madwoman

BRINGING UP A SON

“Papa why don’t you come with us. You’ll be safer and healthier in town where we have ample medical facilities. Moreover, it’s really difficult for us to visit you here in the village,” said the eldest son to the ailing old father.

“No, I am fine. And I like to live here,” answered the old man.

“But papa, your health is falling and you certainly need regular medical care and that’s not possible here, in this village,” pitched in the second son who also had a well paid job in another town much like his elder brother.

“I said I am fine here. You people do not bother about me and carry on with your busy lives,” retorted the old man.

“Papa they are right, why don’t you go with them. You will be safer, healthier and happier there,” pleaded the youngest son who hardly earned anything at all.

“If you want to throw me out of your house why don’t you say that clearly,” screamed the father at the youngest son.

“No papa, I dint mean that,” mumbled the young fellow.

“Then what did you mean. Just keep shut,” I am going nowhere, the old man passed his verdict.

And, so the two sons from town went away to their respective houses and their well paid jobs.

“I had only wished that our father went away because it hurts me to see him live in the wretched condition that I keep him in. My poems can hardly feed any of us here,” confessed the youngest son to his wife.

She wept silently as she empathized both with her old and ailing father -in-law as well as with her poet husband.

She had, on many occasions,  been witness to many of her husband’s poem sessions where not just men but even women and kids stood rapt at the recitation of many of his Maithili poems. And, she had even seen many of them wipe their silent tears with their aanchar and their dhoti as they clapped away as he stood there glorifying Sita- the young maithil daughter of king janak. And, what about that play of words which left kids and adults alike in splits over his haasya kavita.

But, in reality she knew that his poems and the joys of his avid audiences were not enough to feed his family.

“Babuji,” she told her father -in-law, “both the jethji were right in asking you to live with them, that way you would at least get two wholesome meals a day.”

“And what about you and your kids here, how will you manage without my pension? Don’t you know that whoever keeps me gets my pension?

“I am not going anywhere from here. Now go and get me some tea,” ordered the old fellow as he sat their reminiscing his own poem sessions which had enthralled the entire village during each durga pooja all these years.

“I will not leave him hungry who nourishes my poems,” thought the old fellow, satisfactorily, to himself.