He stood their nonchalantly with voices shouting deep inside his heart, but silence was all he could convey. His words now conveyed no meaning, or perhaps they spoke words no one wanted to listen. He knew, he spoke in a dialect, no one would try to comprehend, in a way, directly from heart.
"I don't want to do Engineering, I want to be an Artist",
He had practiced saying this not once, but million times, but each of those
million times, the only audience he could gather, was his mirror where
practiced and the reflection which stared him back with a glare of defeat. His
father was a military man, pretty stern in his decisions and belonged to a
category of society where the child's future, dreams and aspirations were all -
predetermined. He was bonded, with his family customs. Whenever he gathered
courage to speak, there always erupt a discussion on his cousins or relatives
who had performed well in their 12th class or were admitted to a highly
acclaimed Engineering college of India. Those were the times, when his father
would say coherently to his mother, "Dekhna, hamara beta toh unse bhi
acha karega".
There did not remain an option to carry forward to, perhaps the
world of alphas. Betas and gammas dazed him and did not let him breathe freely
in the open air. He wanted to shine like the colour red, or flow royally like
the colour blue. Deeps inside his heart, he had words in his strokes of brush,
and each stroke conveyed an expression which made everyone around him smile.
Those visions which travelled far and wide. His father was blind to these colours,
he never congratulated him on the awards he had got on his art competitions.
But, he was determined to open the eyes, of not just his father, but the pretence
which he had been carrying for long.
"Ye kya hai? firse 52%?", his father said with
anger in his words, but less fierce than what was witnessed in his eyes. He had
given up, in terms of inspirations and motivation, and the colours had started
to fade, not just from his heart, but from the strokes of his brushes too. He
knew something had to be done, sooner or later, but it was just the matter of
time.
3 days to his birthday, the bigger boy had to make a decision, the
one that could change his life.
‘Papa’, he approached with fear in his eyes, and body which
trembled with every breath.
‘Haan?’ his father queried back, looking up from his newspaper.
He hesitated a bit, but he knew, if not now, it won’t be ever.
“Papa, I don’t want to do Engineering after 12th”, he
said with the voices at the end of the sentences fading consistently with every
word.
“Hmm..”, His father stood up and went to his room.
Perhaps, the silence conveyed all his messages back and forth. But
it was for the first time. He could breathe in peace, for he had spoken in
peace, spoken in heaven, and spoken the truth. He really understood, ki kitna sach hota hai sacchai mein…
It was the morning of his birthday, but he seemed relent lent to
celebrate. It seemed that there wasn't
any reason to do, until his father walked in with a gift. It was the first time
the two of them spoke after their silence conversation.
His father brought him, the gift which in turn brought tears to
his eyes. A packet of professional paint brushes, which now expressed his emotions
in tears.
His father hugged him, perhaps it was the first time, he had seen
his father’s military figure melt down like that. That was the day, he always
cherished, and realized, how beautiful it is, and how much happiness lies, in
truth.
Tanishq Sharma
This post is written for Kinley - Kitna sach hota hai sacchai mein...
"Sometimes when telling the truth could get us into trouble, we tend to lie or omit details to avoid it. Although this seems like a great temporary solution, it weighs on our conscience. In a blog post, tell us about a time in your life where telling the truth was the right thing to do. "
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