An experience for a lifetime!!!! Assured goose bumps!

Do you know how it feels when you no longer have a purpose to live? All you want is that the world should come to an end for you at that moment of time? Go on.... read further.....

I was screaming but couldn't hear my own voice. I remember clutching the gate and almost falling on to the road. I don't remember if I was breathing at all. Shri's boys were running up and down the street. Shri was running up and down the stairs mumbling 'this can't happen!!! this can't happen!!!!!'. The only thing running in my head was 'How irresponsible could I be?' 

It was the night of 18th March 2011, Friday. Shri's friends (Shri's boys) had ganged up at our place as their plans of going to coorg had been canceled. Not everyone was in a good state of mind as AOL had just announced the closure of AOL India Operations. Yet, boys were drinking. It was almost 12.45 am. A few of the guests had already left. Mickey had been put to sleep (she was in the terrace until 12) and all of us were in the terrace talking. Shri had just got me Mishti Dhoi (from K C Das). I was telling Siju that I would finish the Mishti and go back to Mickey.

And at that moment, we all heard a scream and realized that it was Sumedhaa's voice. Shri ran down to the bedroom to console her and I followed him after a minute or two. By then, her screams  had stopped. I could hear Shri screaming that she was not in her bed. We looked for her in all the rooms, bathrooms, balcony, utility but she was not there anywhere in the house. We looked for her in the stair case. We all ran downstairs, the gate was open. She was nowhere in the street too. We checked again in the house. She was not there anywhere!!!! We had lost Sumedhaa!!!!!!!! 

'HOW COULD WE LOOSE A CHILD THAT WAS SLEEPING IN OUR OWN HOUSE AND WHEN WE WERE JUST IN THE TERRACE? HOW?' 

I was screaming but couldn't hear my own voice. I remember clutching the gate and almost falling on to the road. I don't remember if I was breathing at all. Shri's boys were running up and down the street. Shri was running up and down the stairs mumbling 'this can't happen!!! this can't happen!!!!!'. The questions that were running in my head were 'how could I live?' 'How irresponsible could I be?' 'Couldn't I have gone back15 mins earlier?' 'Is it necessary to have fun all the while?' 'But don't I have a life of my own?' 'What would I tell my parents?' 'What would I answer the world?' 'How could I live with this guilt?' 'How could I breathe going forward?' 'Couldn't the world come to an end, right then?'

And suddenly, Shri and I could hear Kaustav  (Shri's friend and a member of the search party) screaming 'We found her' and then we could see Siju (Mickey's favourite maama amongst Shri's friends) at the end of our street, carrying Mickey back to us.

I can't explain the feeling when I saw Mickey in Siju's arms. Now, I could atleast breathe. Though only five minutes had passed since the time Mickey had gone missing, it seemed to us as though a lifetime had passed. Though I appear not to be attached to my daughter, I realized how much I wanted her to be with me, how much she is a part of me and how much she means to me. Same is true with Shri. Shri and I were taking turns hugging and kissing her.

A lot of things could have happened. Had she not screamed, it would have taken us another 5 to 10 minutes to figure out that she had gone missing. And within that time, a dog could have bitten, someone could have taken her, she could have gone somewhere where we couldn't find her, or ANYTHING else could have happened. But we were lucky enough to find her intact without even a scratch on her body. I am grateful that we could find her before we lost our minds.

Come to think of it, it is different to loose a child somewhere else, here we had lost a child that was sleeping in the house. We couldn't continue to live without her and how could we live with that guilt of irresponsibility. You can say that I am very curt when I am saying this but loosing a child to death is completely different from loosing a child like this. There surely is a certainty in case of a death. But in this case, the parents have to live in a constant fear. Is the child alive? What condition is she living in? Also they have to live in an anticipation that the child would be found some day or the other.  Yes, there is a chance that the child is found. But until then every moment the parents live is equal to a million death.

Sumedhaa was sobbing and walking towards her bus stop (about 250 meters from our house) when Siju found her. When Siju called her name, she turned, saw him, ran to him and hugged him (as narrated by Siju). 

Contd.....