Apara read these lines for the third time. Without asking anyone ...from the first to the last…Apara hasn’t filled up a form. Is she incapable or has it become a habit…even at the bank, she would confirm …the blue one is for draft, the green one is for depositing money..though in these thirty nine years , she had done it at least more than fifty times…but, till the last column of the form, she makes it a point.. to ask or rather..confirm. Maybe this has become a habit, she surmised.
Block letters. Name in full…as she filled up, she thought…Aparajita Sharma…its been eighteen or is it nineteen years…she has not heard the name Aparajita Trivedi. That was the year she graduated, she was planning of applying for her masters…but Nirbhai’s proposal was too tempting for her Parents too resist…good family, good job…what more can her parents expect. she, by nature, was never a rebel. Thus, she closed all the possibilities of becoming Aparajita Shrivastav…Bimaan…ya Bimaan Shrivastav was after all her classmate…they studied together for seven years…same school, same college…but they hardly ever spoke for more than five minutes. She remembers…his deep, lost eyes which she felt were trying to say something…later on, after marriage, Apara tried finding those unsaid things of Bimaan’s eyes in her husband Nirbhai’s eyes…unfortunately, in all these years, she never found those unsaid things in Nirbhai’s wandering eyes. Apara moved her eyes towards the roadside window…its 10 in the morning…people are busy rushing to their respective offices. Usually, Apara cannot afford time to stand near the window at this hour…she has to prepare Nirbhai’s breakfast, after Naman moved to the other city for his engineering course, its been less hectic. As she was devouring the sight at the road with her hungry eyes…Apara had a feeling that maybe Bimaan would be one among those people…little bald…one-two grey hair…enquiring Aparajita Trivedi’s address at the Mother Dairy…oh! How foolish of him, she chuckled in mild amusement…people know her as Mrs. Sharma or Mrs. Aparajita Nirbhai Sharma. Apara thought …maybe he has cross the road, taken the turn, now some twenty steps, and there he opens the gate…and… the bell rang. Apara stood still for a moment….she needed some fresh air…she thought... and went towards the door to open it…. ‘madam, meter check karna hain…’. Apara silently opened the meter box for them.
Coming back to her incomplete form…Apara realised…she made a mistake…its…Name in full. (Block letters). Surname first….Apara took out another Photostat copy of the form, she has three in her hand bag, she needs this job, and filled— Sharma Aparajita…