2.4 MINUS 1.4 CHILDREN

You don’t choose your family.They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them. – Desmond Tutu

2.4 refers to the once average size of a UK family.

In Marshall’s family here, there are no children, but with the inclusion of Nick, it is 2.4 minus 1.4 children.

Marshall’s family is without children. The head of the family is Marshall. He is more like a child.

Marshall is a clerk in a private company. What Marshall earns is called below the average earning.

Marshall’s wife is Lidia. She is a nice house wife and she loves children very much.

God never cares what we like. So is with her, she has no children.

Marshall is never unhappy for not having children. It’s Lidia who is always thinking about children. She is a wise house wife and she does everything she knows.

Lidia makes her friends around her wonder at her talents. Her neighbors love her like she is one of their family-members. She feels as one with all of them, helping them whenever she can. The children of the neighbors play with her in her house as if they are her children. Marshall knows only one thing. He goes to office, sits and works sincerely.

By five o’clock he gets up, drives his old two wheeler home. He sits before TV and enjoys seeing anything that is broadcast in TV.

Man is made in real terms, the way he lives. One is hard-working person, he is made to work hard as he does hard work. What he knows is nothing but working hard either in a field or in a factory or anywhere else. He is not interested in anything other than his work. He will be always ready for working his daily work.

Some people do not work, they simply sit and do what ever they like. They need not work as working and earning is not needed for them. So they will have plenty of time in hand. They are always worried about how to spend time or how to kill the unspent time. They are not the people to think that time is fleeting or lost or there is no time to do either this or that.

A few people have both work and leisure too. This leisure is free time. This is the time spent away from the personal activities like business, office work, domestic activities or educational works. It is also excluded from activities like eating and sleeping. A social leisure is with activities like sports and club-going.

Marshall has no such activities. He knows only one thing, as said above. He goes to office, sits and works sincerely. By five o’clock he gets up, drives his old two wheeler home. He sits before TV and enjoys seeing anything broadcast in TV.

Lidia seems lonely, as the cooking and maintaining home is nothing more like taking time for her. She dreams about having children. If she has children, just two, one should be a boy and the other should be a girl, how nice it will be. She sometimes dreams of these two children are very beautiful and wise like her. She loves that dream and she likes dreaming same thing every time. But dreams are not always alike.

Marshall thinks that life without children is really boring. He is never unhappy for not having children, but many times he is really not happy for not having children. He likes to have children.

The wife and husband are checked by the doctor and doctor convinced them that there is no problem at all and they can have children sooner or later. It is really happy news for both of them. They are dreaming for children. They are waiting for the happy days when their children  play in house.

Lidia thinks about Marshall who looks like a child many times. It is a consolation for her, she got at least a child like husband (a .4 child).

One day, Lidia had a new thought and she wanted to get it implemented.

“Stop viewing TV hours together like this” Lidia said.

“What can I do, then? You know, I have no work.” Marshall said.

Lidia is sharp and clever. She is an intelligent woman. She knows how to present things in a convincing manner.

“See dear, what you are earning is not enough, at least when we have children. So we have to get ready for future time when we have children and we have to spend more for their feeding, clothing and education. You have to plan something like a private job that you can do in your leisure time. It will be helpful for us. Think wise, you can earn money in the time you sit before TV like this.”

Lidia’s words showed him to feel responsible and he thought to make use of his free time.

Free time or leisure illusory and rarely free, economic and social forces appropriate the free time and people use this as “money in disguise” to increase living standards. The distinction between leisure and unavoidable activities cannot be rigidly defined. Some people do office work in leisure for future utility.

Marshall wants to be more earning one for first time by which he will get respect from his wife and that is nice and helping for the dream children of his family in future.

Marshall has a friend. Tom is his name and TV repairing is his profession. Marshall explained his problem to Tom. Tom is getting more TVs to be repaired and his time is not enough for doing all that job. He is thinking to find an assistant. Marshall looked like so.

“I will give needed training and TV sets to be repaired. My place is small, so you have to do this job at your home. Is it okay for you?” Tom asked Marshall.

“It is okay and I thank you very much Tom, it is my pleasure to do this job in my free time.” Marshall accepted the proposal.

Marshall is getting the training from Tom which is just few days. He is happy for getting this extra job with out strain.

*****

Lidia’s brother Nick woods is studying in a town and he is finally branded by his parents as “not good for studies”, so Nick is sent to Lidia’s house for training him to become a RIGHT boy to have respect in society.

