A sweet revenge
My dad is turning 71 in April and is also completing 2 years of retirement in March. It’d be an understatement to suggest he is having the time of his life. To put it mildly, he doesn’t like being—to use his favourite word nowadays — useless. For somebody who started earning at the age of 13 only to stop at the age of 69, one can imagine the mountain of free time he must be under. From being superactive in spite of trembling hands and failing eyesight to reaching a stage where all he has to do is practically exist, he seems to be fast losing his patience with others and most worryingly, with himself.
No wonder he keeps cribbing and maintains the exact opposite of peace at home.
On Monday night, he had a tiff with my brother. Nothing unusual there; the two barely get along. D finds B overpowering and B finds D unreasonable. They complement each other’s emotional inadequacy. To cut a long pathetic excuse short, the two didn’t lose sleep that night. It was a normal course of event, after all.
On Tuesday morning i.e. yesterday, D habitually woke up at 5.45 and left for his morning walk before 6. Two hours later, my ma was panicking because D hadn’t returned home. He is back between 7 and 7.15. As a consequence of her addled mind, she called up my brother who was in the middle of his college lecture. He never picks up his phone inside the classroom. However, when the phone vibrated for the third time, he took an exception. M was sounding distraught while she was telling him that she checked both the parks where D goes to walk. She even spoke to all the shop owners/vendors D usually makes a stop at on his way. None of them had seen him. This was around 8.30.
An hour later, she calls me to tell me that D is missing. Not to exaggerate one’s sense of longing for a family member, but that word is dangerous. It occupies your mind with thousands of unfavourable scenarios. I asked her to stay calm when in essence, I was worried beyond reason. Granted we didn’t know what really happened. None of us did by that point of time. Neither M in Sanpada or B in Churchgate or me in Gurgaon. In the back of my head, I was wondering how long before I took an emergency flight and reached home. Besides, she had clearly exhausted all avenues of doubt as she had already called up everybody she possibly can. There was no point in calling D’s phone because he forgot to take it along with him. Which further accentuated M’s worry that he must have done something untoward. Similarly, B had little to no interest left in continuing with his lectures but he didn’t know what else to do. On one hand, he was guilt-tripping on the possibility of him overstepping D’s ego boundary the previous night and on another, he’s wondering whether he should ask M to go to police station to report a probable missing case. This was around 10.
Too much was happening. By happening, I mean panicking.
At 10.20, our hero returns home with 3 Kannada books clutched in his hand. M is so relieved to see him that she doesn’t give in to her repressed anger. Apparently, he wanted to read the books I had gifted him last year. And to accomplish this admirable goal, he went to the railway station and sat on a bench on platform no. 4. However, according to him, due to “lack of practice”, he couldn’t read for long. I read a lot but I don’t think I can read for 3+ hours straight. He did exactly that although under the impression he could do much better given he’s a slow reader. The funniest bit was his demeanor while telling M where he was doing what. Either he had no idea what he did by being carelessly incommunicado or he suavely had his sweet revenge for the pointless wrangle he only initiated the night before. Anyway, he said his eyes were tired before promptly slipping to sleep. As if nothing happened.
Fast forward to 3 in the afternoon. I called up M to check her whether D is still sleeping. “No, no, he’s reading. He wants to top the UPSC this year.”
