by Sandeep Kumar Mishra

He looked over at his mother, his brother Ishaan, and his sister Shaleena. His mother looked sad at least, but Ishaan and Shaleena looked about as numb as he doubtless did. He wondered what the past ten years had been like for them. If their father had changed at all since failing Pradeep.

He would never forget the first time his father struck him. It was a miserable, humid day, the air so wet that you could almost taste it. Vasudev was home, classes having been let out, and was especially short of temper.

Pradeep, still a small child at the time, refused to go outside to play. “It’s too hot,” he remembered protesting. “I’ll melt!”

His mother had gently but firmly encouraged him to go outside anyway. “You won’t melt, I promise. But you really should go outside. The sun is good for you.”

“I don’t want to!” His little voice rose in aggravation.

“Pradeep, my darling, please go outside.” His mother looked around, fear coloring her face. It was the first time Pradeep could recall seeing his mother afraid, though it would not be the last.

Vasudev appeared around the corner, his face an oncoming storm, and Pradeep instinctively understood his mother’s fear.

“What is the meaning of this noise?” It was less a question than a demand.

Pradeep ventured a reply. “I don’t want to go outside.”

The baleful gaze Vasudev leveled at his son burned into the young boy’s soul. “I heard your mother tell you to go outside. Why do you stand there mewing?”

“I–”

SLAP.

“Do as you’re told! If I see you in the house again before supper you will get twice as bad!”

“I know your father was not a kind man.” Pradeep shook his head, returning to the moment, and looked over to  his Aunt Shashi . “Perhaps he will be kinder in next life.”

Pradeep couldn’t reply to that. He wasn’t certain his father deserved another life.

“I am sorry you did not get to say goodbye,” his aunt ventured again. She was a kind woman, almost a second mother to Pradeep, but she was too forgiving.

“I am not.” The first words Pradeep had spoken since the funeral began. “We spent all our words to each other a long time ago.”

A young Pradeep stood nervously in his father’s cramped office. Their small house afforded little enough space for their steadily growing family, yet Vasudev refused to give up this room. Pradeep had no idea what it was for, he just knew that his father’s claims to it meant that he and his new brother Ishaan would be sharing a room.

“Your brother will be your responsibility,” he remembered his father saying sternly, eyes intense and hard. “I expect you to pull your weight as the eldest.”

Pradeep didn’t speak. He knew by then that discussions with his father were not truly discussions, they were just brief moments when his father bothered to remember he had a child long enough to impart specific instructions. Any words on Pradeep’s part would earn him a backhand, and that was if his father was in a decent mood.

“That means helping your mother feed and change him, teach him, and–”

“Keep him out of your way?”

The words were a mistake — Pradeep knew that before he said them, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself. He stood defiantly as the fury entered his father’s eyes. He would feel the repercussions of that remark for a long time, and remember them even longer.

Pradeep wasted no time after the traditional ten day mourning period to get back to his life. The fact that he even had to take ten whole days off irritated him, and he was unreasonably short with his family because of it. He wanted to leave this house and its memories, wanted to get back to his wife and children and wanted to burn the past away just as the body had been burned.

By sunrise on the eleventh day he was packed and ready to go, not even staying for breakfast. He bore no resentment towards his mother or siblings, but they had lived the past ten years without him; there was no reason to stay here any longer. So he quickly and quietly slipped out of the home of his childhood to catch the first train of the day and refused to look back.

As he walked, his thoughts wandered. He looked forward to home, hoped the train was running on time, hoped his wife Viha had set aside some dinner for him, and a thousand other thoughts like these — anything to get his mind off where he was and what had just happened and get him moving forward. He was so focused on putting the past behind him that he didn’t notice the football until it was almost too late.

With a small yelp he bobbed his head to the side, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with the flying ball. He shook his head, startled and confused, and looked around for the ball’s owner. He spotted them easily enough, a young boy — who was smiling apologetically — and his father — who was laughing — just down the road. The father jogged towards Pradeep.

“My apologies,” he began, still laughing a little. “My son and I like to come out for a little game before I have to go to work, and we are unaccustomed to sharing the road so early.”

Pradeep took a moment to gather his wits before answering. “Ah… it is alright. I was not hit, so no harm.” His eyes drifted back to the boy. “You two do this… often?”

The father nodded. “Most mornings. I work long hours, so I cherish the moments I can. Surely you can understand this?”

Pradeep looked back at the father. Such genuine happiness, speaking about his son, was something Pradeep did not understand at all.

“Pradeep, why does father never come out to play with us?”

