop on a pond lotus. It was a hot day and I was expecting new friends in the pond from the showers but destiny had something else in store for me. I fainted and when my senses came back, I was in a cloud with strangers. Sooner after traveling kilometers, I precipitated on the Himalayas. I don’t know my exact location but the river flowing nearby gives me a feeling that I am stuck at Gangotari glacier.
Sometimes I hear songs from the temple down the slope which reminds me of the songs coming from the shrine near my ancestral pond in Delhi. I like these songs but I am a practising atheist for religion is for acidic drops.
MARCH 2011
Months have passed kissing these wicked winds. These winds are never at rest, always in a hurry to reach somewhere. No time to introspect, no time to celebrate, just work and work. Earlier I used to dislike them but now I want to be like them, independent, free to pursue anything unlike me. I feel so bored here, nothing to do.
I wish I could live in a water park and enjoy my life to fullest. But life would be too materialistic, then as some elders here say. I think I have become little spiritual and theist now. Despair makes one, I think so.
First week of APRIL 2011
The Sun has done it again. With onset of April, there has been a continuous exodus from the glacier through the streams. Everyone is worried about their fate but I. Life would certainly be better than here in the river.
Mid APRIL 2011
In the second week, I also bade my goodbye to this abode of snow. I am in a river now and the life is colourful again. Some wise folk have told me that we would be pampered a lot when we reach Haridwar, the holy city for the Hindus. I am so excited to witness that.
JUNE 2011
My dreams have been thrashed and it has been over a month that I am stuck with these stinking algae and annoying fishes in reservoir of some dam. I spend half of my day praying to God and the other half cursing my destiny. I was enjoying my life and suddenly a bang! The gates went down and life came to a halt.
Mid JUNE 2011
Life has become charged up again since I have started hanging around with Amrita. She is the most beautiful lady drop I have ever seen in my life. No one understands me better than her. I want to propose to her but cease any action thinking will she accept my love.
She is of noble origin. She joined us when some human kids dropped a mineral water bottle in the reservoir. I usually regard humans as stupid but I am grateful to them now. I have even forgiven them for the dam.
AUGUST 2011
It is the most beautiful phase of my life. It has been weeks since the gates were opened and I and my love were set free to enjoy and share our lives with each other.
I would never forget the beautiful evening we spent together at the Ghats of Haridwar. The evening prayers and the holy flame were totally exquisite.
But whenever I used to see families taking their holy dip in the water, it used to remind me of my ancestral pond. Its images used to flash in my mind. Wish I could be there again, with my kin, my old neighbours and the lotuses.
OCTOBER 2011
Miracles do happen! My faith in God is firm now. After slipping into the canal, we had accepted our deaths by being diverted to some sugarcane farm. As we were just to enter a farm near Meerut, a young Delhite filled us in his bottle. Perhaps he still considered us holy as we were coming from the city of Haridwar and must be taking us home at behest of some elder at his home.
Sometimes I wonder if these humans really consider us holy then why do they enjoying polluting our habitat.
Mid OCTOBER 2011
Alas we could not reach that careless fellow’s home. How could he leave us behind in a garage? As we were just to reach his home, as it appeared from his relaxed facial expressions, his vehicle witnessed some problem and he turned for a garage.
I was still basking in the thoughts of a regal treatment at his home’s temple when Amrita woke me up to ask what was happening. Sooner I realised that he forgot us in this dark and ugly place. This pace is full of oil and acids, both tribes I do not like for their thinking.
One thing I like about this place is the songs I hear every evening. They sound like the music that used to fill the air around my pond. Listening to them cheers me up and Amrita is totally clueless about what amuses me. She certainly does not like this place but she has never complained unlike me.
NOVEMBER 2011
The music that I used hear in the garage were from the very shrine near my pond. I came to know about this when the garage owner decided to pour us in a nearby pond. It was sheer luck that he did not decide to throw us in some drain.
He took us out in the basket of his scooter and I could recognize the green building of the shrine in the first sight. And what I saw next was the most blissful moment of my life. The pond he had decided to pour us into was my pond, my home.
I held her hands tight as he opened the cap of the bottle. I also welcomed our companions in the bottle with whom I had shared time in the garage discussing about topics ranging from dams to rains.
After reaching the pond, I met my kin and recollected old memories. Amrita is also very happy now. I feel nostalgic, I want to cry but tears would not come out as I am myself a drop.
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