Broken Wheel Of A Suitcase

It was a beautiful morning with a ray of rosy sunshine starting to kiss the pretty little balcony. Ragini woke from her deep peaceful sleep, sat on the bed and quickly rang the reception for a hot cup of tea. Melodious ripples of Reuss and the warm bright sun rays beckoned her to the balcony while cosy blankets and soft warm bed didn’t let her walk away. When the tea arrived, she finally got up from the bed and went to the balcony. The joy of eternal sunshine during chilled weather, holding a hot aromatic tea with divine beauty of a quaint little Swiss town in front of your eyes is nothing less than a fantasy World.

A tiny little girl resembling a Japanese Barbie doll was running zigzag across the Chapel Bridge. Extremely pretty mother of the child with a milky white face, shinning long straight hair, average height, and a well-toned figure was struggling hard to cope with the speed of her energetic little doll. Keeping a safe distance, a happy faced, young father was trying to get a candid capture of this precious moment. The mother of the three-year-old kid looked not a year more than seventeen. Ragini sighed and wondered if all the Chinese, Japanese and Korean women get to drink the fountain of youth. She got nostalgic about her engineering hostel days’ memories. Those were the days she loved bunking classes and traded the boring classes for classic Korean movies. She quietly dreamt of having similar radiant milky-white faces and long shiny straight hair like the ever young heroines of the movies. She can’t even recollect the uncountable crushes she had on the cute and charming heroes. Ragini quietly chuckled while gulping her last sip of tea.

Today was her last day in this angelic small Swiss town. She has to be ready in an hour to leave for the train station. It was a mixed feeling. She looked at the tiny little suitcase which was lying open on the floor with her cloths scattered around. Her heart was heavy and overwhelming. She definitely felt sad to leave this beautiful country while a strange excitement lingered somewhere in her other corner of the heart thinking about her other dream destination, Paris. She cannot stop smiling thinking about the lit Eifel tower which she plans to visit in the evening.

Ragini had taken an entire week to come to terms that she finally broke herself free from everyone and everything. She had literally grabbed the small suitcase in the corner of the living room and just hurled away from that big colorful Bungalow which was nothing less than a fancy prison for her with all the luxurious amenities. She crashed at her best friend’s house for a week and finally fled to Europe to have the dream trip of her life. She was at bliss, solo for the first time in her life, liberated and full of pride in her sparkling eyes. She tried to think about her children, her loving but over-controlling husband, her extremely formal in-laws who otherwise claim her to be “like a daughter”, the extended family whose entire world revolved around her, the facade she had to maintain of being happily married to a rich family and of course her well educated and over-protective parents who decided themselves without consulting her that her degree was only to hunt a rich groom with good family.

After a blissful European train journey from Zurich to Paris, Ragini was exhilarated to get down at Gare de Lyon. She walked away from the station and looked up. A huge pile of dark grey clouds smiled back at her. The busy people, hustle and bustle of the city of love, the cloud, the melodious music playing somewhere far in the station, independent and confident looking girls in different shapes and sizes, she instantly fell in deep love with the city of her dreams. Before she could even realise, cold tiny droplets of drizzle sluiced down her face. The reflex made her rub her face, lift the suitcase and run towards the metro station to catch a train for Gare du Nord. When she reached, a train was just hauling gradually to leave the station.

Without any second thoughts, she grabbed the suitcase firmly and jumped onto the train. A few elder French ladies in the compartment gave her a strange stare and murmured something amongst them. It sounded harsh but nevertheless, Ragini decided to act an innocent angel and greeted the ladies with her sweetest smile. She found herself a window seat, settled down and looked outside completely mesmerised. Within ten minutes, drizzle converted into romantic light showers and the light showers turned into heavy rain. After half an hour, fortunately, the rain was again converted to light drizzle when it halted at Gare du Nord. She always dreamt of alighting alone from the train in some super busy metro station of Paris and walk endlessly on the cobblestone road of the enchanting city. She grabbed her suitcase again to save it from the huge crowd and lifted it till she reached the road. Alas! Within five minutes on the road, there came a big strange breaking sound. Before she could comprehend anything, the front wheel of the tiny suitcase broke with a thud sound!

…..Knock knock knock

Ragini woke up due to a loud knock at her door and sat on the bed in trance state. She stared at her husband sleeping beside her who is still in deep sleep. It was already 7 AM and the maid was knocking at the door with full force. She jumped on the bed, struggling to fight the jet lag from her recent family trip to Europe. Only an hour left for her to prepare breakfast for the family and pack lunch for her children and husband. The family is also expecting some guests today and everyone expects her to assist the maid to deep clean the house and prepare the special dinner. She jumped out of her bed, opened the door, ran to the bathroom like a Ninja, freshened up, decked herself up, ran outside to the humongous kitchen of the fancy bungalow and quickly dragged herself back to the Real World from the fantasy World of dreams.