“Anjali, our Anjali”-Part-2

ayyan · Sep 14, 2009

By the time Renu also came out and she also liked Anjali very much. Anjali came out from her initial shyness within a short time and became our little friend.
Renu also liked her very much and asked Kamala to bring her everyday.
Slowly Anjali entered in our hearts with out permission, she becomes our great happiness.
We were very happy to be with her, play with her and sing with her…..
At one moment we thought that if Anjali is our daughter, how happy we will be in the rest of our life.
But one thing I was worrying about. She was already six years old and never started going to school. But without asking I knew that Kamala has no money to send her to school or there was nobody to help her for doing that. So Anjali was also living with many similar children in that slum.
I discussed with Renu very seriously about this. Shall we help her for going to school?
But the issue was we came for only six months and already three months passed. Now we have only three months left with them. So how can we take that responsibility, if I help her to start doing school, who will take care after we leave? That was a question.
But still we didn’t want to leave them alone.
Finally we took a decision to take them with us to Kerala.
We discussed everything with Kamala. She was more than happy to hear that and always ready to come with us.
We knew that we are becoming her gods in her eyes.
Meanwhile we went for a short trip to Kerala and discussed this with my family also, they agreed because they were also looking for a housemaid.
Then I talked about the admission issues with one of my relative who was the committee member of a reputed residential school. She heard all the stories and agreed that she will arrange everything for Anjali’s admission as a special case.
We become very happy and returned to Bombay again.
Renu was very eager to inform Kamala and Anjali about this and very happy to think that we are not leaving Anjali in this dirty slum, but she is going to come with us.
We came back to Bombay and told the happy news to Kamala and Anjali.
Kamala said Anjali was very unhappy for one week when we were not there.
She become very happy by seeing us and never wanted to go back from our house.
Kamala also started a dream that never before, her daughter is going to start living a new life that she never expected before.
We saw that thanks giving always in her eyes.
Anjali become a part of our picnics and pleasure trips, we took her new dresses and she stayed with us always in our house like our daughter. We never wanted to see her in her old slum again.
One day Renu asked me, if I can not be a mother, shall we adopt her as our daughter?
I laughed and replied her ‘okay, you can be her mummy and let Kamala be her amma”
Days passed fastly...
Now we have only one more week to go in Bombay, after that we are leaving this big city. But we are not going alone, Anjali will be with us.
That was the happiest part of thinking.
Mean while my assignment completed and received settlement and return air tickets to Kerala after three days. But I cancelled the air tickets and booked four train tickets for Kamala and Anjali also.
There are three days left, what to do? We decided to go to Goa for a trip and booked a honeymoon cottage. As this trip is in a honeymoon mood and distance is also more, so we decided not to take Anjali with us.
We told Kamala that we will come back after two days and third day we all will go to Kerala. So take care of our house and make all the arrangements for the travel.
Two days stay in Goa was very pleasure; we enjoyed a lot site seeing, beach walking, night dances…enjoyed a lot.
Second day we returned from Goa and reached to our house at late night.
Our gate was locked; we thought Kamala and Anjali might have gone back to her home after waiting a long time.
We opened it, went inside and went for sleeping immediately due to the tiredness of a long journey.
We wake up morning very late because of yesterday’s tiredness.
The time is already nine, where is Kamala?
She usually comes before seven o’ clock. What happened? Renu worried, she was eager to see Anjali.
Time passed again, now its is 12 o’ clock. They didn’t come.
Where are they, I also felt something bad.
We have to leave, our train is at 5 o’clock, and Renu was in tension.
I told her not to worry; I will go and enquire about them.
But really I was not aware about where is her house.
I had only an idea about the location by her words. Still I decided to search.
Some how after one hour search I reached an inside corner of that big slum.
Somebody shown me Kamala’s house. That was not like a house; just a small place under a staircase of an old damaged building covered with polythene sheets and had a tin sheet door also.
Some old people were standing before her house and talking something seriously. I heard some weeping sound inside the house. Is that kamala?
Suddenly somebody came and asked me “are you looking for Kamala?”
Yes” I told.
“Oh...sir, this is her house…are you from police?’
“No..why? police.. What happened?”
“Oh..you didn’t know? Her daughter is missing from yesterday”
“What?” Our Anjali…is missing...

Continues…........