7
Nothing. He resisted his emotions.
He was so educated by his mother as not to pick a piece of food up of the dust. He was so educated as not to live by anybody’s mercy. He is not so miserable. He will not indulge in this servitude of senses. No matter how mercilessly, how miserably he throttles his boyish love for everything. Emancipation from this benevolence would no longer be attainable if one taught oneself it was the best way to quench a thirst effortlessly. No penance will make it right. Sabu could not remember whom he learnt these teachings of life from. But, unwarily he taught himself that all that went parallel to the teachings of his parents, were the teachings of his parents.
‘Take it Sabu’, the grocer said again. The fall of the biscuit had turned Bakul’s heart softer, moister too. ‘Ok, you can pay later if you want. Now take it Sabu, take it boy’.
Sabu was looking alternately at the fallen moon and the moon hovering before his eyes.
A stray dog, sitting at a distance, wagged its tail all the way. It was trying to gather courage to go to the biscuit lay at the feet of the boy.
The grocer said again, ‘take it here. Come on boy’.
Sabu looked up and said louder, ‘No’.
As he said, he ran back to his mother. She was calling out to him from their house. Sabu could hear her clearly as he ran. Sabu did not need to run so fast, but he did. Until he went past everything, everyone so known to him along his way back. He jumped into the lap of his mother unexpectedly.
‘What happened Sabu? What happened?’ his mother asked. She was surprised by this unusual behaviour of her son.
But she could not see his face.
Only a word emerged…
‘Nothing’…
–
