Rathin Bhattacharjee

Classics

3  

Rathin Bhattacharjee

Classics

The Breaking Dawn

The Breaking Dawn

4 mins
128


The Breaking Dawn

"I don't know why I happen to be the most cursed being in this entire universe! Why are all bad beings an integral part and parcel of me?" I said this while keeping an eye on the younger one, who yawned and turned to the other side while my elder kept whispering to someone on the phone. 

"I knew from the way she called from the office that she was looking for an excuse for coming home late. I knew that when she told me over the phone that she was out on the street to do my Sister a favour that something bad was about to happen! It's 8 in the evening now and still, there is no sight or sign of her!" I went on and on rambling while my daughters knew it best to engage themselves in their work. 


The occasion was the day my Sister, Tanushree paid us a visit at our ancestral home. They had the Summer Vacation and she decided to spend the holidays at our father's. I had been praying to God to grant us some peaceful time as long as she stayed at the house. I didn't want any scenes between them, my wife and my sister, thinking about the last time when hell broke out loose.

 

We had breakfast consisting of bread and jam, mango and a couple of Jilabis each. The morning had passed off like a dream. But when my wife, Maya (Illusion) took ages to get back home from the office, I knew that things were not as rosy as they looked. 


Anyway, I was pouring out my angst and frustration on my daughters, and pouring out tea from the kettle into the cups, for my Sister and myself. When it was five minutes past eight and there was still no sign of Maya, I went berserk and started cursing the world. 


After some time, I went out to buy some bread and tarka ( a kind of preparation made of daal/lentils and eggs) as I thought that Sister mustn't, in the absence of our diseased parents, suffer on our account.


The wait at the local eatery for tarka seemed an endless one. Standing near the oven that seemed like a blazing furnace with the heat it generated, I spent my time doing what I consider myself to be good at - observing people. There was a fatsy girl sitting at a table, who kept poking at the boy sitting beside her with her elbow. The language she used while doing this made me realize that a large portion of the next generation is really foul-mouthed. 

When I returned home with the tarka, my beloved wife was back. She asked me if we, Sister and I would like an early dinner. Sister agreed when she learnt that I was going to have dinner as well. 


She served me the cut-out pieces of mangoes with some sweets. She retired to her part of the bed by my side, a bit tentatively. 

"Mana, you've no time to talk to me, right?" Having spent the better part of the last two and a half decades in my close proximity, she knows me inside out. 

"I have severe pain in my chest," she said to no one in particular before turning towards the wall while I kept on typing out fervently on my computer. Outside my window, the world was pitch dark as retired to bed for the day. 


I kept on typing for a Contest I came to know about just half an hour back, and as luck would have it, the deadline provided me just a few hours. 

A few hours, because after that a fresh dawn will break outside the window of my dingy room, a blazing sun will appear on the eastern horizon, and a new writer will be born. A writer, whose only wish in life is to impact lives, inspire impressionable minds and leave the world a far better place than what it has turned out to be of late. 


Rate this content
Log in

Similar english story from Classics