The Empty Lanes...( Part-1)

When Akshata went to school to pick up her kiddo Nicky, she saw various parents bestowing avalanches of love on their kids and helicoptering over them to overprotect and pamper the little ones, she asked herself, why had she been rejected by her family as if she was some unwanted garbage making their home dirty.

" No, correction!!", she interrupted her chain of thoughts," When had it been home? It was a house, rather houses( various government quarters) at different places of postings of her parents, with both of them acting like two knights ever ready for combat."

Her parents were done with her, just after she passed kindergarten by sending her to a highly appreciated boarding school about which they could boast about as a status symbol in their social circle.

She used to be sent home by the hostel authorities in the two months of summer vacations. But by the time she entered secondary school, she had decided that the lonely corridors of the hostel during the long vacations seemed less empty and claustrophobic than the place called home.

Her parents had decided that enough was enough after her birth. But God had other plans and along came the 'Chirag'( lamp) of the house, Rishi accidentally as family planning methods and abortions were not so easy and legalized in those days.

Rishi had become a spoilt brat with an abundance of money and the virtual absence of the elders in his life. But their parents went on idolizing him as the next ' man of the house', while they wanted to dispose of Akshata for good, by marriage, as soon as possible,

even though she was a good student and wanted to carry on her studies.

Then came Ankur, again a ' Laadla'(favorite) of another rich family chosen by her parents for her. She had expected love and appreciation from her husband but he was drenched in power and family drama that he didn't understand her worth, as hard she tried to please him and his family members, struggling to perform cooking and other household chores perfectly, with her much-inexperienced hands.

In her mother in law's eyes, Akshata was the biggest mistake she had ever committed, oblivious to cooking, rituals, and all virtues expected from a daughter in law, always submerged in her books, having no time to take part in the jealous, critical, hateful gossips against anyone and everyone. And Akshata was also considered as her biggest rival to snatch away her beloved son from her lap.

With little Nicky's arrival, her heart sang with joy, but her mother in law made a sour face and left. By God's grace, Ankur proved to be a doting father, though he never cared to

appreciate Akshata's motherly qualities also.

When Akshata saw Ankur cuddling their firstborn, she sighed," I'm also someone's firstborn...why can't anybody find anything in me to appreciate? Am I that unwanted and useless? Why did they name me ' Akshata' meaning ' not wounded', when I have to bear this raw, painful, bleeding wound of being made to feel like a burden for everyone, for my lifetime???"

( To be continued....)

P.S- Please read the next concluding part to know what happens to her ever painful scars.