Prameela involuntarily looked into the face of Sudhakar. Sudhakar hissed out heavily and remained silent.

"She so much wants that you both together always and love each other. She said she asked the same thing to both of you many a time but you said 'no' all the time." Jasmine said once again.

"You are right. I always said 'no' to her request." Prameela's voice shivered again. She was controlling herself not to weep with difficulty.

"It seems you are in love with your daughter a lot." Malathi said. "Then why you are that much adamant to take divorce? Why could not you agree to your daughter's request?"

Prameela did not say anything to that.

"Sorry, I may not interfere too much into your personal affairs. But I cannot remain without asking. Either of you having plans to remarry after taking divorce?" Sundar asked.

"No, of course not." With firm voice Prameela said.

"I am also having no plans to remarry." Sudhakar said.

"Then why this divorce? Why cannot you both live together happily with your daughter?" Sundar asked them again.

"Some matters we just cannot explain Sundar." Sudhakar said.

"I don't know how much unexplainable those matters are" Sundar said. "But they tortured a little heart that much that she left her home and we don't know where she is now."

Prameela felt as if someone slapped her hard and looked into the face of Sundar. "It is my fault. Yes, it is absolutely my fault." She closed her face in her palms and started weeping terribly.

All the others there were startled on seeing her so. "Pramee, this is not good. Control yourself." Sudhakar said feeling uneasily.

"She asked me many a time not to take divorce, not to go away. But I never listened to her. I always adamant on that. Oh, how much she wished us to be together!" Prameela was still weeping.

"We cannot live happily together. So you are adamant like that. Don't blame unnecessarily yourself." Sudhakar said.

"Why cannot you both live happily together even there is no one else in your hearts, may I know?" Malathi knew through Jasmine why it was so. But still she wanted to hear what they would say.

Sudhakar did not say anything to that but Prameela said "I tell why it is so. I loved someone before my marriage. My parents did not agree to my marriage with him as he belonged to another caste. They compelled me to marry Sudhakar. After few days of my marriage, that person whom I loved committed suicide."

She paused for a moment before continuing. "I became completely upset. I started hating Sudhakar. I don't know why but I just could not like him and live with him. If it is not for Jasmine, we would have taken divorce a long time back itself. We came to an understanding to take divorce when Jasmine becomes enough big."

"So you both have thought that Jasmine has become enough big." Malathi said. "A ninth class girl can look after herself and she does not need her parents help anymore. So, you both have taken the decision to get divorce."

Prameela and Sudhakar hung their heads.

"Tell me Sudhakar. Don't hung your head like that. My wife has asked a very apt question. Can we say a ninth class girl is an enough adult and she does not need her parents' help?" Sundar asked him.

"Don't blame him. It is I all the time insisted for divorce." Prameela said with a small voice.

"But he agreed to that. Without thinking what happens to his little daughter, he agreed to your wish, is it is not wrong?" Sundar asked again.

"Yes, I am also wrong." Sudhakar said.

"There is no use now in asking questions and self-blaming. We have to think of what to do." Malathi said.

"I just don't know what to do. I Just cannot think where my daughter has gone." Sudhakar also was very much distressed.

"Your daughter is quite safe somewhere and she soon will return to home." Malathi said. "But after she returns to home how your attitude is going to be? Would you both still crave for divorce?"

"Never" with all the vehemence in her Prameela said. "I understood what the big mistake I did all these days. I realized how much I made my daughter to suffer. I never ask for divorce. I live together with my husband and with my daughter."

Sudhakar could not believe his ears and he confusedly looked into the faces of people there.

Jasmine felt very much happy on hearing that. "That is not enough aunty." She said. "Mounika not just wants you both together. She wants you both like each other, love each other."

"That is impossible." Sudhakar said with a small voice.

"Why it is impossible so?" Sundar asked. "Wife and husband do what then if they don't love and like each other? Do they quarrel and hate each other all the time? Do you know the best gift the parents can give to their children? It is the lovely environment created by parents by their loving and liking each other. It is more than anything for the children. It is more than education, more than properties, more than anything else. They can study better, they can prosper better, they shall be happy only in such an environment. If we cannot give it to our children, there is no use whatever we give to them."

Jasmine thought it a good opportunity to say something.

"You just don't know how much disturbed Mounika in the school is. She gets angry on the other classmates unnecessarily. She cannot answer the questions of the teachers properly and often scolded by them. She just cannot make proper concentration on her studies." all this was not true but Jasmine thought it was important to say so then. She was observing carefully the expression on the face of Prameela.

