The Milky Way

Nitya was seven years old when she first heard about The Milky Way.

And she was just a day older when she wanted to see it at any cost. Given the fact that she was a resident of Bangalore, any Tom, Dick and Harry can confidently say that it is impossible to comply with such a request without moving out of Bangalore.

This was indeed the main reason why Nitya could not see The Milky Way for exactly sixty days after that.

Daily I came home late in the evening; listened to her screaming; tried to lessen her anger by giving her a gift or two and promised her that the next weekend I would show her The Milky Way.

That next weekend however came only after sixty days when my company finally decided to lay off half of its staff. Nitya was the only person who relished my being in the unfortunate half because now her father could not blame it on his work.

I decided to give her a break and drove her down to Nellore, my wife’s native place. It was much darker there and they had a scheduled power shutdown for two hours every night during which the whole town plunged into pitch-black darkness.

That night we went to the open terrace. It took me quite a while to locate it. “Where is it Papa! Where is it?” Nitya started hanging off my hand. She did that whenever she was impatient. I showed her the dim white patch near the constellation of Scorpio. She looked at it in awe… wonder… Her joy knew no bounds. It was like a dream come true for her. She started laughing. “Look papa, The Milky Way” she pointed towards the white patch with her tiny fingers.

I nodded praying God that she shouldn’t ask the next question. It was only two minutes before she had attacked me with that inevitable query, “Who placed the milky way there papa?”

I smiled at her and looked up. Yep.. the milky way was beautiful… but who placed it there? I was absolutely clueless how to explain that to a five-year-old kid. "God placed it there Nitya. You see it is all made up of stars." I said after giving it a serious thought. "Where is He now?" Nitya asked me curiously.

I didn’t know what to say. "I don't know, He is invisible to us"

"Can He see us?" Nitya was eager.

"Of course He can. He can see anything."

Nitya shook her head, "Isn't He great?" She looked into my eyes.

"Yep! He is really great. Why are you asking me all these?"

"Why did He take mom with Him?" Nitya asked innocently. I stared at her for sometime. She was not able to forget that. She missed her mother badly. I could not fill that void in her mind. I did not marry again after Anjali died.

"Papa! Did mom see me before going to heaven?" Nitya asked. I closed my eyes. I was on the verge of breaking down. Life was going remarkably great for me and suddenly it all changed. Anjali developed some complication during Nitya's birth and she died moments after giving birth to a healthy eight pound bouncing girl. I was holding the baby in my hands at Anjali's bed when she opened her eyes for a moment and then closed them forever. I believe still that she had seen her daughter before dying.

"Papa, they say I killed mother. Is it true?" asked Nitya. At first I did not reply. I just shook my head. When I understood the gravity of that question I shuddered. "Who are they?" the words came out like bullets.

“Granma and Granpa” Nitya closed her eyes. I hugged her. I could not say anything for a moment. "Nitya, you did not kill your mother. It is just that God wanted your mother to be there up in the sky. That's all. Don't think about it."

I didn’t feel like confronting my folk. They were old and that was the opinion they had. I just drove back to Bangalore. I had to put in an Herculian effort to find a suitable job. Nitya had endured it all silently. Now that she had seen the Milky Way, she didn’t know what to bug me for.

I remember the day when I came back from office to find Nitya begging me to take her back to Nellore. “I want to see Mom. Please take me back.” She was on the verge of crying. I couldn’t figure out what had made her think that mom was in Nellore. I asked her directly.

“I want to see The Milky Way” She was sobbing. I assured her that I would show that to her once more. “You have already seen it once, Nitya. Can you wait for a few more days?” I asked her. “Mom’s there in that.” She said without any delay.

I was surprised. “Who told you so Nitya?” I asked her. She was staring at me. “You only told me. You told me that dead people became stars and Milky Way is full of stars.” I argued no more. I wanted to see Anjali myself and the notion that she was in the Milky Way, was comforting even to me.

This time I took her on a long drive to the interiors of Karnataka to show her the Milky Way. I didn’t feel like going to Nellore again.

Since then, we’ve been going on the Milky Way Trip thrice a year. Nitya is growing up and now I believe she knows where her mother is. But still our trips provided a means of escaping from the corporate jungle of Bangalore and reliving the past.

Thank you Milky Way, thank you very much.