Not all those who die manifest themselves as roses, what faces become dust and are lost forever.
"Tell me it gets better." he asked his mother. "Yes son, it does." she said. It didn't for her. For him she hoped it did. Born of a broken home and a burnt house she had married a man who would never betray her. Absence of heart break is love for some. Those who do not aim heaven for they know the truth about it.
Parents divorced early during her childhood. It wasn't easy growing up in an Indian society without a father. She hadn't met him after the divorce. All she remembered was a smile and she wasn't sure if it was Rajesh Khanna in an old Hindi movie or her father. Mother had brought her up well and she had brought up her mother well. The early days, she faintly remembered, had been difficult, living in their aunt's place. Her mother's incessant wet tears. Strange how she remembered the tears more than her fathers smile. Maybe because they lasted longer.
Not a happy family her aunt's was either. Aunt was a nice woman. Not perfect but bearable and her husband an understanding man. How she wished to be born there. To have a father to teach her to ride a cycle. Interestingly she hadn't learned how to ride ever. Not that no one did teach her. Her husband had tried once but the absence of a father figure teaching her to ride was imprinted on her mind to an extent that she refused to learn. Her uncle couldn't be the father she wished. He had a autistic son to look after. Each family unhappy in its own way. Still born, still living, still surviving.
After living with her aunt for two years her mom eventually shifted out with her. A welcome relief for both her mother and aunt. Her mother got a job as a teacher in a primary school not far away. Their house with one bedroom and a hall was as big as her ambitions. Not huge but cozy enough. School was a nightmare, and like a bad dream she lived it all alone everyday. It wasn't difficult. She passed and not remarkably either. She passed and her mother wasn't bothered by teachers. Or by the bullies who mocked her everyday and threw her tiffin. In the end she resorted to emptying it before hand. Mother was too sad anyways. She had realized sadness is the natural way of life and that happiness is an aberration, the warmth of sun to be feared lest it burns you. School days flew by. School days always seem to have been fleeting in retrospect. But she remembered how days didn't seem to end like the horizon. There was always more at the end.
Her mother sobbed sometimes in her sleep. She cried sometimes during day too. Odd serials used to make her cry. Some episode some day and out poured torrents of tears, flooding the room with melancholy. She had learned her lesson. Never would the mother of a dying child, cry in front of anyone. Never would the world know of her sorrow. Something that was her and would remain her forever. It frustrated her husband to see her come out of bathroom red-eyed and not acknowledging the reason for it. It was always some speck of dirt or extra rubbing of eyes. He had quit demanding as he did with the bicycle lessons. He had learned enough in life to not attempt a female to reveal her secrets.
"Why all this misery, this over emphasis on tears?" I said to the author.
"It is easier. Sorrow is the natural state of humanity" I replied.
"Giver them some happiness. Some thing to live for except death." I persisted
"Let it be." author replied.
And then was born to the Kumar's a son. Not the most beautiful blue eyed kid, he was her kid. She didn't get an option, neither did he. Forced upon each other they learned to love the twists destiny introduced. Destiny is a bitch.
Her mother attempted suicide twice. She had to be hospitalized for a month each time. Apparently 20 sleeping pills weren't enough. She should have tried 30 second time, but then. Those 2 months she stayed with her aunt's. And each time her mom came back home, she asked her not to redo it because she hated the autistic child.
Her kid by the grace of the absent god was born normal. Normal was good enough. He was the average kid whose right everyone wants to protect. Guess it was the genes then.
"Mother will I be ok?" He wouldn't be. He had some form of cancer. The best friend of any author who wants to drop a character off. Death was imminent. Chemotherapy immediate. A ring as dark as devils halo lingered around his eyes. With cheeks sunk and hair cut he looked like a famine victim. Her heart with a sword drawn through it wept. Her soul trampled on, trembled. Her mother who had all her life wished to die lived and this poor soul was about to die. Equations of life were not balanced. Law of nature was blind indeed.
Her husband had told her what the affliction was but from his silence she knew he would die. First her father, then her mother almost and now her son. This wasn't fair. It wasn't right. This won't do. With her sword drawn against the might of life she would fight to change destiny. She would burn the pages of any book God wrote. Her son wouldn't suffer.
As her husband arrived,some doctors report in his hand, she sat next to her now dead son, . The poison had worked. The war was won, he hadn't suffered. Swift the candle had been blown.
The doctor had realized the cancer was curable.
