Chauraha

“Beta! What would you like to become when you grow up?” The favorite question of my aunt’s cousin twice removed. I never understood that relation my whole life. But whoever she was I loved my Aunt’s cousin twice removed because she always brought huge packets of chocolate for me. But the question remained. What would I like to become when I grow up. This was also the favorite question of Anita Aunty, Sushma Aunty and all the Aunties whose son were in IITs or other big engineering colleges. I always thought…

What the hell do these people mean by ‘Beta! when you grow up’. I was grown up. After all I was 5 years old and was already getting to understand the spellings of ‘enginir’ and  ‘doctar.

Yes! I was a 5 year old ‘bacha’ trying to figure out what I would be when I am 22 or 23 years old! I am sure if you had asked Pamela Anderson the same question, she would have died of heart attack. How could I take such a big decision on my future when my favorite hobby was still eating mud at home and teacher’s brain at school.

But I had a ready-made example personified in my own house. My bhaiya Tarun. “Oh! Look at him. He is so intelligent”, my teary eyed mother would often say. “See he has again topped the class Varun. You should learn something from your bhaiya beta!”, my neighbour (whose son was in IIT) always told me. I always wanted to tell her to shut up and mind her own business. I never did that because her son, though in IIT was known to be a boxing champ and I really didn’t want my teeth to end up in my stomach.

My bhaiya Tarun who was ‘Oh so intelligent’ was, in my opinion, nothing but an oversized monkey. Not because he looked like a monkey(Monkeys are better-looking than him and they are not as fat as he is and they also don’t have the ability to cram everything in sight), but because he behaved like a total monkey. His mouth was always half open due to the teeth which were soon going to fall out and he laughed(which he seldom did) like monkey. It was more of a ‘khee-khee’ than a ‘ha-ha’. But still he was something yaar. He was just 13 years old but he was confident that he would become an engineer some day. If only I could have that sort of confidence, I often thought, the world is in my hands. After all I was 5 years old…

My favorite cricketer was Vinod Kambli. Not because he was classy but because he was a lefty like me. Now, Brian Lara is also a left handed batsman, my nukkad friends said. But he wasn’t Indian so I didn’t like him much. Being a 7 year old I could atleast do that much to be a true patriotic. I don’t know when I started playing cricket in the society street we children called ‘nukkad’. But the day I broke Sarita Chachi’s 5^th floor window, I was declared the best batsmen of our ‘nukkad midgets’ team and I was finally a ‘pakka’ player. Rainy or sunny, we never missed cricket. We all went to Amol’s place to watch cricket matches in colour. We cheered on every six and danced on every Indian win. And there, seeing Vinod kambli giving a nice thrashing to every other baller, I decided I wanted to be a cricketer some day. The day my bhai got into IIT my cricketing career was put to a halt to prepare me for the same fate. Vinod Kambli retired from international cricket a few years later.

By the time I turned 13, I was avoiding failing in mathematics in class VII while Tarun scored yet another 9 pointer (his CGPA was 9.7) in his second year. “What is this CGPA again?”, I asked Tarun. He told me to shut up and concentrate on my percentage. Once a monkey, always a monkey, I decided. The questions and suggestions about my career kept pouring in from various sources. Some distant aunt in U.S. mailed my dad to prepare me for GRE (my dad didn’t knew the full form when I asked him), some unwanted aunty in the neighborhood told me to go for specialized courses from Delhi and a friend of mine told me that someday we both could open a shop together. My brother always bragged me to study harder as it’s not an easy job to get into top institutions. In turn, I always begged him to lose some weight as it’s not an easy job getting married with a belly ready to explode at any time.

The day came when I cleared my high school and I was the happiest person on earth. My house felt like someone had died. My brother called from U.S. to tell how badly I had performed and how much shame I had brought him and the family. My marks were immediately tallied with my brother’s who had completed high school 8 years ago!! I had scored 67%. Tarun’s score was 96%.

Getting admission in XI was a difficult job. There were entrance tests, personal interviews, parent’s interviews. Some even considered calling the grand-parents. I thanked God they didn’t call my dog because it definitely didn’t have a very good upbringing and I am sure it wasn’t very fond of nagging principals as well. Finally I managed Vidya Bharti School which was the 8^th best school in Meerut. My mother who had cried the day my brother got into IIT took a sigh of relief when I got the admission letter.

