Burning

When Nivedita came of age, her mother tried to set her up with a colleague's son. Said colleague had three sons and was in a hurry to get the eldest one married because the second son already had a girlfriend and was in a hurry to settle down. Nivedita didn't understand this hurry to settle down. She sought romantic love. At the behest of her mother she, however agreed to meet the eldest one. The colleague's family had invited Nivedita's parents to a religious ceremony at a temple near their place. Nivedita, awkwardly draped one of her mother's saris and tied her hair back. She surprised herself at how grown she appeared.

In the temple's courtyard, the colleague's family entertained numerous friends and family. Nivedita and the eldest son were introduced quite cordially and they spoke for not more than a few minutes. It didn't feel special, except for the newness of faces and voices, nothing underneath outstood. 

The matter fizzled out. Noone mentioned it again. A few months later, Nivedita heard that the prospect got married. To some nice homely girl. A year later, they had a son. Nivedita, moved on. She changed jobs, she switched cities and faced the obvious and not so obvious nuisances of life. On a quiet ordinary afternoon, she got a call from her mother.

Her mother called almost every afternoon, there was nothing unusual about that. But the conversation that followed chilled her very bones. There had been an accident. The colleague's daughter-in-law had burned herself in a gas leak. She was in the ICU and was battling for her life. Her son was only three years old. Nivedita was shocked beyond words. 

A few days later, she heard that the daughter-in-law had died. Everyone knew she was going to die, the way she had been charred. Nivedita kept thinking about the little motherless boy. The story she heard was that the daughter-in-law turned on the gas in the morning without suspecting a leak and caught fire immediately. The husband tried to save her and sustained some burns. The boy woke up after hearing the screams but they managed to throw him out of the kitchen and he escaped unhurt. 

The little boy was sent to live with his grandparents so that his father could grieve properly. He took a second wife a year later and  continued to live in the same house. The little boy grew up at his grandparents and visited his father and step mother rarely. 

Nivedita's mother made sure she got every step of the story correct. All the happenings in the life of someone whose wife she might have been, were relayed to her religiously and without mercy. Nivedita, however, couldn't handle the shock even after it reached her third or fourth hand. She kept imagining many random things. But mostly, she kept mentally gasping about how narrowly she had escaped death. 

Had she married that man, she would have died a terrible death. So everytime she turned off the gas, she double checked, triple checked, went back to the kitchen and checked again, and then one more time.