A story...........

Sambla's son...................

Sambla was very happy today, so happy that she had forgotten that milk was boiling in the vessel on gas stove. Today she had a phone call from her son, Rajesh who had left home 15 years back. These fifteen years had been a real hell for her. Everyday she prayed to Almighty for the well being of her son. She tried to search about his where abouts from the limited resources in her reach but was not successful.

It was a Diwali night fifteen years back that came with a never ending emptiness in her life. Rajesh wanted to marry Meera, a girl from neighbour-hood belonging to a different caste. Rajesh had already told Sambla about it and wanted her to talk about his marriage to his father, Vishwanath. Many a times Sambla gathered the courage to tell it to Vishwanath but everytime she couldn’t. The days kept passing an on that Diwali night, Vishwanath asked Rajesh about marrying the daughter of his friend, Pitamber. Pitamber’s daughter, Neela was a beautiful educated girl working as public relations officer with the government department.

But contradicting his father’s proposal he made it clear that the only girl he is going to marry is Meera, his childhood love. Meera had left school after twelfth standard due to family problems and according to Vishwanath she was not a right match for Rajesh working as a manager in the city’s leading bank. Both of them were exchanging hot words on the issue. Sambla was listening to their conversation and couldn’t place her views as none of them was ready to do so.

After a word fight for about 4 hours, Rajesh was walking out of the main door saying that he will never come back. Sambla tried a lot to stop him but he did not. Vishwanath never even talked about his son during these years. He was sticking to his words, that to him Rajesh is like dead now. After about a week, she went to the bank where Rajesh was working but came to know that Rajesh has resigned from the job.

She also went to Meera for the information but she told Sambla that he had called her on morning next to Diwali and refused to marry her. Meera was badly crying and telling Sambla that he didn’t even say yes to meet her once. Till that day Meera was waiting that Rajesh will definitely contact her, but he didn’t.

Both the ladies were equally worried about Rajesh but he didn’t contact anyone of them. Like this days kept on passing, weeks, months, years and now fifteen years. After an year of that black Diwali, Meera got married to Akaash because of lots of family pressure and no response from Rajesh. She now lives in Mumbai with her husband and two beautiful kids and but every year around December to meet her parents living in their neighbourhood.

Everybody has been living a normal kind of life including Meera and Vishwanath, it was only Sambla who never felt normal at heart even for a while during whole of this period. Today while she was cooking chapati’s her landline rang up. It was Rajesh calling her mother, he wanted to meet her. She talked about it to Vishwanath but he refused to meet him and asked Sambla not to do so.

For the first time in her lifetime, Sambla could gather enough courage to go against her husband’s words. The pain of fifteen years had given her this will power. Sambla went to meet Rajesh in the hotel where he was staying. She couldn’t recognize him at the first sight, he has now become a high become a high profile sadhu who had a big following.