It was a cloudy, rainy day. The drops were trickling down on
the face of the earth and the wind was steady. The life in suburban Delhi was
going on as usual, which meant that there was no one to be seen outside. It was
Sunday too, which meant that most educated people were still in bed, it was too
early for them to rise and make their ritual hot beverages. It was sort of
chilling, but not as chilling as it would have been on a drier day. Along the
meadows on the left and the fields on the right, the bus bound for Delhi was
coming from Alwar, Rajasthan. On the third seat from the front, a woman, in
mid-thirties, was sitting, staring at the outline of Aravali hills as the bus
brushed along them. She had her hand outside the window, trying to feel the
little cold drops as they cleansed her mind of all thoughts.
Her daughter was also taking her hand out, trying to
mimicking her mother, even the expressions. The mother, every time, pulled her
hand back inside, saying that it is bad to put your hand outside a bus. The
daughter wondered why! She hadn’t been on many trip outside on a bus,
especially this long to make her bored and take her hands out and especially
not on a such a beautiful day. So, it was a first for her. She asked why, why
should she not take her hand out and feel the rain like her mother? And the
mother said that it is bad, because the black witch is always on the lookout
for small pretty young girls who disobey their mothers and take their hands out
of a moving bus. The witch snatched them away and takes them to the dark cave. The
child was amused. She did not see even the faintest of logic in it. Despite
being so small, she knew that it was just a scary joke her mother was trying to
play on her. But she liked it, her mother constantly scolding her, making up
stories to keep her safe. It kind of made her feel more attached to her mother.
She wasn’t capable of such complex thoughts, but for her it was not complex.
For her, it was simple. Her mother was smiling at her child, seeing a
beautiful, smart, lovely woman in the making. She put her hand outside the bus
one more time and felt the rain. And her smile was even widened.
The daughter, thinking of mischief, thinking of the next
story that her mother would tell her, put her hand out again. As she did it,
she saw back at her mother and her smiling back at her. And then suddenly, she
saw her daughter passing through the window, out on the broom of the black
hooded creature, scowling like the autumn wind. The broom took both of them
away, flying away, in a sinusoidal manner, up over the mountain and behind it.
The mother could not even scream at the instant movements.
She could not speak, out of shock. She opened her mouth and
tried to scream, and after some moments of panic, her squeaking voice finally
said, “My Child!” She screamed. “She took away my child.”
The faceless woman sitting beside her said, “What Child?”
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