Thriller Social Story – Contentment… a full-stop to our desires.
Photo credit: colossus from morguefile.com
Life has taught me only one word and that is “struggle”. We have come here in this world to struggle which begins from the day we are born, when we try to grasp in oxygen and let out a sharp cry to start breathing and it lasts till the day when we fight to take in oxygen to continue to breathe, lying on one of those white beds surrounded by green curtains. We struggle to smile, we struggle to be with our loved ones and we struggle to fulfill all our responsibilities which we agree to bear on our shoulders during our lifetime either willingly or unwillingly. We struggle hard because we are never content and contentment is difficult to achieve. Contentment is like a full-stop to our desires. When we find ourselves content, we just want to move with the flow of life. Lucky are the ones who are content while counting their last breath.
When we are alone our mind tends to become philosophical. Well, I was feeling good wondering how and what all I have done in my life till date that too sitting on a stony bench at the Durgapur Railway Station in the evening waiting for the Express. The railway electronic display board which hung over Platform No. 1, showed the time 22:10 and the announcement…
Train no. 800002, the EXPRESS, from Howrah to Patna, has been delayed by 4 hours from its scheduled time. We regret the inconvenience caused”… was really making me angry.
Waiting for bus or train is really a tough job especially when you are alone. You start dozing off wherein the vehicle of sleep picks up acceleration with a sudden brake and you get up with a startle to realize the quintessence of the uncomforting situation which prevails around. I was going through the same phenomenon when I heard a loud bizarre commotion at some feet distance from me. Trying not to belittle it, I got up with my official bag hanging from one of my shoulders and walked to the place to find a large round gathering with something amiss in the centre, people talking amongst themselves and my trials to see what they were surrounding was repeatedly being a failure.
God bless, an old man somehow managed to emerge from the crowd and being direction less came towards me. He put one of his hands on my shoulder for support and looked towards me with eyes which wanted to share something. He was in his late 60s, wearing a kurta which was off white and a dirty white pajama.
“Pardon me please” he uttered.
“No it’s alright”, I smiled. “What’s going on there?” I enquired.
“An old man sitting on the bench has died. There’s blood out of his nose. Nobody is accompanying him, he is alone and people are deciding to inform the police.”
“May his soul rest in peace”, were the words which came out from my heart. I was feeling sorry for that old man and his family.
“Don’t feel so sorry. He has died a peaceful death” his smile was pleasant. “So, where are you going?”
“My train to Patna is late by four hours and here I am waiting for it.” We started walking away from the crowded place. He was walking with his hands at the back, his left hand clutched his right wrist and he was facing the ground. “And you?” I asked.
“Let’s sit on this bench ‘cause mine is a longer story which would help you to kill time and make me content too” he offered. I obeyed him.
A railway station at night is as disgusting as it is during the day. The only difference is that during the day the noise takes away your peace whereas at night the uneasy silence disturbs you. Metro city railways are better than those of the small towns, at least in the former you can see movements of people though less in number than the daytimes but still the hustle and rustle remains the same unlike the small town railway halts, where you can see beggars sleeping on the floor with the dogs, no hawkers, few passengers waiting for the arrival of their trains and you yourself sitting and yawning, and then you get accompanied by someone like you and you start sharing the moment. That’s natural and that’s human.
He coughed, cleared his throat and began the tale which was making me curious now.
I had a happy family but now I am alone. Loneliness is my best friend and no one out here will be able to hear me speak except you, as the world has become deaf to me. I had a beautiful wife. A son and a daughter were born to us. Yes, they were twins. They were the cause of our happiness, the rhythm of our songs and the hymn of our prayers.
But, the Gods seemed to love our son more than us. He died out of pneumonia when he was just four. And my wife who couldn’t bear this grief passed away after two years of this incident leaving me alone with a daughter. The shadow of grief was so intense that no light was able to erase it off. I sent my daughter to her maternal grandparents so that I could manage to take some time to recover from the cataclysm of life and she would be brought up under good guidance.
I started drenching my moments in alcohol, the best servant to me in those days. I was the owner of a big property good enough to ease the life of my next generation too but, addiction sees no future and does not have mercy. Without hesitating, without giving it a second thought, you hand the money to the pub keeper and get your favourite drink which would take you away from the hallucinations of the real world and make you foster euphoria.
I was now trapped in my own world, an escape from reality and had drained all my wealth in getting lured to sleep in the arms of intoxication of wisdom. In a few days I became no less than a beggar on a station. I had no money to buy bread and live a life. Hunger overpowered addiction and I learnt a lesson. Emerging out from the canopy of mutilation, I remembered about my daughter, a responsibility which I still had on my shoulders.
