The distance to her house was not more than fifteen minutes, but within that time all the distinct and old moments of her life started rushing to her mind. There were some memories of childhood which could not be forgotten as they had been captured by Yusuf in photographs. There were six albums that she used to browse through occasionally. Her school days were still fresh in her mind. The occasion of her sisters’ weddings appeared and vanished. Yusuf and Darakhshan danced in white and wheatish shades in one dark corner of her heart. Darakhshan seemed to have turned into a dead body while numerous colours shadowed Yusuf’s face. Yusuf’s face was in front of her eyes for a longer time. Yusuf had a smile on his lips, but he was unaware that Darakhshan was not alive any more. She kept looking at both her parents and realized that her mother’s death had not created any ripples or chaos in her heart. Neither was she grief-stricken nor had sorrow touched her. In a nutshell, the changing of Darakhshan’s existence into non-existence was not a painful event for her. In fact, it was the bright colours around Yusuf’s face and the smile on his lips that carried a lot of meaning and attraction for her. She compared the two of them for a long time. From the termite-ridden gloomy chamber of her heart rose a thought that slipped through her mouth, ‘Life is so much more attractive than death.’

She repeated this over and over again.

That line carried with it some kind of unusual strength. She felt that strength in her nerves and power in her heart. A zeal to make her life more meaningful took shape within her. For the past few years, the sorrow of Darakhshan had been making her ill. In retrospect, she asked herself why she had started crying the moment she sat in the taxi. Why did tears flow down her eyes so bitterly? Which spot was so evident and old on the pages of her heart that was eating away her soul like a pest? She also tried asking herself why she was questioning herself so much. Since when had she been doing it? Did she have answers to these questions? She was engrossed in those thoughts. After some time she thought, ‘It is better to enjoy the “self” than to suppress or kill it.’ On the other hand, she had seen a new meaning in the rejuvenation of Yusuf’s life and the free-flowing life of Vidhi.