Episode 1: The Prologue

The conversation between that father and his younger son had heated up that night. Mother was sobbing in the corner of that 8 x 8 sq.ft. kitchen-cum-bedroom space, filled with a Godrej almirah having a broken glass, an iron casted rack to keep plates and pans, a kerosene stove- their need in an emergency, kept on the floor. The conversation didn’t seem to end without any result that day, because the father was drunk and the son fed-up, not of his father’s drinking, but of himself.

“Don’t you want to go to school? Don’t you want to be someone?” Father shouted while staring angrily in those moist but stubborn eyes of his son.

“I am asking you something. Don’t be a stone. Answer me.” His voiced raised more.

The elder brother was standing in the room outside. He didn’t know what to do at that moment.

“Look at your elder brother. Eat his shit to learn something from him. You cannot even be compared with his nails.” Father was about to burst into cry. The choking and tumbling voice felt like that.

“No,” the son replied with an angry shout to the endless series of his father’s questions.

“No, I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want to be like my brother. I cannot do anything in academics. It doesn’t fit in my brain. Please …” This time, his voice was louder than his father’s.

Father took the big black grinding stone and hit himself with it in a flash of a second. A sprout of blood streamed down from his forehead to his eyes and then on his cheek. Mother quickly ran screaming towards father. The elder brother couldn’t continue to stand in the room outside after watching this scene.

“Get some tea powder quickly”, scared she asked the younger brother while hitting a slap on his back.

She applied the tea powder on his forehead. Blood was still flowing through father’s forehead but somewhat stopped.

In no time, mother got up, and while crying loudly, cursing the younger son, she slapped him endlessly saying, “Your father has been working day and nights and gathering money to educate both of you so that one day you will stand on your feet,” she paused for breath and in her broken scream continued, “No child in this chawl and in this slum area is as lucky as you are, because your father is trying his best to give you what you want.” She sniffed a tear.

The younger son felt guilty but he too had made his mind. He had tears rolling all over his face. Struggling to breathe, in choked voice, he said while joining his hands, “Dada (father), I beg you, please don’t waste your money on my education. You have been a great father, but I cannot fulfill your expectations as I am not good at studies. Please forgive me, please, please …” And he fell down at his father’s feet.

The some-time-back drunk father now had come to his senses.

“What shall I say now when you have made your own decision? All our dreams as parents have now sunk. We dreamt of making you doctor and engineer. I took loan from my office and from my society funds so that you shouldn’t get anything lesser”, father was sounding very mature. While speaking slowly, a breath per word, he continued, 

“I know that you are not good at academics. But leaving the school in class 9 and not even completing class 10 would be the worst idea. I know people in my office who have passed Class 12 and still are working as fourth-grade cleaning workers on Adhoc basis. What would you do with a non-matriculation qualification?”

Father signaled his wife asking her to get some more tea powder to apply on his forehead. He wipes his nose with the long sleeve of his office shirt. With one hand holding the tea powder on the forehead, with the second hand, he took the bidi out from his pocket and lit it. He took a puff, blew the smoke in the kitchen’s aroma, coughed and continued, “If not school, what are you planning to do?”