As we go through life, we realise it has its own share of good surprises and also disappointments. We come by both of them in one form or another.
In terms of disappointments, their initial experience starts with our own innocence and lack of experience, when we are in that phase with a naive perception of the world being mostly neat in its nature, if not everywhere at least the surroundings that we live in.
We grow and we realise, that the safe circle we had somewhere in our mind has the highest probability of giving the biggest disappointments.
Mr Kansal believed he had seen it all and been through it all, now nothing could catch him off guard, and for the most part it was true, where most would feel a bit of a disbalance on the steadiness of mind, Mr Kansal would stand strong like ‘well, things like this happen, nothing new.’
Mr Kansal even focused upon meditation for his inner peace and mental strength. He felt he was having a time of his life having attained the biggest achievement of all, controlling the mind, which has a habit of often going over or under the exact point where it should actually be.
Meanwhile, Mr Kansal’s son Pradyut who had gone to complete his post-graduation in another city, had found love in Falak. They dropped out of university together and drove off in Pradyut’s recently bought second hand car on loan, to another city to start their hustle and their life. The first two months went by, none of their families had caught a hint of what was going on behind.
One day Falak told Pradyut that she would go to her family and tell her parents about the relation and then it would be one step closer to normalcy. Falak went away and Pradyut waited for her happily. The calls and messages stopped because Falak’s father had taken away her smartphone, yet Pradyut remained hopeful, even though he had the increasing pressure of paying his due rent and his debt.
Lost in love Pradyut kept smiling, and the next time he saw Falak was in a photograph on social media, she was in a bridal dress with the man she married. Pradyut stopped smiling.
One day when Mr Kansal walked in home from his evening walk, he found a visibly lost and tired Pradyut sitting in the drawing room chair. Mr Kansal looked at his own wife and she looked quite tense and worried.
Obviously, the truth came out and Mr Kansal’s world began to fall apart as something erupted like a volcano within, and it came out through the eyes and soon through the mouth. There was a lot of shouting for the next two days in the otherwise quiet Kansal household and Pradyut’s ‘I can’t live without Falak’ did not help the situation in any manner.
There is no harm in preparing for the disappointments, like Mr Kansal, but I think one could be in a better position knowing that the water can always pour over the edges in an overwhelming manner.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 