The melodrama in our house-hold had started. My mom had it straight out of Kasautti Zindagi Kii where everyone will stand facing each other saying nothing at all and my dad had it out of Aaj Tak where you had to believe whatever the person on the screen is saying. My mom listened to unwanted aunties about me and said nothing and my dad listened to the relatives and thought they were right about my career. I, on my part, just felt a sting that my mom and dad have to listen to people because of me. My mom and various ‘unwanted aunties’ discussed over my future prospects during kitty parties and society dinners. I was always kept up-to-date about the ranks of other’s sons, son’s friends and their brothers. The coaching centre was a horror where we were divided into batches according to our ranks. I always managed to maintain the last batch. I was relieved the day dad told me that I would never get into IIT. Atleast he had come to terms with the hard reality.

As prophesized by my father, I didn’t get into IIT, didn’t manage any NIT, and wasn’t accepted in Delhi University. I was a complete failure. Dad told me that it wasn’t any use going to any other counseling as it would be just a waste of time and money. The days were hard to pass by. I was not allowed to meet my friends. I wasn’t even allowed to play cricket. Tarun left his MNC job the same year and cleared CAT. He was among the elite students and got admission into IIM Ahmedabad. I wanted to drown somewhere. The day he came home he made a face like a chimpanzee (which wasn’t really hard for him) and told me that I have turned into a good for nothing teenager of this useless country. I congratulated him on his success and realized (more due to the shame inside) that the ‘unwanted aunties’ were right and it was time to think about my career.

I went into the college (the 3^rd best in Meerut, Gosh! I was improving my standards) with the dream of making it big here. The dream was shattered the second day when I saw Tina. She was the prettiest and the most famous girl in my department. Naturally, whole ‘janta’ wanted her. There is one big problem with famous girls: they know they are famous which makes it virtually impossible to impress them. I tried talking to her infamous friends (all famous girls have infamous friends who make her all the more famous) but all in vain. My friends (who all had taken it upon themselves to make the life of every creature walking on earth a misery) told me the final solution to this universal problem. They told me if there is one thing a woman of any proportion can’t resist, its music.

Music… Hmm… It seems there is an invisible bond between music, musicians and girls. They are practically impossible to separate. It was then, to impress Tina that I decided to become a musician. As soon as I entered this world of rock, punk and metal, I came to know that my knowledge in this area of ‘simplest way to impress a girl’ was rather very limited because the only music I had ever heard was Rafi and Geeta Dutt my mom used to play on the radio. They were all dead. I didn’t wanted to be a singer and end up dead, I decided. But in this losing battle of love and decision I had to choose something. My friends told me to play some instrument.

I could play tabla but as it turned out it is one of the most unromantic instrument in music industry, my friends told me. They were right actually. How would a girl like you when she sees you beating something as cute looking as a tabla? I held a guitar in my hand and we formed a band. My deep analysis on the matter turned out to be right and as soon as the word got around that I was a guitarist, Tina herself came to me (actually quite stuck to me) and we became ‘good friends’. She asked me to participate in the college rock fest. For her sake I did and we came fourth. Tina left me and I soon found out that she was now the ‘best-friend’ of the lead singer of the winning band. I soon overcame her because I realized that if at all there was a bigger misery to mankind than Paris Hilton – it was her.

The biggest effect of this rock fest was felt upon my mother who finally had something to tell about me. She told every relative who would listen, how her son loved music and came fourth in the college fest. She just forgot to mention the fact that there were just four bands competing.

All my worthless life I remained the key hit-point of every ‘unwanted aunty’ of our colony. What was so special about these aunties, I often thought. I am sure there is an ‘unwanted aunty’ in every colony and society. The supreme commander of these aunties was Rita Aunty who took it upon herself to find the latest gossips of the society. I am sure even Aaj Tak is not as fast as her in spreading rumors and news of all the pangas. She had the complete bio-data of other aunties’ son, daughter and their friends. Inspite of her marriage being a total failure, she always had a few rishtaas for every bachelor in our society. She never suggested any rishta for me.

