Untold stories of our parents

Few days ago I visited a friend’s home at evening as his father was not feeling well since last few weeks. The moment I entered, he was discussing an episode of his childhood friend with a neighbour, in order to lesson his only son who was sitting in a corner. The son was  serving qahwa to the visitors who cam to see the patient. While relishing the hot qahwa, I too got engrossed in the narration of his bygone days. After taking some sips of hot qahwa, I asked ‘Daddy’, (I call the friend’s father by this name) “What was the matter”? He replied that his childhood friend, despite being a millionaire, is living a very miserable life since his only son got married.

He continued: actually there is a rift between the two children (only son and only daughter) of the man over some feet of land which cost no more than a few lakh of rupees. The father, after so many attempts and mediations of some elders of the locality failed to resolve the issue by trying to motivate his only son to rest his claim over the piece of land, despite the fact that he had already ‘inherited’ land worth crores of rupees, and a mansion like house from his elderly and ailing parents who suffer from so many chronic ailments since a decade or so. The father went from pillar to post-to take suggestions from his son’s friends and colleagues, relatives and even some legal advisors to contain the greed of his son, but all in vain. The son is a well paid government employee, serving in the department of finance, whose salary is in six digits.

Now the situation is so grim that the elderly and ailing parents are forced to live with their daughter since last couple of years and are unfortunately always in want of some financial assistance for their medication and medical consultations. Daddy further narrated that couple of times, his childhood friend, though on bed rest, is forced to weave baskets for his medication, that too in this chilling cold.

The other day the man met me by chance on a roadside as he was waiting for a bus so that he would reach to a hospital to get a consultation from an ophthalmologist. I offered him lift which he agreed upon to my good luck. On the way, I just gave him a slight stimulus in order to listen to his pathetic and miserable story in order to lighten him up and to know the actual facts. The moment he tried to open his lips, tears trickled down from his wrinkled cheeks which made me to stop my car and offered him some water. After sipping some water he said, “Bilal! I do not want to live any more. I am exhausted now.” After consoling him, he narrated bit by bit, as was already narrated by Daddy, which shivered me from head to toe. Finally I dropped him at the hospital and then left for my work.

By the evening, I thought, the characters in the story change whenever we give a patient hearing to the untold stories of our parents. Today this is the story of some others’ parents; tomorrow this could be the story of your and my parents. And the other day, this will be the story of you and me as well...