ANGEL
I t
was January 19th 2007 and the
Pongal vibe was still in the air. School
children were still sitting in their
classrooms and chatting excitedly about
how “awesome” their holidays were and
how loving their grandparents had
been, when they had visited them. Not
four days ago; the ‘rangoli’ stains outside
every house hadn’t yet faded away. I
was on my way back home with my
elder sister, and when we reached
home, I ran into the kitchen to my
mom, who was speaking on the phone,
one hand clutching her phone, while
the other covered her mouth as she
sobbed silently. Her bright eyes were
glistening; her cheeks were stained with
tears. I was old enough to understand
that something was very wrong. My
sister, noticing our mother’s outburst,
tugged her arm asking her silently as to
what was wrong. We were taught not
to disturb someone when they were on
a call. So, we stopped pestering her and
waited patiently whilst she cried on the
phone. Seeing our mother bawling was
really painful for us to see. When we
tried to pick up a few lines from what
she was talking.
50
We finally understood that it was our
grandmother she was talking to. Our
grandparents, along with our two
uncles, lived just five blocks away
from our house.
Finally, she put the phone down and
told us something that had us in tears as
well. Our uncle had been in a
motorcycle accident.Only the previous
night, my uncle had had the most
wonderful news for us. He had been
promoted to a Managerial position in
his office. He was giddy with
excitement, as he had driven through
the almost deserted streets. It was 11:30
pm at night but that was usual. He
always came home late. He couldn’t
wait to tell our grandparents about his
promotion. And it had all happened
just in the blink of an eye. Two drunk
men were in a vehicle, with one of
them driving it sloppily. Suddenly,
they’d lost control and then swerved
their motorcycle crashing their vehicle
with my uncle’s. They’d hit so hard
that he’d been thrown backwards from
the collision.