Lying on the bed, Neera was looking intently at the rotating blades of the ceiling fan, with which the wheel of time seemed to have gone back many years.
While thinking, the pages of Neera's book of memories started opening one by one. The ink of time may have faded, but the marks of the words were still there. She remembered that she had got married at the age of sixteen. Her husband, Rajiv, was also two years older than her - carefree, happy and carefree. Her father, Suresh ji, was managing the family's ancestral business, so Rajiv Babu's day would be spent circling around his new bride. Amma would bless her son and daughter-in-law, and would ward off the evil eye from Neera every day.
Neera would also sit with Amma, peeling mangoes or picking rice. She would look at Rajiv from behind her veil, and her mischievous eyes would pierce through Rajiv's heart. Amma would ignore their lovemaking. Rajiv had bought an expensive motorcycle before marriage. Suresh ji had also said that he should buy a car, it would be comfortable when the daughter-in-law comes, but Rajiv's dream was that his daughter-in-law would hold his waist and sit behind him on the bike and he would take her on a long drive.
One year passed while drowning in the ocean of love and Neera became the mother of a son. For nine months, Suresh ji, his wife and Rajiv did not let Neera set foot on the ground. Amma gave her Naulakha necklace to Neera in the joy of having a grandson. Neera was afraid of seeing it lest someone cast an evil eye on her.
On the sixth day of the son's birth, Rajiv told her to wear the Naulakha necklace, but Neera could not wear it due to her ill health. Preparations were being made with great pomp for the son's first birthday, and Neera was decorated in a beautiful red Banarasi saree. When Rajiv saw her, he just kept looking at her. He said, "I can't wait any longer, I just want to see you wearing Amma's Naulakha necklace," and in a minute he took his bike and went to get the necklace.
Just as Neera was about to put the Naulakha necklace around her neck, there was a commotion that a speeding car hit Rajiv at the corner of the street. Rajiv was holding Neera's favourite white Mogra garland in his hand, which he had gone to get in a hurry. While being taken to the hospital, Rajiv left this world leaving Neera and his parents crying. Little Sonu was lost in his own world, he was unable to understand that he had lost his father.
Neera did not know how to live without Rajiv, her world began with Rajiv and ended with him. Slowly, Neera managed herself for the three who were her responsibility after Rajiv left. Suresh ji and his wife asked her to start a new home, but Neera flatly refused. She started managing the business with Suresh ji and started educating Sonu and raising him.
Time passed, Sonu became an engineer. Suresh ji transferred the entire business to Neera and Sonu and retired. Sonu got married to Sheena and Suresh ji and his wife also passed away.
Neera had everything but no peace of mind. Her life was incomplete without Rajiv. One day she heard Sheena saying to Sonu, "Mummy has a Naulakha necklace, will she wear it in her old age? I will take that Naulakha necklace from her."
Sheena came and asked Neera for the Naulakha necklace. Neera said, "I will never put that ill-fated Naulakha necklace around your neck. Rajiv went away in his desire to see it and now Sonu? No, never. We will sell it and donate the money for the marriage of a poor girl."
While saying this, Neera's tears that were held back for years started flowing. Sonu and Sheena bowed their heads in grief and shame.
Man thinks something else, but happens something else. Life does not stop with someone's departure, the wheel of time keeps moving at its own pace. One has to live for others, without any destination. Neera could not die with Rajiv, but she had to live to fulfill her duties, to complete the work that Rajiv had left incomplete. But such an incomplete life is no longer a life.
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