English Literature – Short Story – The Accidental Son – Shri Suraj Kumar Singh - साहित्य एवं कला विमर्श

Shri Suraj Kumar Singh

The Accidental Son

(e-abhivyakti welcomes Shri Suraj Kumar Singh from Ranchi. Mr Suraj is a young and dynamic author. He is also an editor of “Young Literati” (E-Magazine)

“How many times do I have to repeat? Don’t you get what I want you to learn? Are you really that naive or Mr. Shah was right when he said that you are mentally challenged? You see I always felt nervous about leaving you in this selfish world alone only because you don’t show any signs of maturity. If you want to survive you need to take lessons. You need to learn how to deal with things. The world isn’t as benevolent as you think. This world no doubt is a big place but offers limited opportunities and when the opportunity knocks your door you need to open and let it in. Understood?”

While all these was being said to 16 year old Rahul by his father Mr. Singh he was simply trying to figure out what wrong he has done on letting an elderly woman pensioner exchange her place with him in the cash counter queue of the bank earlier that day. The lady probably had some issues with her knees due to which she couldn’t stand long enough. There were others who would who would have helped her in getting before the counter but nobody acted except young Rahul. Others only carried it up to sympathising but he took a stand. However this act by Rahul annoyed Mr. Singh greatly. This was not the first occasion he witnessed his 16 year old son acting in a manner that was somewhat stupid according to him.

Mr. Singh belonged to a class of people who proudly called themselves ‘practicals’ which literally means those who have a practical attitude towards everything. His thoughts also carried the legacy of another class of people who proudly call themselves ‘opportunists’. As a result he had two principles in life: an opportunity needs to be honoured and the world is not meant for kind and humane. Gentle are weak. These principles shaped his thought process in 35 years of career as a teacher. These 35 years period was a duration in which he learned little but followed more, gained less and lost more.

Mr. Shah the cunning neighbour was a kind of person who relised on two types of situations; in sparking conflagration between people and by showing off proudly even the puniest achievement of his own and his family members. So he loved two things; to belittle others and to show off.

When the lecture was over Mr. Singh looked straight into the eyes of Rahul expecting him to conform. But as usual there was no sign of it.

“I think Mr. Shah was right! This boy has lost sanity and will never grow up.” Then he switched his gaze to Mrs. Singh and facing her he passed a proclamation. “Your boy is a born loser and will never achieve anything in life.”

However this extravagant proclamation by Mr. Singh was not made the first time and Mrs. Singh as well as Rahul were both used to it. Mrs. Singh however knew her son better than Mr. Singh and had no complains with her son’s behaviour. In fact she was quite happy that her son was gentle, polite, kind and humane and caring; quite opposite of what his father wanted him to be.

