Rivanah opened her sleep heavy eyes with a

yawn, the saliva rolling down her mouth. Just

before she could get out of her bed, her heart
almost stopped seeing her own body hanging from
the ceiling fan in her room. The hanging figure was
wearing the same nightdress as her, looking dead
straight at her with a lurid vengeance. As their eyes
met, the hanging figure started chuckling. Rivanah
wanted to get up and run out of the room but felt
herself glued to the bed. Soon the ominous chuckle
got so loud she thought she would go deaf. She
woke up for real just before the dream could get
any worse.
It was the month of May and Kolkata was both
hot and humid. Irrespective of the weather,
Rivanah had a habit of keeping the air conditioner
on at the lowest temperature it could be set to,
using a blanket to cover herself up with. She let go
of a heavy breath as if she was letting go of the
dreaded feel that the nightmare had built inside her.
She had seen the same dream one more time
before. It had made her break into a cold sweat
then. She stretched her hand and picked up her
Samsung S3 phone from beside her pillow. It was
4:44 am. She knew the alarm would go off in a
minute and it would be time for her new life:
Rivanah Bannerjee, Programmer Analyst, Tech
Sky Technologies.
Four months back, Rivanah had successfully
cracked the campus interview for two IT
companies during her penultimate semester of B.
Tech at Techno Asia College of Engineering in Salt
Lake, Kolkata. One company had placed her in
Bengaluru while the other in Mumbai with almost
the same salary. When the company based in
Bengaluru delayed its offer letter after she
graduated as a computer engineer, Rivanah
decided to join the one in Mumbai. Initially, her
parents were apprehensive about her living away
since she was their only child and had never stayed
away from them before. Eventually they coaxed
themselves because that was the demand of present
times.
The alarm screeched for a microsecond before
Rivanah silenced it. She tried to forget the bad
dream by saying a short prayer, asking God’s
blessings for her new beginning. She climbed
down from the bed and went out of her room, into
the corridor that took one to the floor below. She
leaned down from the staircase and noticed that the
tubelight of the kitchen was on. Her mother, as
usual, was up before her.
‘Mumma, keep my clothes on the bed,’ she
ordered with the air of a princess and went to the
attached bathroom in her room. She quickly took a
shower and came out of the bathroom to notice
there was indeed a kurti and a pair of leggings on
the bed, as demanded by her, but the outfit wasn’t
the one she had picked out in front of her mother
the night before. What irritated her more was that
the kurti wasn’t from BIBA, her favourite kurti
brand. It was one of those low priced kurtis her
mother had purchased from a cheap store in
Hathibagan.
‘Mumma!’ she screamed.
‘What happened Mini?’ her mother asked. She
could tell her mother was climbing up the stairs.
‘Where’s the blue kurti, mumma? I told you I’ll
wear that today,’ Rivanah asked making a face as
her mother walked into the room.
‘I had given the blue kurti to Bishnu yesterday to
get it ironed,’ her mother said with guilt, ‘but he
didn’t return it last night. You’ll look good in this
maroon one too.’
‘It’s not that, mumma. You know how particular
I am about brands. If you would have told me the
blue one was not available, I’d have chosen
something else. Baba has already packed all my
clothes.’ She sounded rude. Even Rivanah knew it.
She saw her mother leave the room quietly. She
immediately followed her downstairs to the
kitchen to find her in tears.
‘I’m sure,’ her mother said wiping her tears with
the loose end of her sari, ‘when you’ll stay alone
in Mumbai you will be able to wear whatever you
want to.’ Rivanah held her by the shoulders and
turned to face her, saying, ‘I’m sorry mumma. You
don’t know how much I’ll miss you and baba.’ She
then kissed her mother’s cheeks and gave her a
tight hug. Her father appeared by the kitchen door,
yawning.
‘Did you miss your flight, Mini?’ he said wiping
the sleep off his eyes.
‘No baba. But I will if I don’t hurry up now.
And please take out the new off-white kurti from
my bag.’ she said and went to her room.
It took her another twenty minutes to get ready.
She joined her mother on the breakfast table where
a steaming boiled potato meshed in rice and butter
along with an omelette was waiting for her in a
dish. She wanted to complain because rice and
butter would add some extra kilos to her already
voluptuous frame but she made a happy face
instead and ate it. God knew when she would be
back from Mumbai to have her mumma-made-food.
‘What should I tell Shantu Mukherjee?’ her
father asked standing by her chair and gulping his
normal quota of lukewarm water with a squeeze of
lime in it.