A Short Story - Part Fourtyseven

Sekhar was very happy... the fear of having to report to principal and to have to get his parents to meet him again, had infact stopped his crying.. he was jumping on cloud nine when the school staff had asked Raghu to take away Sekhar back to home.. 


It then that it struck to Sekhar, on the way, that Raghu had infact slapped him in front of his school mates to stop him from hitting.. He definitely wanted to share this with his mom..


Back at home, the school buses had left quite a while back, but Sekhar had not yet come home.. So Kokila was bit tensed.. She came down to the road and was waiting for Sekhar to come... It was then that she saw Raghu and Sekhar coming together and Sekhar with blood stains on his white uniform shirt.. Upon seeing Kokila, Sekhar began to weep...

A Short Story - Part Fourtysix

Returning from hospital, Raghu reached back to school to take Sekhar back home.. Meanwhile teachers had found that the fight was over a pencilbox of Sekhar which was broken by the other student.. The teachers initially were very angered by Sekhar's behavior and his fighting with the fellow student.. but Raghu's swift action in stopping the fight and helping the injured student had appeased them.. Before Raghu could convey his apologies to the staff, the staff thanked Raghu and asked him to take Sekhar back to home.. they were more confident that some day Sekhar would surely change having such a nice brother in Raghu..


So Sekhar and Raghu both left to home...

A Short Story - Part Fourtyfive

It was later in the afternoon that Raghu, having completed most of his days work, decided to go and have lunch at a canteen at Prapancham. He went, had lunch and was returning. Sekhar's school was on the way to home from the canteen.. It was almost three pm then and school children were coming out after the days school.. he could see two kids fighting.. they were being watched by fellow kids.. he went across the road and he saw Sekhar and another boy were engaged in a duel.. the other boy was severly injured and bleeding.. but it did not stop Sekhar from hitting him and punching him..


Raghu immidiately tried to stop Sekhar and take him away..Sekhar was not stopping and he hit Raghu too.. Raghu then stopped and slapped him.. one slap and Sekhar was done.. he stopped hitting and started to weep... then came the teachers running outside.. while Sekhar was taken by the teachers back to school, Raghu and another staff rushed the other boy engaged in the duel to the hospital.. he had suffered broken teeth and some external injuries.. he was given first aid and later taken back to home..

A Short Story - Part Fourtyfour

Raghu was puzzled.. he had been an alien to such affectionate words from his mom for almost two years.. he also knew how cunning his mom was..he did not trust her words.. he started to suspect her of some foulplay with Akshara... afterall she was neither happy with Akshara nor with her liking towards Raghu when he let kokila know of it.. so with that suspicion in mind he had just decided not to talk to her regarding Sekhar and himself for now..


He left to his room and started to proceed with his work... but the old memories of Akhy... her smile.. her laughter.. her dance.. the time they spent together in college.. in canteen.. at the center with children.. every thing could not stop flooding his mind... Raghu felt helpless.. he hated Kokila..

A Short Story - Part Fourtythree

That question from her mom had given rise to many questions in Raghu's mind. Was it that Kokila was aware of what had happened to Akshara? Did Akshara share something with her alone before leaving Raghu? or was it otherwise, that, Kokila had done something to Akshara? Did Kokila say something to Akshara which made her to leave Raghu? 


Raghu, with these questions in mind looked at her mom.. she was very casually switching tv channels.. he asked what had she meant with that question.. he asked her whether she knew where was she or what had happened to her? She just replied.. "I dont know anything about her... I just guessed because you are not normal and are quite disturbed nowadays.."

A Short Story - Part Fourtytwo

Raghu had decided to work from home the morning next day.. so he woke up a bit late.. he brushed teeth.. took bath.. Sekhar was getting ready for school as usual and Kokila was helping him.. So Raghu waited for him to leave for school.. Veeran on the other hand was getting ready for office.. he had some meeting that day and had to leave for office early than usual..


Sekhar had gone to school and so had Veeran left for office.. Raghu logged in into office machine and shot a mail to his team that he was to work from home that day.. 


Like a final year student doing his last minute preparations to face viva on his final year project, Raghu started to gather enough courage to talk it out with his mom Kokila.. He walked from his room to the hall where she was watching TV.. then looking at Raghu she asked, "Akshara has not contacted you after your college, right?"

