| Creative Writing Competition 2012 India | |
| CODE | 995 |
| SETTING | Busy Market |
| OBJECT | Book |
| THEME | Remorse |
Emotional Short Story – Someone Else’s Child
Photo credit: jeltovski from morguefile.com
I was holding my son’s hand tightly. It was busy market place and the kind of street where one could find more things to buy on the pavements for lesser price, and which was preferred by the middle class and the poor, as one could haggle with the vendors till one’s mouth ached. It was festive time and my wife was doing the shopping while I took care of my boy.
I remembered a market place very similar to this, but it had gone to the black and white part of my memory as it had happened a long time back. Yet I could remember my father’s voice calling,
“Nandhu! Nandhu!Where are you?”
With astonishing clarity, as if it was heard right beside me, now. There was a reason. My father had been calling out to Nandhu in his sleep almost daily. Father passed away quite recently making me an heir of his sorrow and remorse if not of anything else.
Father brought one and half year old Nandhu into the house. It seemed a long time back. He seated him gently on the floor of our main room, which served as our drawing room, dining room as well as kitchen. As though sensing instinctively that he was an unwelcome guest here, he started bawling. My mother showed her reluctance in having him with us by turning and walking away to the kitchen part of the room.
“Please, Sita,” my father was adopting almost a begging tone to convince her, ” I couldn’t even find the body of my sister or brother-in-law. I owe this to my sister,” his voice was chocked.
“What about her in-laws? Can’t they take care of him?” My mother retorted.
“You know how things are. Because it had been a love marriage between my sister and her husband, they wouldn’t even come to see the baby,” said my father.
“They are more self-respecting than you,” my mother observed cruelly.
As a seven year old boy I could not understand anything more and neither my sister who was six. Secretively both of us welcomed the new addition into the household as it gave us some respite from our boring routine of studies and helping out mother. As my mother needed to do all the household chores and had just a few years back heaved a sigh of relief that both her children were able to reach and wash themselves in the toilet, bathe on their own, button their shirts properly and eat without being fed. Now she had to start all over again, that too on someone else’s child! She neither had the patience nor the strength, she confessed.
The work of looking after our cousin, after our school hours was interesting in the beginning but turned out to be cumbersome in a while. He cried often and was neither cute nor chubby. He was thin, emaciated and without a smile. Our friends started questioning who that strange, scrawny child with a runny nose was. We were ashamed of him. One strange thing about him was that he loved books. In the beginning we were worried that he would tear our books. But he went on looking at the pictures and admired them.
Father called him Nandhu. Nandhu grew and in a way his being in the house was useful for us. “Nandhu, go and get me maths notebook from Naveen.” it was me.
“Nandhu, bring some water from the pump in this small bucket,” this was mother.
“Nandhu, get me a pencil from the shop,” this was my sister.
My father protested,”He is only four. Don’t send him on errands out.” But we could not do without his help.
Nandhu had to be admitted in school. My mother felt there was no hurry. He was physically weak. My father had to agree with her. He was worried whether he could manage the fees for three children.
It was festive time. They said there was a different kind of discount in a shop. If one bought dresses for two children, the third child would get a dress for free. The previous years they had bought cheap ones for Nandhu from the pavement shops. This offer seemed good. But the children had to be brought to the shop. My father could not accompany us as it was a working day for him. He had told us that he would join us at five p.m.
The market was packed with people. Mother held my sister’s hand and I held to my sister’s other hand, holding Nandhu with my other hand. It was an ordeal walking like this in the crowd.
“Ma,” Nandhu called out.
He walked a few paces away from us to show a book spread out on the pavement. It was a colourful book on Hanuman, the brave deity.
“I want it.I want a book on my own.”
Mother was going in search of the shop with that fabulous discount.
“Ma,” he called out again.
“Can’t you shut up?” she yelled and walked on.
“Ma,” again he called.
“Can’t you understand? Already a burden on us and you want everything you see. If you open your your mouth again, I will leave you here and go,” mother threatened him. We walked in silence.
After walking for about half an hour in the crowd, my mother could spot the shop. She entered the shop triumphantly. The shop assistants were so busy that it took her more than an hour to get their attention and choose something. Then came the free gift part.
“Where is Nandhu? Wayward, just like his mother.”
We searched for him everywhere inside the shop. Then it dawned.
“God! Did he get lost in the street? Your father will skin me alive. What shall I tell him?Where shall I search for that disobedient brat?”
She mustered courage, got us seated in front of the shop on the roadside, advising us not to move from there till her return, she jostled inside the crowd once again.
My father was there at sharp five. He was shocked beyond words. We could hear his voice above the din of the crowd calling out to Nandhu. Even if Nandhu had responded we could not have heard it. Father asked us to go home. When he came back, his face was tear stained. We strained our necks to see if Nandhu was walking behind him. He closed the door and on after thoughts kept it open, just in case Nandhu came, he explained.
Father was always his silent self. But it was surprising that my mother who had always been vocal on everything kept quiet. Occasionally we saw a scrawny child and hoped it was Nandhu.
Nandhu never came.
Would we meet him ever again in our life? Had he been adopted by a rich family and would come and bail us out from our poverty, as it happens in movies? Or was he sitting along with the line of beggars just outside the temple that I see on my right?
Was it all for a book that we lost him?
My palms had turned sweaty and slippery. With a jerk I found that I could not feel my child’s hand inside mine.
He was standing a few paces away from me and pointing out to a book, a colourful book, with lot of pictures of Hanuman, the mighty deity.
__END__