I went to seek her but had to return empty handed because my in-laws did not have faith on my upbringing as I had been coerced by my own acts. To some extent they were right and so without protesting, I moved away to another place in search of some work to earn my livelihood. I had started afresh and entered into a labour’s life. I had become someone who used to carry bricks on his head, sacks of cement on his shoulders and smoke all the day but there was no speck of alcohol anymore anywhere in and around me. Everyone out there knew that I was alone engrossed in myself.
One day, another labour friend of mine proposed me to marry his handicapped sister, Madhu. Madhu had polio and so the right limbs of her body were non functional. I agreed because I had no one to be with and in my senses it was a divine work to stand beside someone who needs you. I married her and our journey began. She was not as beautiful as my first wife but, was adorable. We became good friends in few days. I used to take care of her more than myself, cook for her, smile because of her and earn for her. She seemed to be a ray of hope and a reason to live. I was coming out from the dark caves of my past and had started to live again.
One day, I was on my work when I saw Madhu’s brother scurrying hurriedly towards me and gave me a doomed news that Madhu had been admitted in the nearby government hospital as she had encountered a third degree burn with the least hope of recovering. I rushed to the hospital to find her counting her last breath. She smiled as she saw me and said, ”You are the most wonderful man on Earth” and she closed her eyes forever as if she had been waiting only, to see me and tell me those words. Tears rolled down my cheeks but I held myself strong as death seemed to be a friend now. Without her, everything seemed to be incomplete and I decided to go back to my native place.
Scenarios seemed to have changed there. I was at my birthplace after long long years but it still was my land. A very big and beautiful temple had been constructed in my absence. I took a shelter there. There were some known faces going in and out of the temple gate but no one seemed to recognize me. Maybe they were genuinely not able to, due to my extra growth of beards and moustaches and my dirty appearance or they were just ignoring my presence amongst themselves.
“Baba, take this. You seem to be hungry. Are you new to this village?” a soothing voice shook me and I gazed at her beautiful face. She was a woman of about 25 yrs of age, well dressed in colourful saree . The touch of vermillion on her forehead was making her look more beautiful. Suddenly the memories of my daughter, Gunja gyrated around me and I imagined her because she must have been married by now and look the same way as I had this lady standing in front of me.
I smiled at this thought and took the bread. “Why did you feel like offering this to me?” I enquired.
“You seemed to be hungry and tired. And I do it for my mother and father whom I don’t remember. Grandma says they died when I was very small. My father was a very good person she says and I feed the needy so that my parents stay well in heaven and they feel good about this.” She answered.
I was stunned by her thought. “Your parents will certainly be proud of you.” I blessed her from heart.
“Gunja! Gunja! Your grandma is looking for you”, someone shouted from a distance.
“Here I come.” She screamed to reply back and moved some steps forward.
I was just out of my mind, nothing happening in front of me registered my brain for few seconds. I did not know whether to cry or whether to stop her.
“Wait! Whose daughter are you?” words just rushed out from my heart.
“Swargiya Rameshwar Singh”, she turned back and answered without stopping.
So, she knew my name. I was on cloud nine. For a moment, I felt like stopping her and revealing my identity to her that I was her fortunate father and she was my unfortunate daughter but I just let her go with a smile thinking, the life she is leading is far better than the life which she would lead if I return. I kept staring at her until she disappeared from my sight.
He paused and I had tears in my eyes. Sometimes you let your dear ones go just for the sake of their happiness. By this time, we were just walking slowly on the platform and we had reached the spot where the overhead staircase began. It was dark and now I was a few steps ahead of him and he was behind me. I wanted to know more and so asked “And what did you do after that? You did not try to know more about her?”
His reply came, “No, I left the place immediately because I was content. I did not want anyone else to see me and inform her about me. So, I am here and just a few hours ago I suffered a severe headache and died on the bench which the crowd still surrounds.”
Silence seemed to swallow me up and my motion froze. It could never be true but I dared to look back through the corner of my eye, to find no clue of him. I somehow managed to move forward lifting my heavy feet. I ran to the crowded place where by now police had arrived and I saw the same old man’s dead body being carried away. My heart sank at the thought of what I had experienced just now and nothing seemed to tickle my nerves.
“Train no. 800002, the Express has arrived on platform no. 1.”
The announcement brought me back to senses and I began moving towards my compartment.
–END–
