My little boy, who is yet to be four, is waving me off from the door. His mother is holding him up and up on her arms so he can see me move out of sight.
A three-wheeled battery driven rickshaw has come to take me to my workplace. It always does in the first early morning of every week. This day starts a weekday and the day of my loneliness.
Literally, back in here, I am not lonely. I meet so many people a day while at my workplace. But, they are not those who I very longingly feel can make much distraction of my mind. On the contrary, the distance from my house, as it goes bigger with the rickshaw pulling out, I feel I am getting more and more into a different kind of seclusion. My mind is here, my body is moving out. Nothing on earth is hell able to take that pain. I am in a dismal state. That, I am going to miss my lovely little son for another five days until, most often, it is the last weekday, the Friday – the day of my returning home, when I shall again take my son up with my two hands.
All these five days, I will be eager to listen to his lisping talks, to behold his restlessness, to have his softest little palms touching my hands and cheeks. What a continual laughing feat he has! It soothes my senses whenever there is the funniest thing or I pull a grotesque face to tell him a story.
Now I am among countless people rushing in and out of the train station at Kalyani. Shortly hence, a train will come to say hello to me and I, with all reluctances inside, will catch it to kick off a dull long journey to Murshidabad.
I can still remember my son’s waving little hands and sobbing face until disappearing behind the roadside flowering shrub.
The train has come. I’m aboard, still thinking of my house. The train left the platform. Standing by the door for some time, I thought again. As I know, the little boy was going to fall asleep after crying a lot in the room. Later, his mother said, ‘he cried as he grabbed your clothes’.
I have to be dutiful both ways, my office and my home.
I can’t answer my son’s very simple question, ‘why do you always go away from me daddy?’ I know he will know by himself, find his answer when he grows up.
But, it will be nothing sort of an offence by a father like me if I do not secure the future of the child who is so dependent on me - so innocuous, so helpless without me.
That’s what I’m doing. That's what fathers do for their children. That’s how I really want to make a promise to myself. A good father of a very good son.
I have deprived myself of many things since my childhood. But, I do not want my son to habituate himself to that abnegation again. I want him to learn the values of sacrifice in a bond of many, but do not really want him to do it. I know that may sound selfish, but I am willing to take that blame being so.
When I wake up at about half past five in the morning of a Monday, I find my son asleep on the bed, beside me. A faint soft glow of light fell upon his cute little face. How innocent! How forgetful too! He does not even know that his father is going to break all those fake promises he made last night. To him, I was supposed to keep those promises today. Not very hard, it was just like taking him to the kids’ store to get him a toy or to the children’s park for some amusement. That’s all. But how hopeless his father is! I can’t even make those little promises happen. The good thing is this, having been honest to my fatherhood I never cover up my inability by giving excuses. I shall delay a week at the most, else my son will start to believe his father makes promises and never goes to keep them. And, that will be the first defeat of my fatherly trust. A mistrustful fatherhood pays a lot. I do not want to be that kind of father. Because I have to keep the biggest promise for his life when I shall not be beside him. When I shall be nowhere. And, he will have to brave the storms alone.
Now my son’s mother whispers into my ears – ‘it’s 5:40. You will be late’. As she told, she did not really mean. On such a morning her nice face shrivels to tell me the time. I am away, she has to take care of a whole big family of all males. Those who know her say it’s a rare thing to happen these days. That makes me proud. But, I am worried too. Because great responsibility deserves great power. Alas! The latter is limited.
Unusually I manage to tear me off the cosy bed very carefully without a creek of the wood hinges. Usually my hand removing the blanket awakes him. And, as soon as he catches me get out of bed, my first subservience to him is to take him on my arms to go out, no matter how staggering he is with half-closed eyes. Now it’s winter, temperature has much fallen down. It’s cold outside.
But, the child will not listen to me. It’s imperative. I have to take him out. I am all dressed up, but he is not. His mother has quickly wrapped a thick blanket around him, and a scarp around his head. We three hurriedly get out into the misty morning. The sun is hardly up. Nobody is seen outside. It was difficult to see things at a distance.
The rickshaw was hardly visible. But, it was waiting for me. As soon as the rickshaw puller saw us coming along the lawn, he began to move his carriage. I could feel my son’s little fingers clutching hard, getting harder as we went forward. Here I gave him back to his mother. Within a few more moments we two got detached from the other two. The picture of my wife with my little son on her arms gradually diminished as the rickshaw started. I waved my hand, looking back at them, as long as I could see them.
Throughout my weeklong presence in Murshiadabad, one thing will always happen. Every day on my way I shall watch a boy standing, walking, playing or going to school with his father. The boy must be my boy’s age.
This time too, I was watching a father on a motorbike. His little boy was sitting back. He had passed his little arms around his father’s waist. The riders slowly went past me and I kind of zoned out looking at them. They soon lost behind the dust and smoke in the traffic. But, it left a trail for me to remember my son.
The road is boisterous. The room in my rented house is so silent. Only flow of a callus cooling. After the day when I am all alone, the silence of the night comes to eat me within the walls. Had I been there at night, where lives my little angel, I would have faced thousands of questions asked incessantly. He is so talkative, so curious. He won’t let me sit still for a moment. Whether he is reading or writing or drawing or even playing, I am his all round companion. And, after some exertion, he is in the habit of stretching out his little hands towards me. It implies pick me up from the ground. His looking up at my face while holding his hands up with a request mixed in his glance to take him has been the best reward for me being the father. That babyish act of his always chases me down here. I feel like taking a quick fly to him, my little boy.
I envied the fathers who are so lucky to be with their children. I even envied us, the group of boys grown up in our time.
I remember luck about us all. As for me, my father used to return home in the evening. His office was as close as it would take him less than an hour to reach there. It was true for almost all the fathers at that time. We never had to wait weeklong to find our fathers home. How unlucky is my boy! He has to adapt himself to this emptiness from the very beginning. He has to know this seriousness of life at such a young age.
Healthy earning is essential to afford good quality life. Am I hurting my son’s mental health by my aloofness in the false pursuit of securing his future? Am I ruining his right to be with his father?