I started with my third year when I came to know that Rita Aunty had a proposal for Tarun. He had completed his freak MBA and was now placed in one of the biggest banks of Germany. He married a few months later. Even mothers realize that in cases like my brother’s, people are sometimes very lucky to get married. My mother looked content with her elder son. My bhabhi was extremely beautiful and I never understood what she saw in my brother. But then the combined effect of being beautiful and the weight of fat Euro cheques may sometimes make you very dumb. They both moved to Germany and had a son who I heard was a genius as well. My mother also told me that he had bought a Mercedes. Once a monkey, always a monkey, I thought.

Student Council elections are a rage in our college. The past record showed that only the supreme leader of total lukhaas became the college President. As I fulfilled all the qualifications of a true lukhaa I was made a nominee. A few friendly fights, my friend’s ‘convincing powers’ and on some occasions the unavoidable gundagardi saw me being made the President of our college. I found it quite ironical as I wasn’t sure who the President of India was. I was loved and feared by all as I represented the common man of my college. I was their savior, their Lalu as they fondly called me. Some even went far enough to compare me to Mayawati.

I was happy. I was a leader now recognized and feared by all. Finally I was able to make it big in college. But above all I was now worthy enough to be the topic of discussion of Rita Aunty’s gossips. I was asked for lunch where other aunties’ son came for discussing their problems in other colleges of Meerut as well. I was their leader, their savior. As a college President I had enough power to manage through the rest of my two years without much studying. My ‘charm’ was enough for professors who refused to give me marks.

Passing through college, I again found myself at a chauraha. The paths lead to various post graduates or a marginal salary in Mother Dairy. I took the fifth route. I decided to join politics. I joined the youth group of a ‘very big’ party in the same year when my brother moved in as the CEO of a ‘very big’ company in Germany and finally got a citizenship there. My parents, as usual were very unhappy with me which was not a big deal anymore. Sitting in my room, with nothing to do, I often thought:

What is it that my mom actually expected from her children? There was one who was never with her, who never took her to the doctor when she was ill, who never went to the mandi with her and who was never around to bear the pain of sitting with ‘unwanted aunties’ and then there was the other one who was always with her in pain, in sorrow, in happy times and on her birthday… There was one whose duty seemed like just sending cheques in Euro along with a photograph (from which a monkey, a beautiful damsel and a kid who looked the breed of two would be laughing at you sheepishly from Eiffel Tower) and there was other who stood by her not in a photograph but in her old age… Somehow, they had lost their love for me… I love my parents…

I became the big party’s youth leader. My job was to impress young college kids (read gundaas) to join our party. We used both money and power to influence the poor into joining hands with us. We held rallies and marches all over the town. Senior party officials often told us to fight with police to gain media attention. We broke windows, collected hafta tax and organized the birthday party of our party leader. We were becoming lukhaas on a big scale. From a musician turned politician, I had become a gunda. I was sick of this power. Rita Aunty had stopped mentioning me because her own son was in college now and she feared she might upset me with her nonsense talks. I never told her that her talks had upset me since I was 14 years old. I never tried to induct her son into the party. Infact, I left the party myself.

Aunty must have partied hard the night I left the party. Because her gossiping about how ‘they’ had thrown me out of the party had started the very next day. I sat at home and either listened to Aaj Tak or my father and was surprised how similar both sounded. You could always neglect the waste part, I often told myself. My friends from college and party workers often came to my house to try and convince me to come back. They now compared me to Gandhiji who I came to know had put on a hunger strike against the policies of British. My friends thought that I was on some similar mission against my party. I promptly told them that I was on no hunger strike and offered them some aaloo parathas. They all tried to tell me what differences I could bring to the nation and showed me Rang De Basanti (in which a hero who is fond of changing his hair style brings about a revolution in youth sacrificing his own life). I told them I had no ideas of sacrificing my life. It was then that someone mentioned I looked just like Aamir Khan.

I looked like Aamir Khan!? Hmm… I looked at myself in the mirror. Not bad, I thought. I could see muscles building up at the right places with a chocolaty face. I am good looking!, I was surprised. I could be a movie star, I told myself. I had done a few dramas in my school and college. I remembered when I had played Lakshman in school Ramayana. Sita had definitely given me a mischievous look. I talked about it with my parents who instantly refused to send me anywhere unless I had a paid job. My father after seeing the terrible face of my elder brother probably couldn’t believe that his other son could actually be a movie star. I respected my parents but what else could I have done. All confused, a week later, I ran away from home.

15 years later…

… Reporter: You came here with nothing in hand and today you are on the front cover of every Bollywood magazine and are working with the biggest production houses. How do you feel Rishabh or should I call you Varun?   

