My Wanderings -55. Short Story - 36. Return of warrior with a Storm

Anita was living along with her two kids Anshoo and Amit at Jammu. Her husband Major Anil was in Kashmir on frontier duty somewhere near Kupwara . It was monsoon season in Jammu and raining heavily through out  that night . Anita after rising from bed and finishing  her daily  early  chores went over to the window, but the rain showed no sign of stopping . The downpour had rattled all night against the panes and the roof . The lowering sky , full of water ,seemed to have burst , drenching the earth and reducing it to a muddy paste like melted sugar . Furious gusts of wind were blowing , laden with stuffy heat , and the roar of flooded gutters filled the empty streets , where the houses like sponges sucked up the damp , which found its way inside and made the walls sweat from cellar to attic.
Anita was very happy today as her  husband Anil was   coming  soon to  home for a long leave as she was now ready to grasp all the joys of life of which she had long dreamt. She wanted to visit Malls , shopping complexes and cinemas along with Anil and children. She was only anxious about the weather so that it may hinder the home coming of Anil. She wanted the weather cleared and for many times she scanned the horizon anxiously  that morning  . Suddenly she noticed that she had forgotten to awoke her children  from bed as their school time was approaching fast .No sooner  children arose from bed , she promptly prepared them and went to kitchen for preparing their breakfast. After serving them breakfast, she accompanied the children to  nearby  street to board them in the school bus . The downpour continued and Anita took the children under umbrella towards main Street. The howling wind drove the rattling rain against the umbrella  and flooded the roadway making pools and puddles of  muddy rain water. Soon the children boarded the school bus and the Bus drove on splashing muddy water of the pools through its wheels. While returning to home Anita could observe the  violence of storm abating gradually . Soon it was only a kind of drizzle , a fine mist of flying raindrops. The cloud ceiling began to rise and clear , and suddenly through an invisible opening a long slanting gleam of sunlight shone down. Now on reaching home she was happy to see a blue and clear expanse of sky spread over the whole earth . A gentle fresh breeze passed like a sigh of relief from the window. But it is often said that there is a lull before a greater storm. Soon the telephone bell rang and Anita was informed by an unknown  Voice from the unit of her husband that Anil was martyred  last night while fighting with  the terrorists. Anita could not beleive  the words . The whole world appeared  topsy  turvey before her eyes. She could not bear the gravity of message and collapsed in comma on the floor near by dropping the receiver unawares.
When she recovered from comma, she could see her apartment filled with unknown people . The dead body of Anil had also arrived  in tricolour with full military  honours. Anil had shown much valour while fighting the intruders and killed three  of them single handedly. All the five Pakistani  intruders had been neutralised against the death  of one  Indian  Major Anil, who had proved himself to be a real warrior.  The name of  Major Anil had also been  recommended for  Kiriti chakra award .
But Anita appeared indifferent to all this , even she was not attending to her wailing children sitting besides her. She had turned into a stone. Her sunken  and vacant eyes were dry. She was like a corpse. Every body was worried about her mental state and wanted she should cry.
At last after much persuasion of the womenfolk around her she cried while embracing her children. It was with  a wild shreik ,  tears began to  flow from her eyes. She wept bitterly shedding torrents of tears. She wailed bitterly. All the woman and even menfolk  around there could not hold tears. The storm in the life of a person is  sometimes much more stronger than the storm of nature . But the people around heaved a sigh of relief on  shedding of tears by the Anita , because this sudden shock could have affected her balance of mind.