The whole night Rakesh kept looking at the ceiling fan deprived of a even a bit of sleep. Rakesh was not in a biological state of sleep but yet he had a dreadful night. He was engrossed into the world of his deepest and worst memories of his lifetime.
Hailing from the city of Kolkata, Rakesh Mukherjee was working as a customer care executive with a multinational company for the last three years. He worked hard day and night and his bosses were also happy to see this young chap of 24 years to give heart and soul into his job. But from Rakesh’s perspective, this job served some other purpose for him. For Rakesh this job was just to kill time and keep him busy and thus diverted from the dreadful memories of the past that haunted him all the time. He kept on working like a machine without a particular motive, ambition or any expectations for the future. But this was not the way Rakesh was three years ago.
He was happy and gay and a normal young chap of 21 with high dreams and aspirations. His parents were his closest. But happiness was not in store for him for a very long time. Rakesh was coming back from college with the excitement of celebrating his parents’ marriage anniversary. But on his way, he got a call from the hospital asking him to immediately reach there, for his parents had met with a car accident on their way back from the market. Exactly after five hours from the time he called his parents, he found himself standing at the funeral of his parents with stony eyes filled with extreme shock.
Since that dreadful day Rakesh had hardly remembered that he was alive. He remained lost, unable to recover from the shock and never aware of date and time. Rakesh spent sleepless nights, sometimes staring the way at the ceiling fan with empty eyes and sometimes working overtime at the call centre. He never knew when he was hungry- sometimes he even forgot to have his meals. Whatever food he had was just for the sake of what a human body requires for survival. In short, Rakesh had a pure soul battered down by the shock of that dreadful day when he lost both his parents together at a juncture of life when he was just completed his graduation and about to step into this world of miseries and hardships.
But his parents were not even there to see their son being one of the toppers of Delhi University in his graduation results. After graduation, Rakesh had to take up a job to support his living and that is when he took up this job in a call centre. More so, because, this was the time when even his “blood ties”, his so-called “relatives” turned their backs to this poor young boy and even went to the extent of not giving a basic shelter to this orphan. The only person that Rakesh was left with was kaka who worked in his household since his birth. Kaka was the only family for Rakesh who had taken a vow to serve him like his son till his last breath.
This was one of those many sleepless nights he had spent but there was something different in this night. The previous day in office he had come to know from his best friend Meena that she had a similar plight in her life but she had moved on and has learnt to live life the way she had always wanted to, chasing her dreams of being big. Meena did this with the thought that her parents had always wanted their daughter to be happy and had always wanted her to achieve her gals in life. And Meena knew that this was also the last thing that her parents could wish for their only daughter, before their death. So now, the only motive in life for Meena was to let her parents’ souls rest in peace by achieving her dreams.
Rakesh spent the whole night in a lot of despair. He could not decide whether to be happy or sad. He did not know how to react. He did not know how to forget the past and accept the reality that he was an orphan and yet move on. At the same time, his mind was putting forward the example of Meena. Rakesh’s stony silence and deep thoughts were broken by a drop of rainwater which fell on his cheeks.
Rakesh felt something different, he got up from his bed, walked up through the stairs which led him to the roof of his house, which showed him the first light of the morning along with rainwater pouring from the heavens. Rakesh walked out open on the roof and got drenched by the rain. He kept standing till the last drop of rain had fallen on his body. After that, he walked up to the railing of the roof and looked at the new metro line which was supposed to start that day. Rakesh felt different- all his pains, shocks and doubts seemed to have been washed away by the rains. As he saw the first metro of that particular line passing by, he could feel a new beginning to his life.
He could feel his Mother standing beside him touching his hand and on the other side his Father putting a hand on his shoulder and saying, “Son, won’t you fulfil our last wishes?” Rakesh wiped the last drop of tear in his eyes and had a smile on his face for the first time in three years. He made his mind to chase his dreams, achieve his goals and be successful in life. All of a sudden, he could feel that all his ambitions were presented on a platter by God and he just had to extend his hand to accept this gift. As soon as he smiled bearing this thought in mind, he got a call from his boss who was praising him for his dedication in work. Just before hanging up the phone, his boss asked Rakesh to meet him in his cabin as soon as he reached office as a surprise was awaiting him.
Rakesh felt as happy as a newborn baby. He turned around and started walking down the staircase towards his room happily. Rakesh Mukherjee felt that he was gifted by a new hope in life. He realized that day that after every dark night, one is always offered a bright new morning full of fresh hopes and beginnings. This is the very cycle of Life.