Prarabdhangal…..

There was a heavy spattering of pain, sorrow and relief in the air. It was also on everyone’s face except Arjun’s. Against the backdrop of soothing Sanskrit slokas, sporting a spotless mundu, he along with others, were carrying the lifeless body of his father to the cremation ground. He had not shed a tear nor had he felt any pain at the loss.

His sharp chiseled features coupled with a pronounced jaw looked like it had been carved out of stone and the only sign of life in that otherwise placid face was the fact that his eyes kept constantly flickering around, always taking in everything that was happening around him, never missing a thing. It was a trait that he had developed a long time ago thanks to years of always being on the defense.

He was as stoic as he could ever have been even when he had a volcano raging inside him. Actually, he had had that raging fire inside him for most of his life. It was something that he had gotten used too as he grew older and he had even learnt to channelize it positively.

Earlier in the day, he had gone through the rituals like a zombie as a mark of respect because he firmly believed that the dead were entitled to have their last rites; even his dad.

As they all kept trudging along the archaic path, he could not help but reflect on his relation with his dad. The truth was that he never knew the man. Whenever he looked at his dad today, he only saw a stranger; a stranger who bore a striking resemblance to him. It was ironical that he would now get reminded of that person all his life whenever he would look at the mirror.

“Fate has its twisted sense of humor,” he thought to himself.

His dad had been the “black sheep” in the family. He had deserted everything behind; his job, his life and his family in pursuit of his quota of alcohol. Arjun, all of 24 only remembered meeting his dad a few times in his entire life.

And those meetings were anything but comfortable. There always existed an uncomfortable silence between the two; Arjun always waiting to get out of it and his dad always wondering if his son was judging him.

Arjun could still vividly remember the last time he met his dad over a year back. He had tracked his dad down to a bar in town and told him that he had landed a job in faraway Bangalore and that he would be leaving Kottayam shortly. Surprisingly, his dad had then requested him to have a peg to talk about things and even more surprising was the fact that he found himself accepting that offer. That night was probably the first time in his life that he actually bonded with his dad, not as his son but as another adult.

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By this time, they had reached the cremation grounds and things went along as prescribed by the pundits. As the last leg of the rituals was underway, Arjun felt sad that he would never get the chance to ask the many questions that he had always wanted to ask.

As he was about to light the funeral pyre, he had one last look at his dad and said, “The debts of all our previous lives always have to be repaid dad; by you and by me as well”.

And suddenly he felt a wave of calm besiege him totally destroying the pent up anger that he had built up all his life and he felt at peace with himself for probably the first time in his entire adult life.

All the others kept watching along totally ignorant to the fact that not one but two souls had been liberated that day………………