038 Back to home

Aunty went home. She had to get her eldest son from school and the youngest from daycare. The schools were closed. But her son had signed up for guitar classes. Aunty was very excited about every activity related to school So, he had no choice but to join for something.

We also moved to a private room in the hospital. Thanks to that, we were finally able to celebrate my birthday.

I eagerly waited for the cake.

In the meantime, I learned that mom's delivery was not that smooth. Mom wasn't mentally prepared to deliver two children. So there were some slight complications. I can only imagine what happened.

The doctor carefully took the baby. He had a happy smile on his face.

"It's a girl!" He announced cheerfully.

"Yay!" Dad and Lakshmi aunty cheered and celebrated.

"But I wanted a boy," Mom murmured disappointedly.

"That's fine. Let's hope the next child is a boy. Now push!" The doctor passed the child to the nurse for cleaning and said.

"Next child? We are not planning for anymore."

"I am talking about her twin." Doctor clarified.

"Twin?"

"Yes. Don't you know about the second child?"

"No. We ordered only one." Dad answered confused.

"Well... There was an offer sale and now you have the second one coming." The doctor shrugged and answered.

"But we brought the money for only one child. Will the hospital give a discount?" Mom asked worriedly.

"Don't worry about that. My family is very rich." Lakshmi aunty boasted.

"Okay then. Here we go."

"It's a boy!" The doctor took the next kid and announced.

"Yay!" Mom and Lakshmi aunty celebrated.

"Don't celebrate too much. You should have told us that we were going to have twins." Dad scolded Lakshmi aunty.

"I told you about it."  Lakshmi aunty protested.

"No. You didn't! You are so irresponsible!" Dad was angry.

"That's because psychiatrists are not real doctors," Anu added.

Ohh, wait. Anu was not there during the delivery.

"What are you daydreaming and giggling?" Mom woke me up from my imagination. She had bathed and slept. Once she got the rest she needed, she was energetic and shiny like before.

Earlier today, Anu started a fight with Lakshmi aunty because of the injection. But after she got me the injection, Anu was happy and became friends with Lakshmi Aunty. Later they both pretended as 'injection police' and went around looking for kids to give an injection. They even managed to find two kids who had injections pending. With that, those two became friends. Right now, Anu was eating an orange she got from a patient.

"Say 'amma'." Mom urged me.

Today, we heard Anita calling her mom 'amma' and so mom wanted me to do the same. On her birthday, I called her by her name. At first, I was worried about it. But later she tried to make me call her 'Riya' again. Apparently, she was excited by the thought that the first word her son said was her name and she wanted me to say it again.

She spent hours begging me to call her 'Riya' again. But I didn't want to. Aunty wasn't happy with it. She asked me to call her 'Riyaamma'. She was a bit orthodox and didn't like the idea of me calling mom by her name.

In the end, I decided to call her...

"Iyamma..." I called.

"What?" Mom was taken back for an instant.

"iyamma." I called again. That was a shortened form of 'Riyaamma'. It was better than calling her by name and at the same time, I would have a special name to call her.

Don't look down on me. With two new kids, I had to act a bit more cute to get enough attention and love from mom. So I decided to make a special name to call her. Mom was excited and happy.

Dad came right on time. Mom boasted how I called her iyamma and then dad wanted me to call him 'Kariyacha'. But I have absolutely no plan to do that.

Dad brought the cake. He slowly opened it.

I was excited and watched it eagerly.

I was celebrating my birthday after countless years. Once it used to be a painful lonely day for me. But now, I was with my family. I felt warm and happy.

"Should I ruin the cake?" Mom suddenly asked with an evil smile.

A bolt of electricity passed through my spine. Then I realized that she was joking.

Anu was jumping up and down in joy. She loved cakes. I also joined her.

"Alex, come here," Mom called me to cut the cake. She actually called me 'Achutty' which is a pet name for Alex-baby. But I don't want to use multiple names and confuse you.

I excitedly went to mom and climbed on her lap. The cake was on a small desk that was in the room.

I looked happily at the white round cake.

"Happy Birthday Alex, Priya and Prince" A wish was written on it in small black letters.

'Wait! Who are Priya and Prince? Don't tell me they are...' I realized that the boy was named Prince.

'As if stealing my mom and milk wasn't enough, they had stolen my birthday and birthday cake as well!'  I suddenly had an urge to beat up the two kids who were sleeping peacefully. I could actually see the grim future in which all my birthday cakes would have the names of those two little rats also. I am never going to have a birthday for myself. And to make things worse, the guests who come to the birthday will bring one gift. Who would bring three gifts to one birthday? On top of that, the cute twins would attract all the attention.

