Set Free

After watching the movie "The Lunchbox", I immediately called my elder sister over WhatsApp video and asked her if she had had the chance to watch the movie as well. To which she denied, so I played the movie on my laptop and over WhatsApp video I showed her the glimpse of Sajan Farnandese, played by the late actor Irrfan Khan, and by the end of it, she said "Isn't he exactly like Manoj Chacha?"

We had a great laugh on this subject. Manoj Chacha is the Sajan Farnandese in our life. He is my father's second cousin, who lived two houses right to our home in the neighborhood, back in village. The grumpy, cranky and always with a bad temper, middle-aged man. He never comes to any family functions, that we organise in our ancestor's home, neither does he invite us because he never celebrates one. He lives alone with his bedridden mother.

If at all we invade in his premises accidentally, he gives a sour look and chases us away from his balcony.

While watching the movie, I thought if he too had similar thoughts and vulnerability like Sajan had. Eating lumpy food, smoking alone on his balcony, and peeping out of his lonely life at other's lives through a small opening in windows. If he misses someone he had longed to be with, and express his hearty content with anyone, a sense of pity took over my childishly foolish feelings.

So didi and I were discussing how misjudged that man is and how terribly we had behaved with him without knowing his shoes, in which he has walked all his life.

We added my father in the same video call and asked him about Manoj Chacha. My father informed us that he has sold his house and has moved to the USA two years ago. He was a very bright student and was selected in one of the best colleges in India but he couldn't pursue his career because his mother had a severe stroke then. She was bedridden since then and he became a dedicated son taking care of his mother, leaving his career behind.

Two years ago when his mother died, he too let himself free.

We ended our conversation but the thoughts kept lingering in my mind.