Tough Love.

“I don’t have any stories for you today”, the Mother told the child, “You have been behaving very selfishly and inappropriate since the past week, so no stories for you from now on.” She looked at the child, who now had a puppy-like face, imploring her to read a story.

“Mom you are so mean. Why can’t you tell me a story? You tell me one every day. I can’t go to sleep without hearing a story! Mommy!”, cried the child as she pulled at her Mother’s dress when she was standing up.

“No Laila!”, her mother shouted, “You don’t know how to act in front of others or respect your elders. You need to go back to the starting of yesterday and remember what all you have been doing wrong all this time. I am sure you will realize, so tell me what it is, and I will forgive you. If you can’t realize, then I am sorry.”

Laila looked at her, punched her dress that she had been holding and shouted, “Go away. Idiot!”. Hearing that, the Mother became furious and shouted “Laila! Stop and Go to sleep. Right Now!” and she hurried outside the room.

Once outside, she couldn’t hold her tears. She could still hear Laila’s voice from inside, “Yes! Fine! I am going to sleep! Go to hell Mom!” The Mother just stood still outside the door, put her ears to the door. She could hear a faint sobbing, and after five minutes, nothing.

Laila has probably gone to sleep, she thought, why does she behave like that? What has come into her? Did I not raise her correctly? Did I spoil her too much? When will she understand that she needs to respect others? Perhaps I need to be stricter with her from now on so she can mature into a beautiful woman with a good personality. But I need to be strict with her, thinking this made her heart tight, that is the most appropriate thing to do if I need her to have a better future.

She walked back to her own room, so as to go sleep but ended up reading a story to herself, as tears rolled down her eyes.

-Siddarth

Mother.

“I have a headache mom, please get me some iced tea. I need to calm my mind.”, shouted Mori, “Or coffee should be good too. Just need something cold.”

“No Mori, you need to drink something hot if you have a headache. Why don’t you take a break and lie down for a while.”, said the Mother calmly, “I will get you some hot tea and then we both can talk and drink.”

“Mom, please just bring me what I told you. I need some iced tea and I need to finish up my work. Please.”, yelled Mori.

“Do you want hot tea or not?”, said the Mother calmly.

“Fine! Bring whatever you want to. I can get something cold later. Damn it. Just bring it quick.”, Mori yelled back.

Thank God she accepted to take the hot tea. She shouldn’t drink cold stuff when she has a headache, better to have something warm. But why is her head aching? Is everything okay? Did she eat something bad? No, No. It is probably due to the constant mobile and laptop she watches. She does all her work on it as well as play games on it. That is why it is aching. All the reason clearly points to screens. A worried Mother made made the tea, tasted it, heated it again for a few seconds, added some sugar and tasting it again. I am sure she will like this.

Mori’s voice reached again, “Mom have you finished preparing the tea? Can you bring it over to my room?”

Mother sighed a little, murmuring “This girl…” under her breath and took the two cups of tea to Mori’s room.

“So how is the tea? Is the headache better now? I am sure it is much better after drinking something warm. Isn’t it?”, Mother asked.

“I am fine, Mom. Thank you for the tea. I will just take a medicine and take a nap for 15 minutes”, replied a calmed Mori.

“Sure. That’s a good idea. Here is the medicine”, Mother took a tablet out from her pocket, “I got it for you, just in case.” Mori, on seeing that, sighed a little and smiled slightly.

-Siddarth

The other half.

“Writings are just a waste of time”, the writer said, exhausted after reading a critics comments on his social fan page, “What is it that these people want? If they don’t want to read it then don’t. Who asked them to put in such awful comments?”

Kim looked at her husband, he certainly looked exhausted. Perhaps his time as an author was over after two consecutive bestsellers, or perhaps people wanted him to outdo himself this time… expectations too hard to catch up to. She sighed in her seat and went to make breakfast.

It was early in the morning, the location of this house let the writer hear the birds chirping. “Oh, what a bliss this is”, were the words on his first morning at the house. The writer would often get up early and look outside the window as the sun rose. Nowadays, the sound of these chirps was muffled by the voices of new comments and even though his eyes welcomed the rising sun, his thoughts kept recalling the critics words. The harder he tried to ignore it, the harder he tried to write the correct words, the more difficult it got with each passing day.

As time rushed forward, deadlines were missed, and thoughts became more chaotic. Less people followed him and there came a time when only a couple hundred were left. Scared to lose them as well, the writer tried to make the story based on the comments these followers commented… and went as far as to leak the final edit to a few to make sure that the words were appreciated. But as they say, conflict will arise if there is more than 1.

Slowly these couple hundred were reduced to a mere 10…and then one. Yes, there was one follower who always supported him, irrespective of what he wrote. That one was the only thing that kept him going, kept him sane. Even though he never listened to the changes Kim asked him to make, the words of that one follower was like law, needed to be thought on.

It was another five years when he realized that his wife was that follower, when he saw her laptop open by chance and matched the username of the follower. Tears rolled out his eyes for not seeing and understanding something right in front of his own eyes. That was the main purpose of a writer, to understand the feelings even if they are not said and yet he failed to see!?

As much time had passed in their relationship, he didn’t know how to communicate this to his wife even after knowing this fact. Nor did Kim know how to convey her feelings to him after all this time. And so, they kept on communicating online as a follower and the writer… knowing each other too well and yet not having the courage to break the ice.

Often, or rather almost every time it so happens that people forget to embrace and understand the ones closest to them, who always remain by their side. And they don’t get a chance to embrace them when they finally understand.

-Siddarth

A Talented Escape – 1

Rohan looked at the orange sky, a time when the sun had begun to set. He could only imagine the breeze outside, watching the branches of the trees shake with the wind.

Tuition classes were never interesting for Rohan, and it didn’t seem he wanted to put an effort in them either. He had always thought, “Why is it that I go to school in the morning and then again study similar topics in tuition for another three hours? I wish I could do something interesting.”

However the thoughts of a 11th standard student from a middle class family were not often considered in the Indian society, where most people were pursuing fields such as Computer Science, Engineering and Medical. Rohan wanted to be different. He had always wondered about the arts, had participated in school plays, scored perfect in his music or Arts classes, and was often cheered for having talent in the same.

He had thought about quitting the Tuition classes, which were demanding huge sum of money, and instead work on his talent. And yet he was often told that “What is the use of Arts or theater or music as they can’t get you a job, or that the world is too competitive in those fields to even earn a penny“.

So he continued with those classes, often wondering about the things outside the window, missing class notes and concepts at the same time. As anyone would predict, in the first tuition test, he scored in the lower 50 percent of the group, and he was scared as to what will his parents say after the score were sent to them (As per the tuition policy, all test scores were also messaged to the parents of the student).

He was sure that by the time he enters the house that evening, his parents would already know about the score. Scared of being reprimanded, he walked around his house for another hour so that to enter around 8 pm, only when all members of his family had started having dinner.