Pradeep didn’t turn to look at his little sister. Shaleena was barely five, but already she was noticing that their house was not like the houses of some of her friends. Her father was practically a stranger to her, only seen at meals and on holidays. No great loss there, Pradeep thought with no small measure of distaste.

“Because he is too busy,” Ishaan said when it was obvious that Pradeep had nothing to say.

“Busy with what?”

Ishaan paused. “Work, I guess.”

Shaleena clearly didn’t understand, but filed the information away nonetheless and pressed on to her next question. “And why is he so sad?”

This got Pradeep to speak. “You think he’s sad?” Shaleena nodded and Pradeep scoffed. “Why do you think this?”

“Because he never smiles. Sad people don’t smile.”

It made sense, in a little kid logic sort of way, but Pradeep had trouble picturing his father’s constantly dour expression as anything but angry.

“He isn’t sad,” Pradeep said finally, frowning at the football by his feet. “I don’t know what he is, but he isn’t sad.”

This confused the little girl more but Pradeep chose that moment to kick the ball and she took off after it, screaming with joy. Ishaan looked at Pradeep and frowned. “You should not speak of our father like that.”

Pradeep just rolled his eyes and watched Shaleena run.

Given the early hour the train station was thankfully quiet, and Pradeep managed to purchase his ticket and board with minimal wait. He also had his choice of seats for the long ride ahead of him. Settling his luggage above him, he sat heavily and sighed, thankful to be on the way home at last. The rest of his day promised to be an easy one, as it was nothing more tedious than waiting until he reached his stop that evening, then getting a cab to take him home. Comforted by these thoughts, he drifted into a light nap as the train began to move.

When he stirred a few hours later, he noticed the car was significantly more crowded than it had been, with nearly all the seats outside of the one directly beside him taken. He also noticed a lone man who, noticing that Pradeep was awake, headed his way.

“A thousand apologies, sir, but is that seat taken?” He indicated the seat beside Pradeep.

“No. Please, sit.” The man nodded his thanks and situated his own luggage, pulling out a well-worn book before stashing the bags, and settled into the seat. Pradeep’s eyes were instantly drawn to the cover.

The man noticed Pradeep’s attention and held the book up for better inspection. “I take it you are familiar with “Songs of Kabir”?”

Pradeep startled at the man’s question as though shocked. “Oh, ah, not as such. Or rather I have not taken the time to read that particular collection myself. Someone… I knew, they did. Spoke of it very highly.”

The man nodded understandingly and began flipping through the pages. “It is a good book. If you have any love of poetry, I highly recommend it.”

“I… shall keep that in mind.”

“What are you reading?”

Pradeep looked up from his own perch across the room from the conversation, watching where Shaleena had approached their father’s armchair and interrupted his reading with her question. He instinctively tensed, waiting for the cold dismissal or fiery rage at being disturbed; the first would cause Shaleena to run away hurt and Pradeep to follow so he could calm her down, and the second would be directed at Pradeep for not keeping her distracted in the first place. Either way it was about to become Pradeep’s problem.

Yet Vasudev did neither. Instead, he looked up slowly and studied his daughter for a moment, as though trying to remember who she was and how he should react. Then he closed — actually closed — his book in order to show her the cover. “This is a book of poems. Can you read the title?”

Shaleena squinted at the letters. “Songs of Kabir”?” She spoke slowly, careful to get every word correct. Pradeep couldn’t help but be a little impressed. He hadn’t realized her reading skills had progressed so far.

Vasudev smiled at her, and Pradeep frowned in confusion. “That’s right,” their father said, sounding pleased. “Would you like to read some poems with me?”

Pradeep looked back down to his own book, but he couldn’t focus on the words anymore. That was the kindest he’d ever seen his father behave towards anyone outside of their mother. Poems, it seemed, were the only subject he could be approached with. Something to remember.

Hailing a taxi to take him from the train station to his home didn’t take long, thankfully. It was already much later than Pradeep had hoped to arrive home, and he was anxious for the comfort of his wife and bed. As he was driven across the city, the driver made occasional attempts at small talk, most of which Pradeep answered with polite but short replies, doing his best to avoid a protracted conversation. One comment, however, caused him to pay attention.

“Are you excited for the start of Onam tomorrow?”

Pradeep blinked. “That’s tomorrow?”

The driver nodded. “I love Onam, personally. Well, specifically the Onasadya Feast, but the entire festival is fun.” Pradeep glanced at the driver’s bulky figure and guessed that the man did not save feasting for the festival alone. “Do you participate?”

“Hurry, Pradeep! Father wants us to be among the first visitors to the temple!”