The day Marshall brought the New TV set for  repair with his one week knowledge obtained from his friend Tom. It is the same day that Nick also came to their house. For getting a right training to become right man by her brother-in-law Marshall.

“Nick needs some good training and some good activity, dad said, I have to see that he is trained well so that he is suitable for some job here. we have to make him so, so that he will become a good boy and then a very good earning person” Lidia said.

Marshall knows well about Nick. He is just a heap of confusion and he can spread tons of confusion in everyone around him.

Marshall thought that Nick will be his headache soon. But he can not disappoint his wife who believes that transforming a heap of mud in to a heap of gold is not impossible.

Nick saw Marshall bringing a TV for repair to home.

“I know how to repair TVs, I learned TV mechanism for six months in Montreal Bro-in-law!”

Nick calls Marshall with a shortcut of brother-in-law as Bro-in-law.

Marshall did not believe what Nick says.

But Lidia is so simple that she believed her brother’s words cent-per-cent. Montreal is big city in Canada, so Nick may be as big as Montreal in his job, she thought.

“I don’t believe!” Marshall said with disbelief. Nick started his talent of speaking in his own style.

“What is a belief and what is a disbelief my Bro-in-law? A belief is a disbelief and a disbelief is a belief as anybody can believe it and not believe it also. Belief is not disbelief and disbelief is not belief, this is what everyone knows. If you know the theory of belief in proper way, you can find disbelief is hidden in every belief as it is not believed by some people or it is believed as disbelief by someone and for some others it is just belief and…”

By this time Marshall is gone on his old two wheeler to his office. Lidia is the only person hearing his brother’s talented words and gave the signal to him to repair that Brand new TV set released few days back into market and even Marshall can not know perfectly how to get it repaired.

By the time Marshall returned from his office in the evening and got ready to sit for repairing the TV, he saw Nick coming out from the room where the TV is put for repair.

Marshall saw some pieces or parts of TV on the ground in the place of full TV.

“What happened?” Marshall asked as he is annoyed at this scene.

“This is quite new technology bro-in-law, and my knowledge needs to be yet more refined!” Nick said with the confidence not lost even a little.

“It’s okay, but what about this TV? Why so many pieces are there on the ground?”

Nick gazed the face of Marshall and replied in a cool voice.

“I am sorry, Bro-in-law, It is unfortunate, the TV. It is broken as it hit the floor when ever I was angry on this, more than a dozen times.”

Lidia gazed at the face of Marshall as if she is having sympathy for him. Marshall is like a weeping child, as if for some incident when he is badly beaten by his peer in school. Lidia, like a mother, consoling the child, showed sympathy for him as if  she started console him.

“I don’t know that he will do this. I believed his words.” Lidia said.

*****

Tom was utterly disappointed with this incident.

Marshall purchased a new TV for this old one, spending a good amount of his hard savings.

“Don’t show me your face, I cannot show sympathy on irresponsible people.” Tom said.

Tom is gazing Marshall with the uncontrolled anger. His eyes are as red as burning coal. Marshall thought, what he said is right.

When Marshall returned home, Lidia tried to console him.

“If Nick is our child, don’t we bear this with compassion to him?” Lidia said.

Marshall gazed at Lidia. He thought that what Lidia said is right. He has to forgive Nick thinking that he is his son.

For the family where there are no children, Nick appeared as the only son in the family.

Marshall got a new thought about the children, the other side of reality or thinking in a systematic way. If he has children like Nick.

The thought may not be sweet, but what if he is like Nick or Nick himself is his child. It may be bitter, but not unavoidable as children are any type.

He thought in a deep sense that it is natural that children can be any type and we cannot command things like having children as we desired. A child can be just like Nick or just completely opposite to him.

“We have no children. That is our sour feeling. God has sent a child to our home. Lydia, Let us think, Nick is our child. Let us try our level best to refine him. Think, Nick is our child, a child sent by God. I will do whatever I can, I toil until he is made a Gem. I know, none is useless by birth, what we do to make one better is the elevation that we can give to our children.” Marshall said like a sage.

Lydia wondered. Now Marshall is like a grown up, not a child or less to a child.

She got a real child, Nick.

Each day of our lives, we deposit in the memory banks of our children. Our children are really smarter than any one of us.

We have to feed our children with roots of responsibility and wings of independence. The children are tomorrow’s citizens of our country.

Marshall is getting ready to do his best as a father, first time in his life.

__END__