Unforgiven [unfinished]

From the window by her desk she could sense that the night outside must be chilly, occasional whiffs of cold air made her stop doing her homework and shudder. Then she saw him. His lean relaxed form sitting unobtrusively in his favorite shady corner of their housing society. She could see his cigarette's smoke hang around him like a halo of heavy thoughts. She loved to catch him in times like these. Hurriedly finishing her homework, she sprinted out to meet him.

He was a neighbour, at least ten years her senior. Probably more. Their relation should not be confused with love. She always treated him with wide-eyed wonderment and respect; and he was always condescending and patronising to her- like a teacher to a favorite student. She loved to talk to him. He was a man who'd seen the world; who'd been through a lot. Though he was silent by nature, she could always get him to open up. She knew better than to let his gruff and closed attitude intimidate her. All their conversations left him feeling light and her feeling enlightened.

His pony-tailed long hair was beginning to show first greys. His glasses were neatly folded and stuck at the neck of his shirt. As she reached him, she saw a paper in his hand. She gave him a smile and sat on a bench opposite the wall he was sitting on. He didn't say anyhting but stubbed out his cigarette as a sign of acknowledging her presence.

"What's that?", she asked wanting to break the silence.

"A letter", he said brusquely.

She could see now that it was handwritten, so it must be personal and decided against asking further questions about it.

"From home", he added as an afterthought.

"Oh", she understood, "They're asking you to come back again?"

He nodded. "A Christmas greeting card and a letter by my father."

She knew he seldom talked about his family, but she wanted to make small talk, so she pressed on.
"You could go, y'know. Your studio's not very busy these days either. Plus it's holiday season."

"I just don't want to. I haven't been to home since I left it five years back."

"But they're your family!"




"... you're a disgrace to the family, Dheer!" his father shouted at him. "I had warned you that I'll throw you out of my house if you fail once more! Why can't you be sincere like your elder brother?!"

His mother was on the verge of tears, as usual, "I told you! I told you he was falling into wrong company! Look how long he keeps his hair, he looks just like a regular gunda!", she began sobbing, "But he won't listen to me! Nobody listens to me!"

His father said, "Do you think it's something for me to be proud of that one of my sons is such a brilliant student and the other cannot even pass high school? What do you think Dharma says to his friends when they hear that his brother has failed once more?!"

And he just stood there, not meeting his parents' eyes, keeping his cool and waiting for it all to blow over.

"Come on! Answer me boy! Is it something I should be proud of?"

It was always the same drama in their household. Dharma was the bright and responsible older son and Dheer was the black sheep. He couldn't help performing poorly in exams, he did study, mind you, he tried real hard. But it just wouldn't stay in his brain. Where his real expertise lay was- music. He had a plethora of CDs, his collection was vast and varied, and his room was a jungle of recording/mixing equipment. He wanted to make music. Great music. And be famous for it one day.

But since this genius of Dheer's did not fit into the tried-and-tested framework of grades, he was usually in the bottom of his class throughout school and college.

When Dharma left for defence training, Dheer's parents were left with only one pursuit- nagging him. On his visits to home, Dharma's close crop was extolled highly in order to shame Dheer and his bush of scraggly, unruly hair. His disciplined lifestyle was compared to Dheer's late hours of work at a night club where he worked as a DJ. At times even Dharma would be moved to throw his hands in the air and say, "Leave him alone mum! You can see he's studying for B.com now!"

As for Dheer himself, his laid back and placid nature helped him deal with this treatment with blissful diffidence. After a long lecture from his Dad [with tearful interjections from his mother] he'd sit at his window and strum his guitar absently to salve things over.

And life continued on it's jerky orbit until the day came when Dheer was yanked out of his relaxed inactivity, forced to make a decision and never look back at his hometown.




"They make a better family without me, I guess." he said, returning to the present.

"That's a strange thing to say when you can see that they really miss you! Every call, every letter just begs of you the same thing- that you go back to meet them even for a little while."

She could only wonder how hard a heart must be to vow to stay away from one's own family. She had had her share of teenage angst and family spats but she could not imagine feeling anything so vicious that it would result in a five year long exile, like Dheer's. She was a bright and adventurous kid but her upbringing had almost always been an air-tight warm coccoon and Dheer's life and his past were out of her comprehension.




[unfinished].