"My god! Is it is so?" there was a shocking expression on the face of Prameela. "I never have thought any of it so. Now I understood how much my mind is obsessed with hate on Sudhakar."

"That is quite unnecessary and you also very well know about it." Malathi said. "If what you have said is true there is no mistake on the part of Sudhakar. I believe Mounika returns to home just in one or two days quite safely. By the time she returns you both create such an amicable and happy environment for her. It is very important."

"First....first...I have to know where my daughter is. How she is." Prameela once again became hysterical.

"She comes back. We move heaven and earth for that." Malathi came near to Prameela and put her hand on her shoulder.

"For the first time I came to know how much my daughter dominated my mind. I don't want anything else. I don't need anything else. I want only my daughter with me. I never ask for divorce. We both shall....." Prameela burst out into weeping again.

Sudhakar came near to her and put his hand on her shoulder. He touched her again after a very very long time. "We shall be so. Our daughter comes to us. I shall take her home safe from wherever she is now. Just be relaxed dear. Be relaxed." Tears were flowing down on his cheeks also.

Prameela perched her head up and looked into the eyes of Sudhakar. There was no hate in them now, only distress.

"Children dominate their parents' minds, there is no surprise." Malathi said. "When it comes to mother there is no necessity to say anything. Children shall be her only world all the time. She does not care her husband, parents or anyone else. It is so natural and it happened like that in your case also."

"No, it did not happen in such a way to me. My hate became more to me and my love towards the other person dominated everything. I could not understand till now my daughter is more than anything else to me. What a big mistake I did! What a big mistake....." before she burst into weeping again, Sudhakar took her into his hands. "Don't do it like this every now and then. It is not proper. These people feel quite uncomfortable." Then he looked into the face of Malathi and said. "May I take my wife into your bedroom and rest her there for sometime?"

"Oh, sure. Come. I shall show you my bedroom, please come." Malathi said and led them into the bedroom of their house and made the bed there neat.

Sudhakar slowly laid his wife onto the bed. "Thank you very much." He said while looking gratefully into the eyes of Malathi.

"No mention. Stay with your wife for sometime." Saying so Malathi came out of that room.

"Oh, god!" Prameela said and put her hands around Sudhakar's shoulders and said "Ever we can find her again?"

"Sure we can. It is my word to you that I get her into our home wherever she may be. Just be relaxed." Holding her like that in his hands he said.

"I cannot. I just cannot" she hugged him even more strongly. "Until I find my daughter all safe, I cannot be relaxed."

"Oh, please...." Sudhakar tried to something more.

"Sudha" she interrupted him while looking into his eyes.

"Tell me." A frown gathered on his forehead. It seemed that his wife was going to say something new to him.

"Once Jasmine comes to home" she paused for a moment and then said again. "We are not going to quarrel with each other. We are going to like each other and love each other in the way our daughter wants us to be. We are going to create an environment that suits her best."

"You very well know that I never hate you and I always like you."

"Oh, you are right." Prameela nodded her head. "It is always I who quarreled with you and hated you." She hugged him strong and kissed on his cheek. "It is not going to be so from now onwards. We shall be the best couple in the entire world. But...." She became moody once again. "Our daughter has to come to us first."

"She sure comes to us." Sundar said. He wondered ever they both were like this before. If their daughter was not missed like that then, it would have been a very happy incident. But he knew this also very well, if their daughter was not missed, there was no question of a situation like this.

***

Four days have passed but Mounika has not returned. Hysterical bursts became more and more in Prameela and she turned out almost mad. Seeing her so was so much shocking to Jasmine's parents and Sudhakar also. They just did not know what to do. Not finding Mounika so far was so much disturbing and distressing to them.

Malathi and Sundar insisted Prameela and her husband to stay in their home itself. Malathi and Sundar thought that they could not manage themselves in their homes with that much of distress in their minds.

"We have to join her in a hospital. Otherwise, she becomes completely mad." Observing her psychological outbursts quite often, Malathi said.

"I am also thinking in the same way." Sundar said.

"I just don't know what to do" slapping his head with his hand Sudhakar said. Even he was not behaving like Prameela, he was also disturbed so much because of his daughter's missing.

Then, that moment, Jasmine thought was the correct time to call her friend back.

(..........to be continued)

(I hope you enjoyed it so far. Please don't forget to rate and review it. I update the next chapter as early as possible.)