A year back...

Exactly a year back , this time I used to have sleepless nights, shifting gently from one side to another most of the night ...waiting. Waiting and wondering when will my baby come ..how would the labor go .. waiting for my hubby to come to India. The world seemed to revolve around me ..I was the apple of everyone's eyes....parents always treated me like a queen , but now so did hubby and inlaws ! Those were such good days, perhaps the most beautiful days of my life!

 That day,I was waiting for another person , my cousin sister she was coming to visit me and was going to stay with me for a week..I was meeting her after three years ..I was excited !

She came the following day , as planned we were to go and stay in my own house for the next couple of days. Right now I was staying with my inlaws. Our house had been let out to tenants and had just been vacated. The house needed a lot of cleaning , quite a few things needed to be arranged..in preparation of the coming baby and the rest of my family who were to fly in from different corners of the world. For the past two months, since I landed in India , I would visit my house every two weeks , try and get things organised....but with my big tummy I wasn't able to do much or get much work done from the maid...it needed more time, so with my cousin joining in I was looking forward to getting everything settled.

We started in the afternoon ...finished couple of tasks on the way ...did some grocery shopping also and reached home by evening. The maid was already waiting for us ..she cleaned the house and was cooking our dinner in the kitchen.

I was in a jolly mood..felt so nice to be in my own home.

I had just finished my Puja and decided to lie down for a while..it had been a long tiring day. I was about to dose off when I heard my cousin screaming from the next room. Must be screaming for some silly stuff I thought and walked to the room ...just to freeze...I saw something that I had only seen in movies so far....FIRE !!!

an OMEN?

The candle I had lighted while praying  had fallen off , perhaps the strong breeze from the open window..the plastic rack had caught fire...it was blazing with rage! I stood there shocked...the maid came running with a bucket of water and threw it on the the burning rack which was kept near the window ...the thermal shock made the glass window burst..pieces of broken glass flew in all directions..I still couldn't react to what was happening. My cousin and maid shoved my to the next room ...I could hear them pouring more water ...and then the sigh of relief ..the fire was arrested ..but the black fumes had spread everywhere..to my room also.
I was choking..I went into the balcony for some fresh air. The lights had gone off I think..can't recall everything was dark and reeling to me anyways...

After some time when I went in,I noticed the white ceiling of the room had turned black with soot..there was a layer of black on all the walls of the house...curtains , the bed-sheets , furniture everything looked tarnished .There was a foul smell all around...ashes lay all over the floor. The maid who had just finished cleaning the house started all over again .Took her more than two hours to  scrub off the black mess.

I called the supervisor of the society who's a kind person and had always helped me with the knick knacks of the society and maintenance work..I explained him the situation and he promised to be there in a short while..

What was I to do..I was scared...and wanted some comforting but who could I talk to about this ? Not my parents..they will be dead scared..hubby in UK..he would only worry and be of no help !! Inlaws ... they will ask me to come back immediately.

Only one person I could confide in.. my friend staying close-by ..called him and narrated the tale... cried a lil bit over the phone too...I was scared..but not of the fire it had already been extinguished..but before dying off it ignited sparks of superstition in me..from some deep corner an eerie voice kept asking.....God's idol on fire.. is it an omen? No matter how hard I tried the thought just kept haunting me..... I had no peace of mind, what should I do?