Revenge

Seema looked at the baby in the cradle. Its small round eyes could hardly open. The face was red. The wrists and fingers hardly bore any bone! It was all muscles and red skin. The bells on cradle chimed beautifully. It giggled like it wanted to say everything but the joy deep inside did not let it speak a word. The chime she thought was useless there! She just wanted to see him giggle.
She had just returned from her office. The house was all empty. The baby and her. Manoj had probably gone out to the grocer. He would be there anytime soon. She had decided this long back. It was her turn now. She had it in her arms. She closes the gate and moves to the parking area. She puts the baby in the side seat and starts the car. Manoj had still not returned. Wasnt she pleased! She steered her car past Malviya Nagar to the very old looking area behind Sarvapriya Vihar. The fort was here. An old dilapidated one. A sign read "Archeological Survey of India, Protected Monument." The fort was not a famous one. Probably calling it a fort would sound strange. But then this is what it was. The walls were made of red sandstone, but it had linings of black. One could probably say that the wall was made of black with some linings of red. There were lot of shrubs growing around. Only the passage to the inside was cleared. Probably a lot of kids entered that fort through this path and that prevented the grass growth.
She gets out of the car with the baby. Climbs the couple of stairs that led to the open yard in the center. It was a small place. On one side was an old lady who looked like a beggar woman. Her hairs were all clumsy and her saree's colours were not at all visible. She ignored the woman and moved to the other side. There she put the baby on the floor and hurried to the outside. The old woman screamed something that she couldn't hear. She rushed to her car, sits inside and takes a long breath. She just sat in there for some time.
Inside, the old lady had the baby in her arms. She had a smile like any mother would. She kept looking at the baby. Suddenly she realized that it was the young girl who had left this baby here. She rushed outside. The girl was nowhere to be seen. A car stood there but she couldnt see the girl.
In the car, the stereo ran the song "ek bewafa se pyaar kiya... " Seema's eyes were remorseless. She hardly thought of anything. She took the car for a drive across Delhi. She crossed the AIIMS flyover, Akbar Road and then the India Gate. She made three full circles of the India Gate and then returned by the same route. She just kept driving for two hours. Probably she did not want to return home so soon.
Her phone rang. Manoj.... She looked at it and smiled. He now knows the pain. A drop of tear fell from her eyes. Just one. As if she drank the remaining like she did the last time. Her throat was heavy. She could not speak. She disconnected the phone. She stopped her car somewhere near Green Park. She closes her eyes. She sees the days when she and Manoj would sit together on the lawns of India gate, Manoj promising her a bright future. Her 19^th birthday, when he sang "gagan se bhee ooncha mera pyar hai" for her. How happy she was! Suddenly the betrayal. She could recalled how Manoj disclosed the secret marriage with Anu, her elder sister. Wasn’t she shattered!
Now she was here. She had no idea if she should call back Manoj. She decided not to.
The beggar woman took the child in her arms. Played with it. She loved the baby giggle. She had her grandchildren. Her son was very hardworking and had left home when he was 17. She lived alone in a shabby house and had almost no reason to live. Chirag, she started calling him. He gave him a new hope to live, a new reason. She wanted to see him grow older and wanted to work for him. The same evening, she went to the old lady at Sarvapriya Vihar, where she used to work 4-5 years back to see if some work was available. She thought the land lady was kind enough to give her work. Now she would be able to feed Chirag. 
Meanwhile, Seema returned home with expected scenes. Anu was there, almost half fainted. She had nothing but tears. She cried like a baby. Her hairs where all messed up. She looked like the beggar woman in the fort. Anu was a girl who lived in Green Park before she got married to Manoj. They fell in love after she met Manoj at college. She had known Seema through Manoj for all this while. Anu was not very ambitious in the worldly sense of the word, but she had seen a great future with Manoj. She wanted to see Abhay as a very successful person. She was already dreaming of the grand children she would have. She had so far built a whole web of the future which included everything one could think of. The whole castle of sand seemed to have turned to dust.
Seema couldn’t look into her eyes. She went upto her and took her face in her hands. She tried to remove the tears but they wouldn’t stop flowing.
Manoj stood there at one end of the room. He was totally shattered. Tears did not flow, but he had lost everything. The police would be here anytime soon. But like most other incidents, this one would also go unnoticed. He had put an advertisement for a lost child in the next day’s newspaper. Seema looked into Manoj’s eyes. She had sympathy for him now, remorse she had none.