Samir's Joy

"Don't irritate me now, Radha. You are getting on my nerves again," Samir blurted out angrily in his usual way. He was showing his tantrums on me, his wife Radha of thirty-five years.

Samir had retired from his government job in the last six months. His last years of job life were not pleasant. Being a joint secretary and placed under a minister who had his own style of working that was just the opposite of the way Samir was used to function had taken a toll on his mental health. To keep himself away from irregularities and distancing from unwanted accountability and functioning always too diplomatically had taken away the peace from his life. Samir was always known to be upright in his work and never compromised on integrity and honesty. The last two years before retirement working under this errant minister had been very challenging. The reason that all the joys of his life had vanished. The minister was later had to face many legal entanglements and perhaps had to face a jail term along with his other secretary. But Samir had come out unscathed after many interrogations from various government investigating agencies.

It was now a big challenge for me to bring the joy back into Samir's life.

In a few days, a young family of three, father, mother, and six-year-old son came to stay on the ground floor of our two-story house on rent. This was in response to our advertisement in the local newspaper. This was another of my experiments to bring joy back into the life of Samir. I hoped that this company of young people would rejuvenate him. Our grandson was far away in a distant land due to better job opportunities for his father, Arunav, our own son. Our grandson was very dear to Samir but compulsion and circumstances had made me take this experiment of renting out to a young couple.

But initially, Samir had difficulty in adjusting to the young little boy Avik or Guddu.

Because Guddu was very mischievous and was always playing some prank or the other. Due to his activities, many of our artifacts and furniture items got broken. This led Samir to growl. But for the first time, I noticed that his thoughts had now changed and he began talking less and less of his past. And he grumbled less of his losses due to breakage and damage.

Slowly, Samir started developing a liking for Guddu. The little boy although so naughty but he loved Samir very much.

A strong friendship grew between the two.

Guddu had just begun to go to school. His father, Somesh, very busy with a nine-to-five corporate job so he was unable to drop off Guddu to school. The responsibility came on Soma, Guddu's mother. Soma found herself struggling with this new responsibility of taking Guddu to school within the given time.

Surprisingly, Samir volunteered to take this new responsibility. Initially, I was apprehensive of how Samir would manage the time and effort to manage such a pranky little boy like Guddu. Soma and her husband both felt embarrassed thinking this job as a burden for their Samir uncle. So they mildly protested. But Samir ignored all the naysayers and took upon himself the new job. Guddu was however very happy that his Samir Dadu would take him to school. With a twinkle in his eye, he told me of how he would pester Dadu to buy him chips and chocolates.

"You will behave yourself, Guddu, and not trouble Dadu to buy you your stuff," sternly warned Soma, knowing fully well of the nuisance Guddu may create.

But the first few days passed off very well. Both Samir and Guddu seemed to have gelled well in this new situation.

As for Samir, I had never seen him so happy and cheerful. He felt no burden or boredom with the physical exercise.

Years passed and Guddu was growing up. Soma was very happy that Samir's uncle had relieved her of a big responsibility. Her husband had even less time to attend parent-teacher meetings. So Samir would accompany Soma. They all came back home beaming. Seeing the scene, my happiness also doubled.

I was very happy to have taken this decision that resulted in joy returning to Samir's life.