A Short Story - Part Fourtyone

Another day, Veeran was on night shift.. and Kokila had slept.. but Sekhar was watching TV late night.. so Raghu swtiched off the TV and took the remote with him and locked it in his shelf in his room.. Sekhar began to cry aloud.. Kokila then woke up.. it was almost quarter to twelve.. Kokila was shocked to see Sekhar crying.. when she came to know what Raghu had done, she shouted at him yelled at him.. and, she fell on to his legs asking him to die.. she said to him, "I would be more happy to see your dead body than you troubling my son like this.."


At first, Raghu took everything in.. he was hopeful of some change in either Sekhar's or Kokila's behaviour.. he used to weep everytime before going to bed just thinking of Kokila's words.. he would then close his eyes and think of those happy moments with Akhy and sleep off... but this was at the height of his patience.. he was desperate to know what was happening with him at home.. so he waited till the next morning..

A Short Story - Part Fourty

One night, Raghu felt hungry in the middle of a night. He went to the kitchen searching for something to eat. He found a lone apple and ate it. Next day morning, Kokila was shouting and cursing herself. She was very furious at Raghu.. Raghu did not know the reason for her anger.. he was puzzled.. he went and asked her, why was she so furious.. She replied, " you know how much one apple costs? its ten rupees.. that apple was kept there so that Sekhar could take it to school with lunch.. And you just ate it.."


Raghu for a moment was petrified.. he did not know how to reply to that question from his mom.. It was then he decided not to have any food at home.. hence used to have all three meals at office.. 
He just used to sleep at home...

A Short Story - Part Thirtynine

While a lot of pampering had not done any good to Sekhar, Raghu was not liking it.. he felt things could have been better had either Veeran or Kokila changed their behaviour a bit with Sekhar.. Initially he felt it was her happiness of having a kid after many long years of prayers was shielding her eyes from the reality that Sekhar was being spoilt.. but when think of the words Kokila spoke he felt the divide clearly.. Kokila was not happy with Raghu at all..


She was not talking with Raghu much.. neither was Raghu talking with Kokila.. because whenever they set on a chat, the point of the chat slowly shifted towards Sekhar and neither of them was happy with other.. So both had infact stopped talking.. and as far as Kokila was concerned, She wanted to give Sekhar the best..


The dislike towards Raghu, combined with fact that Sekhar was her only son, had just made Kokila very mean and uncaring towards Raghu.. she started to illtreat him.. She made big issues of petty things with Raghu.. She was illfeeding him.. She quantified every action of Raghu in terms of money and demanded money from him.. 

A Short Story - Part Thirtyeight

Raghu showed his displeasure towards Sekhar, by not talking to him... not getting invloved into his homework or other project work.. he mostly used to ignore him as he knew Sekhar was any way not going to respect him..


Kokila and Veeran did sense this change in Raghu's attitude towards Sekhar.. while Veeran thought it might have just been some office work pressure because of which Raghu was acting so.. but for Kokila, she did not like it.. for her, Sekhar was a cherished possession..anyone who looked down on him, would invite her hatred... even if it was, Raghu..

A Short Story - Part Thirtyseven

At home too Sekhar was not well behaved.. because of his rash attitude, he did not have many friends to play with.. so he used to wile away his time watching TV.. he used to do his homework watching cartoon in TV.. he used to study lying on the bed.. While Raghu was not so pleased with these things, what was more shocking was both Veeran and Kokila were not bothered about all these..


He tried to talk to Sekhar on this but he was either given a cold response by Sekhar or Sekhar used to go to his mom, Kokila and lie.. at times he even used to lie saying Raghu hit him and cry.. Kokila would stare at Raghu and console Sekhar.. 


Once when he wanted to talk to Kokila with regards to Sekhar, she bluntly said to him, "Feeding you three times a day at home itself is a big task... now we should cater to your complains ah? that too on my son, Sekhar??"


Raghu was utterly displeased with Kokila's words.. it was then that he started to hate his brother Sekhar..

A Short Story - Part Thirtysix

Once at school, Sekhar's teacher was very dis-pleased with his home work.. he had nither completed it nor had he done it properly.. When she scolded him not doing the home work, Sekhar took his pen and threw it at her.. The teacher had not expected such a violent behavior from him... having been such a nice student in the primary, and the pet of many teachers then, this was shocking from Sekhar.. 


The teacher tried to forget the incident as an one off incident and did not bring it to the light of his parents.. but she did discuss it with the fellow teachers.. following day, Sekhar acted in a similar way with another teacher.. this time the teacher did not leave the incident.. instead she took to the light of the principal of the school, who summoned Sekhar's parents to the school..


Veeran and Kokila met the principal and promised to see to it that there was no repeat of such indiscipline from him..


Raghu learnt this incident later that day and was very disappointed..