Curiosity ~ Lucidity ~ Humanity
Bio-Fragment: Shlok Pandey is a 16 year old Indian boy with a mind full of poems and stories. He was born and brought up in the busy and bustling city of Mumbai and lives there, completing his education. He has been an emotional and empathetic person from a very young age hence he writes stories and poems which do connect with the hearts and emotions of the readers.
“Why didn't he come? I made his favourite meal for him,” thought Riya, wondering why her son had not yet arrived though he was supposed to come home today from the city where he studied, as he had promised to before.
Down on the floor of her tiny slum, only the dim yellow illumination of a small lantern shone throughout the house. She set the food aside. With the gate kept slightly open, a cool breeze rushed in, causing her hair to stand up. She had been feeling uncomfortable since morning, her heart thumping every so often with a weird discomfort in her chest, a feeling only she had whenever her son Saurabh was in some kind of danger. Her eyes became moist, longing to see his face, the only one she had trusted in this world.
Suddenly, her whole life appeared in flashes in front of her. She wept as she remembered how before marriage she was lucky not to die of hunger. She recalled her abusive husband, who whipped her often after he came home drunk until her body was blue-black, and tried to ill-treat their son, abusing him very often. If a lady falls down, a mother rises to fight. She left her husband, and went away with her small 6-year-old child.
She thought life would be easier, yet it wasn't so. Riya had the responsibility of feeding and educating her son entirely on her shoulders. Without much education, she worked as a maid from morning to evening, leaving her son in the hands of her neighbour, who had a son as old as hers named Ganesh. Only she knew how difficult it was to keep a stone on her heart and leave him to go work, for when she returned he would come running towards her calling 'Maa!'--in excitement--and hugging her tightly.
She always prioritized his education and could never give him what other children had--new clothes, chocolates, trips to the movies, and more. Though there was very little left after necessities—rent, education, food, and borrowed clothes--she would gather as much as she could to buy a cake and a box of chocolates on Saurabh’s birthday, the only sweets he would have in a year, which he ate very slowly so that they would last until the end of time.
Her depressed mind suddenly stopped recalling her life as she heard footsteps in the valley outside, approaching her house. Her red, hopeless, and tired eyes shone wide open as she got up and ran towards the door. The sun had already been swallowed by the darkness, but today even the nighttime felt vulnerable, an indescribable vacuum everywhere. That night had a full moon, and even it had lost its radiance, its dullness just like her life; the blackness all around her future she never knew was coming too soon with those footsteps.
“Who's it ?” she asked, her voice echoing into the empty gallery.
“It's me, Ganesh,” he said, touching her feet to pay respect.
“God bless you always, my son,” she said as she hugged Ganesh. “How are your studies coming along on?” she asked.
“Excellent.” But as he replied, the colour and glow from his face vanished.
“What happened, dear?” she asked, suddenly tensed. “Come in.”
They both sat down on the floor while she offered him water and a plate of rice with makhani paneer gravy, which was her son Saurabh’s favourite.
He sat there, frozen and sweating. He glanced at her glad face again and again, which made his heart feel heavier than before.
“What has happened?” she asked, fright on her face.
“Uhm….aunty actually Saurabh …”, he stumbled, somehow not able to give her the terrible news.
“What has happened to him, is he okay?” She cried out of worry about her son. “What has happened to him?”
“Saurabh has started taking drugs.” He let it out in one go.
“Impossible, what the hell are you talking about? I have raised him with much pain; I have stood against storms to shield him from the world. He is my son, I am a mother who has imbibed great values in him, he knows that he does not have to get carried away in the influence of cheap, worthless addicts as if he hardly got anything in life, and he has to build his own city if he has to rule in life. Don’t think you can fool me, Ganesh.” She erupted on him.
“I have the proof,” he replied in a gentle, respectful tone. He drew his phone out and showed her the video. She took it in her hands. There she saw him, his face: him clearly taking drugs.
“As you know, he and his friends have rented a room, and they live and study there, preparing for the exam. You sold your last pieces of jewellery so that he can pay the rent. From my flat, I can see him coming and going. On some days, he would go and then come back after a few days. I was filled with much suspicion, as he is in bad company, and what the hell is he doing out for so long? One day, I asked him where he was going with his friends. His face became pale, and he replied with great tension that he was going nowhere. I was surprised, as we have lived together since childhood, and I was even more shocked to find him hiding anything from me. I became tensed, and I secretly followed him, all the time managing to hide behind something to not be caught in his terrified eyes, which looked back many times to ensure no one was following him. A kilometer ahead of our college is the dead end where there is a deserted lane with cracked concrete. It ends when you move a little inside along it. At the dead end was a large wall that had cracks all over the brown bricks. There was a tiny streetlight tower, whose flickers in between were the only source of illumination, giving a bit of calm from the haunting, soundless darkness that was at that dead end. It seemed as if even spirits had abandoned it. He sat with his friends in a group in front of the wall. I hid behind a big dustbin a few hands away from them. I started recording and zoomed in. Though a bit blurry, I could capture his friends deeply inhaling the white powder. They were so engrossed in it that they hardly noticed me. I then focused the camera on Saurabh and saw him inhaling deeply. I don’t know what came into his mind that caused him to turn his head back for once, his eyes full of intoxication. But he did not notice my small phone, as the light wasn't constant. I carefully crawled like a cat on my knees and went away from there.” He explained it all to her.