I leaned forward to wipe away the names of the two rats.

"Nope mister. you are not ruining this cake." Mom misunderstood me and blocked me.

I protested a lot and started throwing a tantrum. But mom spanked me and I stopped misbehaving. I decided not to talk to her. I managed to keep that attitude for two minutes. Then she tickled me and I gave up.

We cut the cake.

Just the six of us.

Mom, dad and we four kids.

I got only a bit of the cake. My parents had decided not to give me sweets till I am three years old. The two babies slept through the cake cutting. But we didn't forget to click photos with them.

That night we all slept in that small hospital room. There was one more bed. So it wasn't that difficult.

We started the journey home the following day morning. It wasn't a short journey.

Our first destination was the shrine of Saint Alphonsa. She was the first saint from our state and the church also had her tomb. Mom and dad wanted to bring the newborns and present them in the shrine.

Anu went and made peace with God.

A few weeks ago, one Sunday after elder sister Priya left us, Anu went and fought with God. According to someone who heard her words, she went and addressed God as 'Lonely old man sitting in his sad glass box and bullying innocent kids'.

My parents didn't scold her for that. According to them, an innocent kid's bickering with God is also a form of prayer.

Anyway, now that she was gifted with two younger siblings, she called it even and stopped the fight. There is indeed the possibility that the second child was a gift from God to appease the angry Anu.

Our next destination was the temple run by Lakshmi aunty's family. During the delivery, when things became difficult, she promised prayers and promised to bring the children to the temple. While we don't follow the believes, we still had to do it for Lakshmi aunty.

Lakshmi aunty was waiting for us at the temple.

"Anu, remember what I said. Don't do anything like last time." Lakshmi aunty warned Anu.

I knew what happened last time. That happened before I was born. When Anu was three years old, my family visited the temple during the festival. It was a custom dad and his friends had. During the festivals, there were free meals from the temple. When dad was in college, their entire class used to travel kilometres to have free meals from this temple. Once college was over, dad and some other friends continued the custom.

So two years ago, dad came with Anu and mom. She was just three then. Anu was in the hands of Lakshmi aunty. She said some prayers and then ended the prayer with a loud 'Amen'. The entire devotees in the area broke into a loud laugh and the priest was angry. Fortunately, Anu was in Lakshmi aunty's hands. So dad didn't get scolded.

After the temple, we went home. But we had to stop twice on the way as our villagers wanted to see the babies. There were many people looking forward to babies because of the kidnapping incident.

When we finally reached home, we were welcomed with a surprising scene.

There was a flower carpet from the car to the door of our house!

"Bow boww..." Doodu excitedly barked and demanded to see the kids.

The kids were in a basket. Mom lowered the basket on the veranda.

"mmm..mmm ... woo..." Dodu make excited humming sounds as he smelled the kids. He ran around and make many sounds.

"Finally, someone is acting properly." Mom commented happily.

"He made the flower carpet," Aunty said.

"He made it?" Mom asked in disbelief.

"Yes. He was running around yesterday and today collecting flowers. Then the kids also joined. Arjun was also here. They all made it." Aunty said as she picked up the boy. She disturbed the boy intentionally and woke him up. When he started crying, she started talking to him and covered him with kisses.

Mom and dad smiled seeing that.

The girl also woke up. She looked around confused.

"What are you looking around for? This is our home, my little girl." Mom picked up her.

Our home!

It felt like a dream to me.

I could imagine us four growing up together.

The little room I and Anu shared in my previous life would have two more kids. It will be congested for the four of us. But it will never be too small.

____________

Important Announcements

I have an exam and an interview coming up. So the number of chapters might drop for the next one month.

I live in a small village. Normally, nothing happens here. But recently something nice happened here. Two movies were shot in our village. The first one had the actor Prithwiraj as the hero. (Prithwiraj Sukumaran) He is one of the most famous actors in our state. The second movie has another actor Asif Ali as the hero. He is also similarly famous in our state.

The shooting of the first movie was big news in our village. But other than that, it had no involvement of our villagers and people lost interest in it.

The shooting of the second movie was in our village centre. Their crew was pretty friendly with the villagers and many villagers also got small roles. So the second movie became a small celebration here. (Some got Covid also.) The first phase of shooting is over. They said they will return to shoot more after the actor grows a beard. The people are eagerly waiting for their return.

They have rented the buildings for 2 years. So we are expecting more movie shoots here.

As usual, please vote and comment.

Thank you.