Smell of Silk

Deep down I have a fear of losing something, even the smallest or the most insignifacant of things which I have. This feeling of grave sense of insecurity had rooted in me in my childhood and then grown stronger and stronger through my youth to my present...... And to my greatest surprise I had forgotten most of memories of those yester years but that afternoon is still haunting me....

I was merely 7 when for the 1st time I felt this fear , a strange stinging pain down my throat of losing something which was precious to me..... It might seem silly to all as it was "just a peice of cloth".....A peice of my mother's old red and gold silk saree which she had gave me to dress my favourite doll..... And every time I would tie that "saree" around my doll, I would hug her as a child , I would smell the naphthalene balls which she always kept in between the folds of her sarees in the almirah, believing that they kept her sarees fresh and "bugs-free".
It was a suffocating summer afternoon when my cousin rushed into the room to drag me to the terrace screaming "kaal-boishakhi" "kaal-boishakhi". I held my doll in one hand and the saree in the other. By the time we were up on roof panting "kaal-boishakhi" had already started. With the strong wind blowing everything around us I screamed in fear "Lets go down"........ And thats when he pulled me by my hand letting the silk cloth fly high up in air ..."dada hold it" is all could say while I watched it flying high up in air. Tears rolled down my eyes as I hugged my bare doll.... Strangely now the doll smelled the same naphthalene as Maa did when her dead body laid on the floor 3 days back. And that feeling suddenly changed that "just a peice of silk" into my mom ........