The Pink Dress

Parul was 35 and lived a decent life. Busy husband with no fixed timings, a son, Ashutosh, and a daughter, Tanu. Her life revolved around her family. Though Parul’s pet was her son, Tanu didn’t fall behind too much in her affections. To compensate for the tiny iota that Tanu missed in the affection receiving department, Parul used to stitch dresses for her. With each meticulous stitch by stitch Parul would painfully bring out the most exquisite dresses for her little angel.
Only thing is that the little angel wasn’t one! She was the devil personified! A tomboy, naughty as hell and always in one scrape or the other. She loved playing with the boys and would try as hard as them in all the games they played and mostly was better than them. Nothing pleased this she –devil than beating up the errant boys who refused to play when she wanted.
Her brother was the true angel – quiet, gentle and the kind who never got into any trouble or fights at all. Even if he was instigated by others he was cool and collected enough to handle the situation diplomatically despite his young age!
One day Parul found the most delicate pink fabric – a light shade of pink that looked like the evening sky on a clear day when the sun was not yet near the horizon and was casting a gentle glow that filtered through the candy floss casting a beautiful hue which only nature can manufacture! Parul fell in love with it and knew exactly what she wanted to make with it. She went about buying lace, buttons and thread to transform this piece of cloth into a work of art. Then she began the painstaking procedure of measuring, drawing on paper and cutting the cloth. She would spend all her free time on it no matter what the time …..sometimes late into the night one could find her working bent over her aged machine.
Finally the dress was ready. All her neck aches and pricked fingers were worth what the dress looked like! On the hanger the dress looked like a little cake…frilled and ruffled with white lace and tiny mother of pearls running down the back. The puffed sleeves would make her little gem look like a fairy. Eyeing her work, Parul cast a discerning look and accepted that this was indeed her finest job. So, with a smile she called Tanu in and asked her to try it on. Parul should have paid closer attention to Tanu at that time. She should have realised that she had dragged Tanu away from a competitive cricket match that the 2 were playing in the compound. But, alas….
Well,Tanu struggled into the dress and turned to show her mother impatiently, urging her to let her get back to her match before Ashutosh decided to go back to his books. Before Parul could stop her Tanu ran out in that frilly pink concoction to continue her stiff match with her older brother. Parul smiled indulgently and followed her to watch her wonderful children playing outside her house. She saw her son hit an elegant shot a rashly bowled ball by Mily. The next shot was hit over the boundary wall which prompted Tanu as usual to climb the young jamun tree and then jump over the wall to retrieve it. Parul’s heart skipped a beat when she saw that. Tanu returned to the wall and threw the ball over. Then she scaled the wall as there was no helpful tree on the other side! As she scrambled over the top of the wall she held on to a branch slightly higher and asked Ashutosh to look at her. He disdainlyfully looked at her and told her to jump expecting her to refuse. But she was after all a devil….and for reconfirmation she kept asking – “Challenge? Challenge?” He finally nodded his head with resignation written large on his on innocent and gentle face. Parul was watching this small charade being played outside and had her heart in her mouth…Tanu jumped!!! And….got stuck on the lower branch! That pretty pink got caught on it and while it broke her fall it was slowly but irrevocably tearing bit by bit from the back of the dress….the ripping sound was like a knife ripping into Parul’s heart! All her hours of work on that dress were ruined within 15minutes!!! Tanu fell to the ground on her knees which instantly started bleeding.
That is the same time that Ashutosh saw the mangled dress and knew there was hell to pay …he furtively glanced up and saw his mother’s shocked face! He kept his bat down and slowly slunk away. Mily knew something terrible was to happen….she looked up . the expression on her mother’s face was a whole new novel to read!!!
Parul was left with nothing to say or do. She took off the dress and cleaned Tanu's knees. Then she stuffed the pink dress in a bag and threw it in the bin…never to stitch a dress again! She did make things like nighties and blouses but nothing extravagant like that beautiful pink dress.