HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Mother’s day:

Spandan was hardly three when his parents sent him to nursery school for two reasons, one everybody does it and the next a selfish motive, both were working. His father Abhisekh and mother Minati were both first class post graduates; hence they expected their only child to be brilliant one but all their expectations were dashed when they found out that Spandan does not have interest in studies.

Abhisekh thought, may be Spandan will be good in sports, hence they encouraged him to participate but he was a failure in that too, came last amongst eight. Ultimately Spandan’s educational responsibility was taken up by his father Abhisekh. He was compared with neighbors’ son Bitun, who was getting ten out of ten, where as Spandan was average with six out of ten. No amount of coaching by his father could improve Spandan’s counting which remained static at ten where as his other class mates were able to count hundred. That made Abhisekh furious one day and he beat his son with bare hands black and blue.

His wife Minati intervened, a sobbing Spandan slept without taking food.

“Why do you beat him like that, he may die if the slap is over the ears, don’t you know that? If you are not willing to take the responsibilities of a father, it would have been better not to have a child at all. Show interest in the life of our Spandan, by listening to what he has to say and create an atmosphere in which he would  come to you and talk to you any problem or difficulty he is facing and get the right guidance from you in solving it.”Minati mutter in a chocked voice.

“But I have run out of patience, he is not able to fetch the marks like that of our Mohanty babu’s son-Bitun?” commented Abhisekh in an angry tone.

“Why do you worry he is hardly four years and half, slowly he will pick up, but please do not punish him further, he may revolt one day or run away from home.” Minati opined.

“Both of us were so good in studies but why our Spandan is dull? Will be a headache for us in future and we can’t show our face to the society”

“Your problem is you are comparing our Spandan with Bitun, which is not fair. Comparison is the root cause of envy, anger, depression and many more. Don’t you know many of the famous personalities of the world were thrown out of their schools but later on many of them received Nobel Prize or excelled in other fields? Our education system with  those out dated rhymes, uninteresting home work actually do not appeal to many of the  kids hence they show little interest in studies, but physical and mental torture to them as you are doing to our Spandan  is not going to help either of you.” Minati said while curdling her son in bed.

Next day Abhisekh brought a toy car and few Choco Pie for Spandan from the market, which he had been asking for long.

“Son, I did hurt you isn’t it”. Abhisekh could see his finger imprints on Spandan back. “I am sorry son; I will never do it to you”.

“No-Papa it did not hurt me much, but you did it for my good. Do not worry those marks will disappear sooner or later.” Spandan said while taking toy car in hand.

Abhisekh knew that his son was not telling the truth, as it might hurt him.

“My son, see books are only as guidelines, but if you do not follow them it’s not the end of the world neither for you nor for us.” Telling this Abhisekh took Spandan in to his lap and said “you are our future, take things as they come.”

Few drops of tear were still on Spandan’s eyes as his mother handed over the Choco Pie packet to her son. He smiled a genuine smile and there was nothing artificial about it as it was a mother’s day.

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Sanjoy Kumar Satpathy