 

Rishabh Kumar: Name really doesn’t matter. You can call me whatever you like but yes my real name is Varun. Rishabh is what industry has bestowed upon me and I really respect both my names. And yes it’s true that when I came here, I had nothing in hand except will power. But it’s just been 14 years in the industry and I still feel like a new face. New works keep coming up and I take all of them as a challenge. I still have a long way to go, I believe.

Reporter: Being really modest aren’t you? Mumbai is called the city of dreams. Did you ever dream that rising from a small town you would ever come here and be the next superstar?

Rishabh Kumar: (smiles) how many of your dreams do you remember?

Reporter: Not many.

Rishabh Kumar: Exactly. Because dreams are beautiful but as pessimistic as it may sound or as optimistic as we may want it to be, dreams never come true. We dream, we enjoy and then we forget them. Crossing the various crossroads of my own life, I realized that I never dreamt. Infact, I was a very confused person. A day came when I wanted to a be a cricketer, someday a musician, the other day the President of India and like all these days one day I wanted to be an actor. But I can proudly tell you that, may be not to perfection, but I have lived all these dreams. I realized that while confident people become CEOs, managers, chairpersons of big companies, the confused people are like…me…artists in a bigger sense.

The spot boy came in, “Sir, the shot is ready”.

Gently Falls the Bakula

Title: Gently Falls the Bakula

Author: Sudha Murthy

Genre: Fiction, Light Drama

Written originally in Kannada some thirty years back, this small fiction by Sudha Murthy is the tale of a lower middle class couple from North Karnataka and their struggle to find their own individuality. Srikanth and Srimati are neighbors in Hubli, their houses separated by a not-so-beautiful-but-still-so ‘bakula’ tree. Both of them are the treat of the school each standing first or second in the class. Childhood competition slowly culminates into romance inspite of rivalries between the two families. While Srikanth goes to ‘Bombay’ to study in IIT; Srimati, who was incidentally academically better than him stayed back to study her passion for history. They get married and while Srikanth rises meteorically in his career, Srimati has a hard time discovering her true purpose of existence. And hence begin a struggle of a brilliant house wife to find her own happiness.

The book is written in a very simple language and though the subject matter deals with emotions of every day life of a couple, it fails to keep the reader interested in the subject. We see these kind of stories everyday now. In daily soaps and in the neighborhood. The story is definitely short and precise but in the end you will feel that it’s incomplete. I won’t say more tragedy would have done any justice to the novel. But somehow, one is unable to feel the emotions that Srimati goes through. The choice of words and the simple writing style may well be the bane of this novel.

What one can understand from this novel though is that there is a perspective to everything. Men who have to earn a family’s bread have to be ambitious and hard-working and motivated but do they have the right to neglect their family in the process? Women have to manage a home and take care of the kids but do they really lose their own integrity in the process? The book raises societal questions. And though no one turns out to be wrong, the question of who is right and whose sacrifice is greater than the other looms. This book is hence a debate between men and women. Perspective, as it is, always ends in a question mark.

Rajneeti

Title: Rajneeti

Director: Prakash Jha
Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Manoj Bajpai, Nana Patekar, Katrina Kaif

My comments: Story or Reality? What’s worth?

You can watch this movie with two angles. Story and reality. As far as story is considered there is no doubt it is a very good story. But wasn’t Mahabharata a very good story as well. Inspired mildly by the epic Mahabharata this is the story of a political family torn between war for the power of a state. After an attack to the elder brother, the son of younger brother (Prithvi, Arjun Rampal) is left with the reigns of the family politics leaving the son (Veerendra Pratap Singh, Manoj Bajpai) of the elder brother seething with rage who, with the help of a dalit leader (Suraj, Ajay Devgan) wants to lead the state into a political turmoil. But in comes the Arjun or Ranbir Kapoor helped by mamaji – Nana Patekar, who saves the day for his family with sheer Michael Corleone style Godfather tactics, eliminating each and every piece of the chess quite systematically and ruthlessly. Now this is the story we have read and appreciated in both the Mahabharata (there is a scene between Suraj and his birth mother resembling the scene between Karna and Kunti in the epic) and the Godfather. The interest really builds up when Katrina comes in a simple plain saree to take the command but doesn’t last long enough.


