Grandma and Rakesh-2

                           Grandma and Rakesh -2

Rakesh was fourteen now and his life had touched an all time low .He was standing in his balcony looking down, lost deep in his thoughts. Those thoughts had mostly to do with how his past two days had gone. He couldn’t really believe how his life had come to this state of wretchedness in this short span of time. 

Rakesh had joined his new school six months ago and had mostly been miserable for a lot of time. He had a very hard time settling in. But eventually things had started getting better, especially after he became friends with Shubham. He was more confident about things, more participative and going to school had actually become fun. But that wasn’t the only reason he had started liking school. There was another reason, a reason named Anya. Like all boys in their adolescence, Rakesh had experienced his very first crush, a teeny tiny one but a crush never the less.

He had found himself staring at her unconsciously, talking more about her and thinking a lot more about her. He hadn’t been sure of what was happening but it didn’t take him too long to figure out. He told Shubham about this. Right now, he couldn’t remember why exactly he told him. There had been an urge to tell, to just blurt it out to some confidant and Shubham was the closest friend he had in his new school so he called him up and told him.

The next day when he went school everybody was whispering something, looking at him and then turning away as soon as he looked at them. Something was definitely wrong and his worst fears were confirmed when one of Anya’s giggly friends pointed at him and giggled so loudly, she almost reminded him of the hyena he had seen in the zoo. It was so embarrassing. He had never been this embarrassed in his entire life. Anya was purposely looking in the opposite direction when he looked at her helplessly as if to find some answer.

He found Shubham in a corner in the classroom. Anger welled up inside him as he walked towards Shubham. “What have you done?” he asked him in a very controlled voice. “Just having a little fun. Don’t be such a spoilsport.” replied Shubham. “But you weren’t supposed to tell anybody, everybody is staring at me, lauging at me, Anya’s behaving in very weird manner. This is not right” his voice almost choked by the end. Shubham was now very serious. Quite a few heads had turned to look at them. And then Shubham began “ What the hell are you talking about? Why are you so angry about people laughing at you? They laugh at you anyways. Its nothing new for you. And you are talking to me as if you have an image to protect. Just look at yourself. You think she would even think about looking at you. You who have come from god knows which village and now have the audacity to talk to me like this. You people need to learn your limits. you come to this school with your weird village accent staining the crowd of our school. I talked to you. Even allowed you to hang out with me. All I did was have some fun and you have the guts to talk to me like that. Just go back to your backward village and stop polluting this place.” Rakesh just turned away from him, found himself a seat in some corner of the room, passed the excruciating eight periods and almost ran back home when the bell rang. Being home wasn’t comforting at all. His class teacher had called home to talk about his performance at school which was not at par with everyone else’s. His mom had been really upset and scolded him. Worst was yet to come. Dad wasn’t home yet.

How could he ever go back to school now. He couldn’t face his classmates. But he had to go to school. His mother and father had worked hard to send him to this posh school. They had shifted to the city for his education. He had to go back and yet how could he. For one flip second he felt like jumping down from the balcony. He thought about how if he died somehow everything would be alright. Shubham would realize his mistake and be taken to task. For once he would have the sympathy of his entire class, nay, his entire school. Anya might think about him too. And his parents who were seething with anger right now wouldn’t be angry anymore. They’d just love him more than ever. Thinking about all this he took an unconscious step and put his foot on the railing when suddenly he heard a voice from behind. “Thinking about a suicide, are we?”

It was his grandma.”Don’t worry, it is nothing new. Everybody thinks about that at least once in their life though most are wise enough to not give action to that thought.”. “But I wasn’t panning to..” he said but she cut him short. “I know sometimes it seems so fascinating to think about how if we die everything will be so good. All bad things forgotten, people will say only good things about you and most importantly they will miss you. They will miss you so badly, they’ll want to take back all the bad things they ever said to you. Such a rosy picture. But do u really think you’ll be present to witness all that? We don’t even know what happens to us when we die. What if you can’t stay back to witness all that. Wouldn’t the entire exercise be a waste then? And supposing you could stay back and see everybody’s grief. Well it won’t last for long. Soon we’ll stop talking about you as well. Our lives will move on and we’ll have new things to think about and talk about and you won't be able to participate in those or all the happy moments we’ll live because..well, you’ll be dead. I’d say that’s a very bad bargain.” Absolutely flustered Rakesh said “but I wasn’t going to do anything, I was just thinking.” She replied, “well think a little further son. In life, the bad comes with the good and you’ll see the bad isn’t all that bad. ”

And so he thought a little further. All his problems would mean nothing to him if he were dead and it wouldn’t matter to him if they were taken care of because that wouldn’t be his reality. He would have to take care of his own problems and do it while he was alive. Somehow he felt relieved. Calm. He smiled and turned towards his grandma, “don’t you think about death as well?” She laughed and said “of course I do. But in a very different context son. A very different context. “