The Year Amma Stopped
Waiting at the Gate
Every Rakhi, she listens for the sound of the right auto. A short story about waiting, distance, and finally being able to sit down.
August 2026 · 4 min read
She Knows the Sound of Every Wrong Auto
Every Raksha Bandhan since the kids left for other cities, she's done the same thing without meaning to — she sits near the window with the thali ready an hour before anyone could possibly arrive, and every auto that turns onto the street gets a half-second of hope before it passes the gate and keeps going. By the third or fourth wrong one, she's stopped pretending to read the newspaper.
Nobody Tells Her the Train Was Late
The son on the sleeper coach doesn't think to text when the train is running forty minutes behind — he's asleep, or his phone's at eight percent, or he genuinely forgot that somewhere a mother is doing the math on when he was "supposed" to reach. It's not carelessness. It's just that when you're the one traveling, the wait doesn't belong to you. It belongs to whoever's left standing at the gate.
This Year, the Phone Told Her Before the Auto Turned the Corner
This year was different, not because anyone remembered to call, but because nobody had to. A quiet notification — reached home — showed up on her phone the moment her son's phone crossed into the gully, a full two minutes before she even heard the auto. For once, she wasn't the last to know. She put the thali down, unlocked the door, and actually sat for those two minutes instead of standing at the window running through worse possibilities.
For the Daughter Tying Rakhi From Another Country
Her daughter, three time zones away, tied the rakhi over a video call this year, same as last year — the distance doesn't close just because it's Rakhi. But somewhere in that same call, a small arrival alert popped up on the daughter's own phone too: her mother had reached the temple safely for the evening puja. It's a strange kind of comfort, being able to worry a little less about someone from that far away, on a day that's mostly about worrying whether you should have come home at all.
The Waiting Doesn't Disappear. It Just Gets Shorter.
No app replaces a mother wanting to see her children walk through the gate herself, and nothing should try to. But the part of Rakhi that was pure anxiety — the not-knowing, the imagined worst case every time a call goes unanswered for ten minutes — that part got a little quieter this year. She still sits by the window. She just isn't alone with the worry anymore.