Pradeep groaned, stretched, and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. “The… temple?”

“Yes, the temple!” Shaleena was entirely too excited and loud for this early hour. “It’s the first day of Onam!”

Pradeep shook himself more fully away and swung his legs over the side of his bed. Onam… he smiled a little as Shaleena scampered off, her mission accomplished. Father was always in high spirits during religious festivals and holy days, his usual dour expression lightened and stormy mood calmed. He might even be persuaded to give his children treats, so long as all the proper observances are met. “It is a holy day first and a festival second,” he would solemnly intone. “Be respectful of that.”

And they were, though it was more out of fear of their father than respect for the day. Still, it bought the household some peace, and at the time it seemed worth it.

Pradeep slipped quietly into his home, unsure if his wife was still awake and knowing their infant son was not. He paused just inside, seeing the flower decorations all prepared for Onam. Setting his luggage down in the entryway and taking off his shoes to make as little noise as possible, he made a quick walk of the house.

Everything was spotless. His wife had done an excellent job keeping up with the cleaning, even with the added responsibility of their newborn. He smiled slightly as he paused by the dining room table, laying a hand on their son’s highchair. She is a good woman. I hope I am a good husband to her. He wondered briefly if his father ever had the same concern.

He moved into his office and saw everything was just as he had left it. It was, by agreement, the only room she didn’t routinely clean, as Pradeep had his own method to the seeming madness. He knew where everything was and that was the important part. He looked over his papers, his bookshelf, the grading pens and the half-finished poems, and he frowned. It looked remarkably like how he remembered his father’s office being laid out.

 How had he never noticed that before? “Am I becoming my father…?” The question was asked quietly, barely even whispered, as though Pradeep was afraid of the answer. In a way he was; were not all men their fathers’ sons? What hope did he have to build a better life for himself when he mirrored his father in even this tiny detail? In what other ways had he shaped himself after a man he… he what?

He missed. Here, in the darkness and the silence, he could admit it. He missed his father. Or, perhaps put better, he missed the idea of his father. He missed the connection he saw so often, even just coming home from the funeral. Someone he could talk to, someone he could play ball with, someone who led by example and listened to the worries of his children. Vasudev had never been any of those things for Pradeep, but he’d seen glimpses of that man in the way Shaleena interacted with him, and wondered if he had changed at all after Pradeep had left. If he had missed his son as much as his son now missed him.

“It’s too late for regrets,” Pradeep told his ghosts, trying to push them away. “He’s dead. Whatever that may mean for him, it means to me that he is beyond reach.” Forgiveness and healing were beyond Pradeep’s reach; there was no saving Vasudev’s memory or salvaging the relationship. The abuse, the neglect, and the fear were all Pradeep had to remember his father by.

Pradeep left his office and its ghosts and headed up the stairs. He paused midway up to look at the pictures hanging from the wall — him and his wife on vacation, on their wedding day, on the day they brought their son home for the first time. They were happy in those pictures. Pradeep knew true joy in every moment captured and it showed. He thought back to pictures of his father; Vasudev had rarely smiled in person and never for the camera. Even in the oldest photos he looked serious and stoic, never expressing joy in his life.

He finished climbing the stairs, bypassing his own bedroom to check on his son. The child was sleeping soundly, completely oblivious to the presence of his father, and Pradeep smiled down at the small bundle. Resting a hand on the side of the crib and nearly crying for reasons he couldn’t explain, he made his son a promise. “I’ll do better. I swear, I will do better.”

The floor creaked softly, and Pradeep looked over his shoulder to see his wife, wrapped in her dressing robe, squinting sleepily at him. “Pradeep?” Her voice was barely audible, and he quietly crept over to her after a final look at his son. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She squinted at him again, then reached out and touched his face, concern taking over her expression. “You’re crying! What’s wrong?”

Pradeep cupped her hand and smiled. “Nothing. Come, let us go back to bed. I am ready for today to end and tomorrow to begin.”

Sandeep Kumar Mishra is a Bestseller author of “One Heart- Many Breaks-2020”, An outsider artist, a poet and a lecturer. He is a guest poetry editor at Indian Poetry Review. He has received  “Readers Favorite Silver Award-21”, “Indian Achievers Award-21”,IPR Annual Poetry Award-2020 and Literary Titan Book Award-2020.He was shortlisted for “2021 International Book Awards”, “Indies Today Book of the Year Award 2020” and “Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize 2021” and “Oprelle Rise up Poetry Prize 2021”.He was also “The Story Mirror Author of the Year” nominee-2019.

More information –

https://www.sandeepkumarmishra.com/