Crayons

Unlike weekdays, the kitchen was making much lower decibels, as the family had planned to spend the rest of the day in outing. Mano was going through the headlines of the paper lazily with the hefty task that was in front of him for the rest of the day. It was not a great weekend as he has to compensate the holiday given for the recent elections by working the next weekend , which means he has to wait for another 13 days for the next Sunday . 

He wanted to enjoy a nice nap in his house or maybe sleep in front of the TV watching the highlights of the matches he missed previously. The pressure cooler whistled loud form the kitchen waking him up from his dream of spending the day in his couch. His wife soon walked out of the kitchen as soon as the pressure cooker stopped shooting she stared to give her list of “things -to-do “ for the day , for a second he thought the cooker’s noise was much sweeter than what he was hearing now.

Least involved in all these was their 6yr old daughter Minu who was lying on the floor scribbling something on a piece of paper. Mano took her in his arms and asked “so what does your list of things for the day” Minu smiled softly “papa I need a pack of crayons”. That was the 5th pack of crayons she had finished off that month. Her mom started to complain about the same and added that her academic performance was also deteriorating and her class teacher has asked to meet her the coming weekend.

Mano’s longest week had stared with a monstrous Monday of getting up late to office, it was a marathon of getting ready for office. He was about to start his scooter when the pressure cooker again whistled, this time she wanted Mano to drop Minu is school on his way to office. With much hesitation he accepted his wife’s words. Minu was in her own world of scribbling something with her crayons when she stopped for min “papa will you buy me a pack of crayons?” He showed all his anger kick starting his bike “what happen to the pack that I bought for you yesterday?” Minu again went back deep into her coloring book with an answer “ its there but I need blue, yellow and black, they got over” Mano was not ready for an argument and he silently raised his accelerator. 

Mano was happy again his 13 day wait had come to an end and it was Saturday evening he can sleep happily as his wife has no plans for that Sunday. Quarrels between the two has become the inevitable and a part of the daily schedule and that evening was no exception only that the intensity was too much. 

There was an uncontrolled emotion of anger in the air, confessions of making the biggest mistake in life of marring the other was the topic of discussion. His anger was so uncontrollable that it made the fish tank fly a few feet and crash. The crashing sound was followed by a few seconds of silence and heavy breathing , for a sec there eyes scrolled around the room and found MInu totally in her own world of scribbling something on a piece of paper. The sight brought a small pause to all there anger Mano walked towards her little girl and took the paper, for the first time they were seeing what her little girl was drawing all these days. It was the same drawing again and again, scribbling in green , blue and black spread allover the paper. They were not able to make out their child behavior. Mano asked minu “minu, dear what are you drawing?, what’s these blue and green circles? Are these trees and mountains?” Minu with her little finger scribbling the same one new sheet of paper answered” no daddy, its you and mom”

“And what's these black lines allover the paper” asked Mano. Minu looked up into her dads eyes saying “ its you and mom fighting” and bend down to continue her work. A chill ran down both the parents spine as the looked at each other, Mano was still in his Blue Boiler suite and his wife green saree which she wears every day for her work.