Hope

Rebellion

My grandfather had returned from abroad to attend his first daughter's wedding. The wedding was nothing fancy, just a lot of guests with only a little to provide. The groom and his family was greatly offended on many instances by my sweet grandparents and it was almost a miracle how the wedding still managed to be successful.

After this wedding, technically my father was in the line but as he was still struggling to make a career for himself, it was Avika's turn next to be married. It is one hell of a story on its own so let me first talk a little about my father, Rahul.

Rahul is a person who never really experienced a woman's love in his life. Whether it was his mother or his grandmother or a girlfriend. Since his mother had succumbed to death at such a young age, he didn't understand what he must do in order to deal with all the emotions. A woman was anyway suppressed to the utmost in the past, so it's not like that her teaching would have reached him in a productive manner.

After the death of his mother, he became a loose cannon. He started hanging out with the wrong company, bullying other people, joining protests, helping landlords to get rid of their unwanted tenants and other goon stuff. It was the last straw when he was put into jail as a remand, nothing too serious, building no criminal record, but just to scare him that his actions will soon bear heavy consequences. It was then, when his grandfather decided to send him and the other three to their father.

When Rahul arrived in a new city in order to get an Undergraduate Degree, he tasted freedom again. He started living on his own terms again, enjoying his life. There were no family responsibilities that would hold him back anymore, no fights to scar him mentally, or no physical abuse via his father either. His three years went on peacefully where he reconciled with his long lost friends from the village, completed his degree and started living a comfortable life. But now, the time had come when he was to return to his father, in order to contribute financially to the family, and get married.

Rahul got scared by the mere thought, he feared for his life as he did not wanted to go back to that jungle where the dominant animal would suppress all the other petty animals into doing his  bidding. He wanted to break-free from this chaos. He had been communicating with his sisters via letters, all this time, and knew that his parents were looking for a boy for his sister Avika. He realised that it is his responsibility to contribute for his sister's wedding but the little boy inside him just wanted to run away.

That feeling had surpassed all the needs for assuming responsibilities so he ran away. He went back to the village, joined his little gang of friends again, and went back on the path of life which he thought was the least brutal as compared to what was waiting for him on the other side. Naturally he didn't fathom that he could be easily sent back to the city anytime, as it wasn't hard to find him and that is exactly what happened.

His father had to come down to the village, which he absolutely despised because it wouldn't go well with the reputation he has built so far, but his son made him play fetch, and lord save him, but he was beaten very badly that night.

Rahul was brought back to the city, the family started preparing for Avika's wedding and Rahul forced his mind into the training that his father was providing for him. As he was just a good for nothing, reformed goon, his father couldn't think of any valid profession for him, and made him learn the least rewarding craft for building a career, post mails. After his training, he could become an Operations Manager who would look after a company's logistics and make sure that everything is being received, packed and delivered again safely. 

Rahul always had a knack for Physics, he loved studying the subject in school but in order to further pursue it, he had to change his school as his current school didn't offer the subject, but the fees was a little higher so his father decided to not let him pursue the "unnecessary" subject which wouldn't help him earn a penny and saved a few bucks by making him pursue Commerce instead. His whole life, according to him, was meaningless because everything required money and struggle, and his father had always treated him as a tenant in his own house. In order to get food and a roof over his head, he had to listen to everything that his father and step mother had to say, so he did. 

And to add a little more salt on the wound, he couldn't marry the love of his life either, but that's for another chapter..