The Sacrifice

That morning, she woke up, without having the slightest idea what awaited her. The time by the clock was 5:30 AM, and it was time for her to start her day. Her son would be at home, and she knew by experience that he wouldn't be up before 8:30. "Plenty of time," she thought to herself, and rolled out of bed. Following the same everyday routine, breakfast was ready by 7:30. That was when she got the call, from a friend. A concert was scheduled at her old school during the day, by her favourite artistes, and she really wanted to go listen to them. She woke up her son, since she didn't know how to drive.
Grumpily, he got up, groggy after a hard night's work. He got ready, and had his breakfast, all the while thinking why his mother didn't learn how to drive. She, however, was feeling excited at the prospect of going back to her school, to those familiar corridors, that seemed to belong to her at one phase of her life. She hoped that her son would hurry up, but her son missed the sense of urgency reflected on her face.
Finally they left, and drove down the roads that had carried her for the best twelve years of her life. She was beginning to feel like a little kid again, on her first day of school after the summer vacations, wondering how much her friends had changed and grown over the summer. Finally the car shaped school bus halted at the stop in front of the big, intimidating, grey school gate.
"I'll be back in the evening, around 5. Have fun," he said to her, before he sped away in the opposite direction. She was left there, at the gates of her school, feeling oddly out of place without her uniform and her school bag slung over her shoulder. She took a few tentative steps towards the gate, and found that every step was a thrill, taking her deeper and deeper into her childhood days. She wanted to run like she used to, from the drop off point of the bus till her class, but she couldn't run with her saree. So she walked briskly, towards the old building where her classes used to take place. The concert, her favourite artists performing – all that had gone into the background of her head. Right now, she just wanted to take in the memories that were coming at her from all sides.
Her first classroom – how tiny it looked now. She remembered how big it had seemed to her the first day that she had entered there, and how she had to sit in the first seat. How terrified she had been the first time when the huge, bulky teacher had walked into the room. It made her laugh now, thinking about her silly little insecurities of the past.
Walking down another familiar corridor, she stumbled upon the music room, the heart and soul of the school for her. Right from the start, she had known that she wanted to be a singer. There was something about that room that made her heart skip. She couldn't help but hum one of her tunes, and soon, found that the words of that first song she learnt in this room were all coming back to her. And so, she started singing that song, her voice rolling over the notes effortlessly, just like it did all those years ago.
"Veena, is that you? Wow, your voice hasn't changed at all, even after all these years", said Rittika, her best friend from a long, long time ago.
"I think it's just the song that makes it seem that way Rittika," said Veena with a smile, "How have you been? It's been so long since we met."
"I'm fine. I heard about the concert happening, but ever since I've come here, I've not been able to leave the building. All those memories, remember our music classes here? You were the favourite of Mansi Ma'am."
"I wasn't! I never had the dedication and the discipline!"
"Still, she used to always believe that you would make it big in the music world some day. What are doing these days?"
"I teach music," said Veena, realizing for the first time how near, yet how far she was, from what she had really wanted to do in life.
Rittika didn't say anything, seeing the look on her face. She wondered why Veena was sad; she was more in touch with music than Rittika had ever been.
Veena walked slowly to the auditorium where the concert was happening, her heart heavy. She was thinking about all that she had sacrificed in her life for her family, for the security that she had now – a family life, a secure job, a regular paycheck at the end of the month. A family that was hers, that loved her so much, and she loved them in return. However, she couldn't help but wonder what her life could have been like, had she continued with her love for music. She couldn't have had the family she had now, but she thought she would have been happy nonetheless. She would be surrounded by the one thing that was most important to her – her music.
She couldn't focus throughout the performance. All she could think was that if only, she hadn't left her music the way she had, she would have been happy, and with the thing that was, at one point of life, the most important thing in the world for her.
At 5, her son came to pick her up from her school. While she was walking towards the car, she had the feeling that she was leaving her heart in the corridors of her school, in the music room, among those notes she used to play with as a child, and as an adult. She didn't want to leave that world… somehow…
She opened the car door, and saw that her whole family was waiting for her there – her daughter smiling at her, and her grandson trying his best to clamber onto her arms with a gleeful smile. She got into the car, and found that it was here, more than anywhere else, that her heart belonged. Her son looked over at her with a smile too. "Surprise!" he said.
But he saw that there were traces of tears in her eyes when she got into the car. He didn't understand at that point of time why.
Thirty years passed before her son completely understood why, on that special day, his mother's eyes had been moist.
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Dedicated to Ma, for all the sacrifices – big and small – that you've made through your life, to make our lives the way they are now.