Last Monday,10.00 p.m.,we were watching a movie at home when I received a call from my brother who was in a train from Ahmedabad to Surat.He asked me to keep awake till he reaches as he wanted to talk about something important.Concerned and anxious,I asked him if there was something to worry about.He assured me no fears but insisted that Dheeraj(my hubby) and I should keep awake till he called us back.We agreed and anyways we were watching a movie which would have kept us awake for atleast an hour further.
At around 11.45pm, we called him when he had just reached his residence.Well, he asked us to put the phone on loudspeaker so that we both could hear him.Further he requested us not to interrupt or question him until he had completed what he had to say.All this made me more curious and bit furious as to what was he going to say.I asked him if he had atlast found a girlfriend to which he said, “Sorry , not yet”and asked me to keep quiet for sometime.He said,It’s a story of a boy and his father and narrated it as:-
“They lived in Ahmedabad,Gujarat.He was boy of reserved nature but big ideas.Being the only child to them,parents were bit domineering.Besides the father-son liason,they shared a teacher-student relation too as son studied in same college where his father was a professor.Though it was difficut to say in which pursuit were they more comfortable,it was pretty obvious that professor was a very caring and aspiring father to the boy.But somehow they did not enjoy a rapport of very frank comrades to each other owing to perhaps,typical Indian father’s insistent and punitive standpoint and son’s reticent and kept back rejoinders.But that could never be misunderstood for a strained association amongst them as it never was.However,one thing which always parted their ways was a decision made by the son and not granted or rather not welcomed by his father.And that was his ambition to become a commercial pilot whereas his father wanted him to become an IAS officer.Countless times the urge to discuss and decide it off roused at both ends only to get cutshort before initiation.Well, neither father nor the son could ever make their hearts unvarying to each other over many other matters including this issue as well. Somehow son decided to do MBA ,earn money and then fulfill his dream to become a commercial pilot.April 2008,he left for USA to pursue his MBA.
Mid July’08,Ahmedabad,evening time,his father was on his way to,perhaps home, riding his motorbike on Sarkhej highway,when a speeding Quails approaching from the opposite direction on the parallel road separated by a giant divider,lost its control and breaking all the barriers between its killing speed and professor’s safe speed,banged into the bike to end one life.Eye witnesses and newspaper file photos evidenced the merciless end of a respected gentleman.Son reached Ahmedabad ,performed the last rituals and decided to drop his first semester”.
This boy and my brother are good friends.He often shared his thoughts ,dreams and dilemmas with my bro.He sometimes felt sad about not being able to be so open to his own father while conversing.For him, there’s nothing to say or maybe things to be said are left far behind,now forever.My brother witnessed almost all the evolutions of feelings between this twosome, being able to see them in the college and their home for good time.
After recounting all this, my brother almost became emotional and expressed his grief about this dear loss of a wonderful professor,guardian and a close friend’s father.He was more upset about his friend’s father loss over his own professor’s loss though it was the same man in both case.He could not bear his friend’s pain of being left out with a heavy heart, full of confers he could not communicate to his father which he, indeed, always wanted to.
And then taking a deep breath my brother told us about one thing which he learned from his friends life ,that one should never hold back his feelings and speak it out as loud and as often as possible because life hardly gives more chances.And then he said,’I love you,I love you all very much and will say it regularly to you .’’Left speechless,we reciprocated with same love and agreed willfully that whatever he said was so utterly true.
So,go ahead…..let your people know that you too love them.