What can be appreciated with this angle in movie is the acting of the star cast. Every single actor in the movie has given an absolutely brilliant performance. Whether it be Manoj Bajpai as the jealous cousin or Nana Patekar as the politico giant. Arjun Rampal has done a fab job with his angry yet loving image of a country politician. Ajay Devgan has again proved why he is the master of silent roles. Ranbir Kapoor, too, tries and break away from the ‘lover boy’ tag pasted upon him and brings in refreshing performance.

But now we must consider the other angle. Reality. There are many questions we should ask ourselves after watching this movie. Do people really break each other’s rallies? Do people really go for a killing spree as a solution for a political motive? Is the solution to every problem killing your opponent? If you see these questions, then Rajneeti won’t seem as impressive as it is made to be. Good story but probably not in the current context of things. Good acting but probably not the real world scenarios.

The movie is good or made out to be good? Only you can watch and tell. But its definitely worth watching once. If for nothing else, go and watch it to see Mahabharata brought onto the screen for the first time in a stylized vision.

The Fountainhead

Title:     The Fountainhead
Author: AynRand
My comment: Read the book to find how imperfect we all are...


A lot has already been written about this book. This one book has changed millions of people around the world. People studying literature have done thesis on the characters, theme and philosophy of this book. And I, quiet naturally, feel humbled writing about such a great novel.


What makes a book or a story or in a broader sense – literature – ‘great’? What are those elements that imprint the words upon reader’s mind? What makes the reader feel connected with the literature he reads?

It’s the characters.

Howard Roark, the hero, the human who believes in the ‘I’ and not the ‘We’ of collectivism is the identity of a true man fighting and braving the world to stand by his principles.

Peter Keating, the exact opposite is what every person desires to be but in the end cannot be – ambitious, successful, admired.

Dominique Francon, a lady who knows the true worth of a man and is ready to sacrifice herself to save the other.

Gail Wynand, a multi millionaire, power hungry, appreciates art but has the habit of collecting it just for him and for no other.

Ellsworth Toohey – perhaps the most dubious character in the book who shows how there is no white and no black - only a grey, which is perhaps the dangerous of all.

These characters are what we actually are. They are not larger than life. They are not out of the world images of God, Goddesses or Demons but humans who actually exist within us and around us. How simply these characters have been written on a piece of paper, impresses upon the reader the mastery of the writer.

The story revolves around architecture and sky-scrapers. It is the story of Howard Roark, the architect who finds himself fighting the society, the rich, the poor, the common man and even his love. Only because he is the egotist not ready to give up on his principles and ideals he holds so dear. He represents the ideal man - a man as he should be.

“Look at the man standing infront of the skyscraper. The man seems dwarfed by the building. But remember – it was built by him”

There are various philosophies associated with the book which later take form of Ayn Rand’s own philosophy of Objectivism. But the true essence of ‘The Fountainhead’ is to value an individual as a whole, to place oneself above the rest for only then we will be able to feel no remorse, no sadness and no jealousy. The book explains why selflessness is the biggest fraud of virtue man implied upon himself because there is nothing of ‘self’ left in selflessness.

This book isn’t a story of men. It is a fight for men. It represents everything we stand for but never have the courage to fight for. And after you have read it you will be left asking – can I be like him? Can I be perfect? Can I be like Howard Roark? Read this book and find how imperfect you are.

Ma's Diary

I have observed that it is easy for a man to write as a man. But after I read ‘Thousand Splendid Suns’ by ‘Khalid Hosseini’, it became evident that master story tellers can picture any emotions, as in this particular case, a man has pictured a woman suffering in Afghanistan. Now I am no master story teller. But here, I have - just tried what I wanted to do for a long long time…


I still remember the day he was born. Pink and soft as a rose, I had held him in my hand and looked at his closed eyes. He had his father’s face but I was sure he would have my eyes. I just wished he would open them and cry ‘ma’. I couldn’t look away from him. I wasn’t a weak woman then but then I was a woman after all. So yes, I cried. I cried because I had a reason to live now – my son was my reason.


His father had been in army. One day a call came from his camp and he never returned. I still have the Shaurya Chakra in my room which I had to sell later. It’s a pity he never knew his son and I am often left wondering if things would be different had he lived.

