Affection and identification!



What did he mean he knew, when he didn't read what was meant to be re-read as revision. He didn't give it much concern. Why? Was he in a fool's paradise or was it in disguise of the fact that he had studied really well? What was it, and why wasn't he concerned any longer; oh, where was he treading.

Vishnu's mom called him all of a sudden, that evening to know how he had been going with his preparation for the exam the very next day. To his surprise, everyone was so much interfering in his life. Yes, he was busy with his own life, with singing the guitar tunes out of his heart. Everyone knew, how well he composed the songs; for which people praised him, his ability. But, at that time when he was supposed to study well. It was then that he was playing the guitar.

"Well Vishnu, you should really know what's right and not for you." Was the reply, he got from his mom; when in his easy going nature, he expressed how he was enjoying his exam days as vacations. Mom felt bad, on knowing how disobedient her son had become. It was just first year in the college and the first time, that he had left home and he was in different colours.

“Vishnu, I need to alert your dad about it. You are not taking your life seriously!” Mom thundered on the phone.

“Mom, it's not that I'm not studying. It's simply that I have already studied what I had to. Now, I am doing what I love doing and you know mom, I can't study anymore. I just don't know what to study, that I should go on to study. Please, understand. Mom.. hello!!”

She didn't answer him at this point and kept down the phone. Both displeased and hurt, on listening to her son; mother sat in the courtyard to the house and kept on remembering her son. How he would fall aback again and again in studies, never got any reward in school. How she had heard the complaints from the teachers regarding his easy going attitude towards life, then. Even more, she knew it as well, how he had to settle within insufficient in life, when there were financial issues at home. Somewhere she felt, that her son had seen a lot, with his age. He knew, what it meant to her to prepare the dinner with coarse meals. How she would not eat but try to make him eat, every bite of his chapati with as much love and grace, that lied solely in a mother's hand. The mother had known one thing out of all, that whatever would happen, how bad marks her son would score in class. He would never cheat on her, on his father.

Then the doorbell rang, and she opened the door.

“Hello, Sunanda! How was your day?” Her husband greeted her.
“Hello, ji! I made sharbat for you. It's very hot outside. How do you stay out so long in this heat? I have asked you so many times, to get back home early.” She answered in the joy of finally seeing her husband, for whom she was waiting in the courtyard, since she started to think of her son.

“Yeah, it's hot outside. Well, I am used to this heat. I always keep two water bottles in my bag.” He replied gently and softly to his wife's query.

“I know that well. Right! When do you get time to drink from it, when you are going through the city; for your work. On the red lights, that are the only breaks to your drive under the sun?”

“You know it Sunanda. Everyone does this. It's not a big deal.”
“It's not a big deal for you, but for me; I after all care for you, but you know; you won't understand it.”

“Do one thing now, use Delhi Metro now. Why don't you listen?”
“Sunanda, I am to visit my clients in different places. Your Metro doesn't go everywhere. Does it?”
“Yes, as if your bike is an aeroplane. That too, without a horn; that you can't buzz if there's a passerby all of a sudden on the road.”
On this, they both shared a bit of laughter. She offered her husband a glass of cold water, and he asked her, had she filled the water in the bucket already hours before, so that it was cold now and he could bath. As in summers, there was hot water supply because of the incessant heat of the sun.
“Yeah, I did that without fail.”


“Well, listen; your son is not studying these days well. It's his exam tomorrow and he says very gaily, as if he's the most intelligent in his class; that mom, I am playing new tunes on my guitar.”

“Yeah, he's gone on me. It's just that, you can't see his real talent.”
“What do want to say? That you are any talented?”
“Yeah, I am...”

The chat went on for longer the evening, and Vishnu received a call from his father, this time.

The father-son duo discussed everything else than his exam, that was the very next day and mother kept on the annoyed look at her face, to see what was happening. The phone call ended in sometime.

“What was it, I ask? Are you a friend or a father? I can't point out any difference. Can you?”
“I guess not! Hahaha.. So, what's in the dinner tonight?.......”

Sunanda called him in the kitchen and Anil helped her with putting the crockery on the dining table and as she gestured that the cooked vegetables were in the bowl; Anil, as usual helped her to take the bowls and plates from the kitchen, to keep them on the dining table. They started with the dinner, and talked about the milk vendor, that his month was complete and he was telling that milk price was to be raised from Rs.44 to Rs.45 from this month. Anil felt puzzled and then said, “I know; it's okay!”

She said, “How can you be so numb, regarding it? These people raise the prices, every other day. This is not done! Even Mother Dairy has the price of one litre of milk; fixed to Rs.44 only. How can our milk vendor be so fierce and strategic.”

Anil controlled her raising voice, directed at him; just to tell him about it, but Anil felt if he had done something wrong about it. “It's okay! Pass me the curry from the bowl.”



It was the next week, that Sunanda and Anil were having their breakfast that they had a visitor, to their home. They let him in and he was from Canara Bank, presenting them a cheque of a good amount of money, which their son had sent back home after winning the championship in his university level which was the Battle of Bands. They were quite happy that their son, wasn't living in a fool's paradise, as they had assumed at times.

You see this dear, I used to say; it's not that bad times remain forever. Just that he didn't score marks in school, didn't have to mean that he wasn't capable. He won a prize, it means he won the hearts. When hearts are won, love is won and there's nothing more important than that in this world. I'm a happy father today, my son has made me proud. They embraced each other and this was a moment of love, which their son had brought. He hadn't forgotten his responsibilities. It wasn't about any cash reward that he got; it was just about, that coy, the signal; that the boy was determined and his efforts weren't going unnoticed.

They called Vishnu and congratulated him for his good work and mom expressed her happiness, when she felt the success of her son. This was both a priceless and an emotional moment for the three of them.

GaganSVaid
10/05/2014,12:25am

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