She could not deny it. There was her son, digging a grave for himself. Had Ganesh not been there, he would have never told her about this. She thought that the entire world but not Saurabh would do her any bad.
“Stay blessed, be happy always.” She blessed Ganesh in a trembling voice, shivering while she kept her hand lovingly on his head.
“Take care, aunty,” Ganesh said and went away to his house. She was up the whole night. She wept non-stop, broken by how her son could have done such a thing. When he had left for hostel, he told her that he would surely study hard and earn a big fortune for himself. Yet there he was, completely forgetting the lessons with which she brought him up. She was in dismal pain throughout the night. She felt uncomfortable, unable to accept how her son had forgotten what she had taught him, discarding all the values she had imbibed in him and how he so easily dug a grave for himself.
He didn’t come home for another two days. She was silent the entire time, eating barely enough to live. A thought came to her mind. He hadn’t come until now as he was too busy intoxicating himself in his friends’ company, even though the holidays had started.
She was unable to digest the truth, as if the ground had slipped out from below her feet. She would lie down often, feeling her body burning in sorrow, her heart a heavy stone.
It was evening. She kept her door open. She could hear footsteps, someone climbing up. She saw a tall boy entering the room, with curly hair and big, green eyes, just like hers.
“Maa...I have come,” he screamed out loud, just as he used to do when she would return home from work. She couldn't resist it. She ran towards him, hugged him tight and wept an ocean of tears. She went on crying, her face fixed to his shirt. He could feel that her tears were different--the ones full of fire-like heat, the ones cried in great sorrow.
“What happened, Ma?,” he asked her. “Is everything alright?”
“Yes. All good,” she replied, with the most fake smile she had ever smiled. Can children identify their parents’ lies to hide their grief as well as parents can identify their children's lie to hide wrongdoing?
She spoke to him once in a while. Somehow her eyes could not hide it, although he failed to read them. She felt him restless, as if he wanted something which he was not getting. Seeing him irrepressibly wanting it, she sprinkled salt on her burnt heart. She was even more confirmed.
“What happened beta?” she asked him. “Do you want anything?”
“What, umm...,” he replied with terror in his eyes. “No nothing Maa,” he lied. She caught it, of course.
Soon, night crept in. She made his favorite food for him, a big feast. He ate with love. This gave her a bit of happiness. No matter how her child turned out, she would be his mother forever. After all, a mother's love will be how it is until the end of life. But she knew she had to try at least to bring him back on track. She could not tell him face to face that Ganesh told him this because Saurabh’s bad friends might pose a problem for Ganesh when he goes back, probably beating him up or forcing him to join them, which she didn't want at all.
She stayed up all night while Saurabh slept. He had hidden one more thing from her--he flunked his recent college exam badly and came last in his college, which she never knew but could have guessed considering his current acts.
Then, an idea struck her. He was in deep sleep, so she lit the dim lamp, and sat down to write out a letter.
He left the following evening. Riya packed him dinner, and when he went to have a bath, secretly hid an envelope in his bag pack.
“Bye Maa, take care.” Saurabh gave her a final hug.
“Bye, study well,” she said, but this time her goodbye was different, more constrained than usual.
Saurabh made his way to his flat after the train arrived at the railway station. Two days later, he saw his friends downstairs, waiting to head to their adda of getting drugged. He had his bag in his hand, quickly started packing it, keeping his textbooks inside. Suddenly, he came across an envelope, with Maa written on it. Puzzled, he opened the envelope, slid out the old paper and began reading it.
Beta,
I have always thought of you, always lived for you. Left Papa for your good, didn't end my life when you were little. After so much struggle, is it too much for me to ask that you at least think for yourself, for your own good, and not to forget about me? I know what you know and what you don't want me to know. This has been the worst thing to ever happen to me, and I shall take time to digest that it was by you. But above all, I know that you are my son. Always, as a mother, I bless you.
Maa
He sat there, completely frozen. The biggest curse God can give anyone fell upon him, the
guilt after doing something wrong, which is the most painful thing one can experience. He
had been selfish, he had forgotten his values and went on to commit a crime because he
wanted to be in their bad company. They forced him to take drugs, and he shamelessly got
carried away, completely forgetting with what pain his mother had managed to bring him up.
This was the reward which he had given to her.
His guilt punished him terribly. He felt as if his heart had been trapped, suffocated, and set on fire. He wept, and wept, vowing to start working hard again, all the time remembering his mother’s tears of sorrow which were burning his chest. He initially faced humungous trouble, his body shivering because of addiction. But, he controlled himself, proving to be as strong as his mother. Eventually, he overcame his addiction, but always kept in his mind this phase of his life.
He became immensely successful in the future, earning billions. He had completely changed his family’s condition. Now, he was the owner of a big mansion, with multiple servants behind his mother. He never forgot his childhood, and he soon started helping others, his poor family members, the families of his maids, and eventually opened a non-profit organization House of Values. Through his organization, he helped hundreds of domestically abused women, and gave shelter to many old people whose children had forgotten that whatever they are, they are because of them.
One fine day, the President showered him with a national honor for his immense contributions in social work and improvements to the society’s welfare. There he stood on the stage, the entire country giving him great respect. In one of the rows, sat an elderly woman, bent with age, who barely managed to look up. She realized that her same son who had made her cry tears of immense grief, made her cry different tears today, the tears of happiness that her entire life has become successful after raising such a son. Her values, all her struggles, were worth it. Good values imbibed in a person can fade but never vanish.