Oh yes! I remember every little detail of his growing up. The first time he had held my finger and the time he had hiccupped continuously looking utterly confused. I remember him sleeping soundly in my arms, peace in his closed eyes, holding me close – afraid that the monkey might come. And I also remember the day he said it – ‘ma’. I never knew that a single syllable, that one word had the power to make me a complete woman.

Working in a government hospital with patients oozing out blood in the corridor, skin diseases moving about me and people crying over the dead, I felt good. My son was going to the best school in town. I had seen how sitting in the school rickshaw, he had looked up at me, raised his right hand and cried – “Ma! No!”. I smiled even as a patient vomited in front of me.

My son looked good with the sword, I had decided when I saw him brandishing it in the school drama. He was made the Prince – my son, my little prince. Handsome, in his black coat and courageous, calling out the enemy, I saw in him an image of his father. I stood up smiling, went home and sold the Shaurya Chakra.

He missed his father and I knew it. I saw it in his eyes when he saw fathers playing cricket with their sons or when they took them for late night strolls. He often asked about his father and I told him what a brave man he was and how God had decided to make him a star.

Later when he grew up, he had asked me how I chose to remember my husband – through the useless bravery he showed for a country that doesn’t care or by gazing at the stars. If you are a mother, let me give you a little advice – never lie to your children. Tell them how exactly how his father had died of bullets piercing through his eyes and with a face you wouldn’t recognize and yes! for a country that didn’t care.

I never approved of his friends because they were all rich. I have always felt that these rich have a way about themselves which is so magnetic that we middle class always desire to achieve it. And it is this desire that becomes our bane. My son had to learn it the hard way.

I saw him being awarded the best student in school and I clapped the hardest. Already, he had started showing signs of extraordinary talent. Always first in class, excellent in sports, a wonderful orator, I coudn’t have been more proud. I loved it when he came back from school, head boy’s badge neatly pinned to his shirt and how he would come from play ground in sweat and drink milk in one go. Little did I know then that this would be the last day he drank milk except for just one more occasion.

He was no longer the crying kid in a school rickshaw. It had been replaced by a motorbike and his waving hands, leaving for college, smile on his face. The change in him was so gradual and slow that I didn’t even notice it at once. He no longer needed to be told stories of how monkey would come if he didn’t go to sleep.

Now you have to understand here that I tried to be as understanding of adolescence as possible. He had started coming late. Late night parties with friends, I thought. He stopped eating at home. Kids like junk food now a days, I decided. He spent more time in his room than in the kitchen with me. College kids need privacy, I assumed.

After coming back from hospital one day, I couldn’t find my nose ring (Even after my husband’s death, I hadn’t given up that one piece of jewellery). I asked him too. He said he didn’t know. After an advice to mothers, I should give an advice to children too, I suppose. Children should never lie to their mothers because, “Children! Your foolish mothers can read your eyes”. And then I did something that changed my life all together.

I went into his room. I found CD’s of rock bands (men with stupid wild hair mourning at their guitar), posters of actresses I hadn’t seen before, magazines full of naked women (I am an understanding mother), a variety of deodorants and besides them - a large bible. Inside the bible, I found a neatly cut rectangle of pages in which rested a packet with white powder inside. I need not be told what it was.

The change was evident now. He came to the kitchen that night and stood there like a silent night figure saying nothing for a while and then his hands started shaking.

“Where is the packet, Ma?”, he had asked.

Trying to sleep that night, I gathered his childhood and analyzed where I had gone wrong with him. I had felt the urge to slap him that day, to throw him out of the house and to even beg him to tell just where had I gone wrong with him. But when questions fail to be answered, silence pursues. He had crept silently back to his room. I stood, went towards his room and locked his door. I could hear the sudden scrambling, his feet moving towards the door and him, standing on the other side, trying the handle. We both stood there – a firm mother (I was a strong woman you see!) and a druggist son (I wish I had better words).

We seldom spoke after that because he was never allowed out of the house. Silent, he would come to the kitchen, eat and leave to his bedroom. I remember wondering if he had some more stash tucked away somewhere I didn’t check. But even those little remains had to end someday.

“Please don’t do this Ma!”

“Give me some money Ma!”

“Where did you hide that packet bitch?”

I heard it all. One afternoon, he came up to me sobbing, begging me for drugs. He crawled at my feet like a pet. He pleaded me to kill him or he would himself do it. My feet tasted the saliva dripping from his mouth. He held my hands and cried like a child. O God! Where had I gone wrong. I had passed him the drugs.