The whole afternoon Rahul remained entangled to the analysis of the thoughts that were not his own but were rather in a train that was not to halt at the platform of his mind. That day in the evening, he left his house to attend his tuition classes. It was 4 pm when he left. While on the short walk to the bus stop he was thinking why it that his father is never happy is and what can he do make him happy. On reaching the bus stop his eyes fell on a lady standing ahead in the queue waiting. By appearance she was probably in her late thirties. But he could see that she was tensed, kind of worried about something. Her right shoulder was turned a little sideways allowing her to swing head between the road in her front and backward. He didn’t know the reason behind this unusual behaviour of her until he saw two guys making a quirky smile standing in the same queue four people after her. They were constantly gazing at her with lustful eyes and were probably discussing something disgusting. Annoyingly out of all twenty people present there none was concerned about this except young Rahul. “Rascals”, he deplored them. The bus arrived after seven minutes. The lady being the first in queue entered the bus first and was followed by others waiting in the queue including those two. The duo remained passive throughout the journey. At the final stop the passengers remaining in the bus started boarding off one by one. The lady took the southward street that was rarely crowded. Rahul headed the opposite way. But he turned once to check those two strangers and astonishingly found out that they were following her. He was already five minutes late for his class. But having an eerie feeling about things happening around he decided to follow the trail. He decided that once the lady reaches a safer location he will get back. So he started chasing the strangers with a steady pace. The lady was followed by those two suspicious strangers whose real intentions were unknown to both the lady and Rahul and the suspicious strangers were being followed by Rahul. The street which led to a lonely corner of that place the freak duo increased their pace suddenly and one of them came closer to the lady and grabbed her right hand. Before he could grab the other hand she resisted and punched one of them in the stomach and tried to run away from the spot but the second one caught her by her hair. He pulled her brutally and slammed her head upon the road. Then he gagged her and both of them dragged her below a thick trunk tree away from the road. Rahul was seeing all this while hiding behind an old rusty car near them. He was in a complete shock. He couldn’t think what to do and who to ask for help. He was sweating profusely since it was first time in his life he was witnessing this kind of violence. He took deep breaths and tried to calm himself a little. Then he realised that he needs to do something as the place was lonely and nobody could be seen. So there was no question of reaching anyone to seek help. He tried to gather some courage but the fear struck! The fear instilled by the taunts from his dad saying he will never ever seek success in anything he takes part, a fear of not standing up to his dad’s expectations, the fear of consequences not following his dad’s philosophy of throw the trouble in other’s net as he advocated that never ever make someone else’s problem yours; don’t be a saint and start finding solutions for them, ignore them and don’t waste your zeal to solve their problem. But he knew that this fear has prevented him from achieving things in life before and he knew that he has fight it right now or else another tragedy will be struck to humanity in front of his eyes and he will forever blame himself for not trying to prevent it when he could. Then there was a surge of courage and strength in him. A boy shy and weak was now ready to confront the molesters no matter what.

He eased out an iron rod from the open bonnet of the rusted car rushed towards the goons. He banged the rod on the head of the one holding the victim as hard as he could. The blow left him unconscious. Then he moved to confront the other one. Rahul tried to hit on his head but he dodged to avoid the swing. That ninja style dodge saved his head but couldn’t save his mouth. The strike resulted in the breaking of all his incisors and canines. He started moaning in great pain but he was not in a mood to give up. He thought of taking revenge from Rahul so he stood up with an open jaw exposing his bloody mouth. He probably tried to take out some kind of small weapon from his pocket; probably a blade or a knife but before he could yield his weapon Rahul poked the rod towards his lower abdominal like a javelin after which the molester lost his balance and fell again. This was it! Rahul started showering blows on his legs and the lady started kicking his private parts simultaneously. They continued to beat him together until they were sure that he became unable to move on his own. But the battle was not over yet. The unconscious one was now regaining consciousness. Then Rahul did something unexpected! He picked up stones from the ground. The lady thought that he would pelt the rising molester but he didn’t. Instead he pelted nearby houses and offices. Two minutes later people gathered there in anger to find out who has pelted. But RAhul was gone! Actually he did it intentionally to force them out. His plan was to force the people out of their places and witness the entire episode so that necessary steps can be taken. The people when came out to teach the pelter a lesson found out the victim and the goons. The victim explained the entire situation to the public and police was called. The lady had no proof but the police recognised them as serial offenders and took them in custody. The lady was later escorted to safety.

The next day morning all local newspapers were filled with news headline- “Unidentified Boy Saved Helps A 37 Year Old Woman In Her Fight Against Molesters Mahesh, Daltonganj The nearby office’s CCTV camera recorded the whole episode on the basis of which police reported an accurate account of the incident and mentioned charges in the FIR against two serial offenders who are accused in yesterday’s case too.”

Mr. Singh holding the newspaper said to his wife, “See how strong that lady is! With a little help taught those armed goons a lesson! And here is our son who can’t even move an empty LPG cylinder. This boy doesn’t have a bright future ahead. In order to face difficulties of life one must be strong enough but this boy is weak as hell both mentally and physically. Rahul was hearing all this with a smile on his face. “Don’t laugh it off puttar ji, instead think over these remarks.”

“Sure dad”. Rahul left with the same smile for his school.

So this was Rahul’s story, the accidental son in the making. Is your child a Rahul too? Comment below if you would like to share about the steps you take as a parent in the upbringing of your child. In case you would like to read more pages from the journey of the accidental son, do tell me.