I took him to the rehab in the valley. It was a serene and a beautiful place but once I went inside the facility, I could hear the screams of boys wasting away their youth. We saw people on the verge of tears muttering among themselves, nurses feeding people with pink and yellow tablets and people trying to hold their hands still, while fighting away the mental urge.

“This is what you want to make me Ma?”

“Will you remember me the way you miss Papa? Or do you even remember him you selfless bitch?”

“How would you love me when you couldn’t love the man who is half me? You even sold his medal. How do you remember him Ma? Tell me.”

“I remembered him through you Beta. Tell me, should I anymore?”

I spent the days wondering what my son, my piece of moon was doing at that particular hour. Sometimes I dreamed of people in white dragging him through the empty white corridors, setting him down on a white bed, he trying to fight away from his captors, all the while shouting “Help me Ma!” and then the people in white placing steel rods at his temples and then everything became white.

Once upon a time there was a father who felt that his love for the country was much greater than his responsibilities as a husband. He died a victorious war leaving a wife and a child who waited his ghost forever. There was also a mother who never let her child feel the emptiness her husband had created in their lives and fighting age and society alike, she saw her son being dragged away from the shelter of her bosom to the world of people in white.

He ran away from rehab. Somewhere inside I was relieved because he had run away from agony we both had forced upon each other. The selfish heart of the mother wanted him to come back to her. And he did come back. A month had passed since I hadn’t heard from him and then all of a sudden he turned up at the hospital one day. He had long hairs but they had become lank. His eyes had sunken in their sockets and my son had suddenly aged 10 years.

“Ma! You are a nurse. You can get it for me Mummy. Please, Please, just once.”

“Come home beta!”

“If you don’t give it to me, I will never show my face to you again. I will never have it again mummy. Just this once.”

He hadn’t aged, I thought. He had actually become a child. I put a hand above him, this time pleading, “Leave all this beta! Let’s go home”. I took him by the arm. He jerked it away and left leaving his hand on my face. My son had slapped me.

That day I went to the old jeweller’s market. The narrow streets hadn’t changed much. The shop was in pieces now but still the same manager sat behind it who I had met many many years ago. I asked him for an article I had sold him long back. He told me how he, being a true Indian couldn’t melt the precious artefact. He went down a cellar and brought back the shining piece of metal. I went home and put the Shaurya Chakra back on my bedroom wall where it still hangs, mocking me, telling me how I have been a failure as a mother.

He had disappeared from my life again. I was getting old now and lived alone in the house where the ghost of his dead father with a medal stuck to his uniform often visited me telling me the horrific tales of the war and then asking where his son was. In the nights, people in white with green masks on their face came in search of my son who I had hidden behind the curtains. I was visited by my dead patients vomiting on the floor who disapproved of my ways as a mother.

Six months later he came back again, this time at the house of the dead and the old woman. I prepared milk for him. He looked at it for a while as if trying to see his reflection in it, laughed a little and drank it one go.

“Thanks ma!”, he said. He looked better, I observed.

“Come back beta! Your mummy needs you.”

“It’s too late mummy. But I am trying to be a better person, I promise. Let me get things back on track and I will come back to you.” And then he stopped as if thinking something, “There is a girl ma! She is a very nice girl and we both love each other. She is the one who will bring me back.”

He stood up to go and looked at me. There was something he wanted to say but decided against it and left his mother once again. I never came to know what he wanted to say.

Today, a girl came looking for me. She was trying hard not to cry and it was evident she hadn’t slept. But behind the dark circles, I could see a very pretty face.

“She is the one who will bring me back”. The words kept ringing in my ears as the people (in white) brought my son’s body home. They kept him in the room below the shaurya chakra which watched him silently. They were talking something about rash driving, then police, then drugs but I couldn’t hear any of them.

Today I saw a girl crying in the corner because she loved my son. I looked around the house and saw him as a little child calling me ‘ma’, running into my arms laughing, sleeping near me, peace in his eyes. I also saw a son, my prince, my piece of moon, with his eyes closed peacefully, only this time he was as dead as I could be. I went upto him, wished he would open his eyes, and so I stroked his hairs and whispered, “So ja mere laal! (Sleep Son!) The monkey wouldn’t come now.”

I had to cry this time...