by Joshua Hoyt
only I knew!
The school was a mix of fun and happiness. Leena and I were usually the first to reach class. That day I was chatting with her animatedly as I opened the desk and dumped my books inside. “*&#@”, I said. There were many decayed sticky hibiscus flowers inside the desk. One of the Romeos in the class had probably kept them there. My books were coated with a layer of gooey purple stuff. I had to literally wash my books to get rid of all the goo. Even my hands were purple and smelly. Leena laughed. By then other kids started arriving and I thought many of them were struggling to suppress their laughter. I was sure the person who did this was among them. These boys! I thought with dismay. I secretly wondered if that could be Mahesh.
We went out for playing in the evenings and came back for studies by seven p.m. That particular day, I was returning home after hanging out with my friends. On my way back I saw Mahesh, my classmate, on whom I had a huge crush. He was also our neighbor. I saw his tall figure near the mango tree near my house. He smiled and as I approached him, my heart started racing. He smiled. “Hey Asha”, he called. I ignored him and continued to walk. As I passed him, something hit my shoulder. I turned to look. It was a chocolate. I hate chocolates, but then this one was special. I picked up the chocolate and ran back home. My face was flushed and secretly wondered if he felt the same way. I went to my bedroom and sat on my bed. From there I could see him sitting at his study table. I looked away when he turned to look at me. My face was still red. Suddenly life felt too good. My mood soon changed as I heard my father screaming at my brother.
“How do you multiply two fractions?” Dad was asking Prateek. He was standing next to dad looking at the numbers in his notebook. The numbers obviously made no sense to him. His hands were shaking in fear. The numbers in the paper didn’t seem to make any sense to him. “hasdgndkdjj….”, I heard a faint murmer. “SAY THAT LOUDLY”, dad said aloud. Prateek’s lips were trembling. Muffled syllables escaped his lips again, “bvcjasasasasasasfj……”. “WHAT?” asked dad impatiently, his eyes red with anger. Prateek stammered, “Add the numerators and denominators????” In a flash, dad’s palm made contact with his head with a deafening noise. Prateek rubbed his head and refused to take his hand off his head to ward off more blows. His eyes filled. Hearing all this commotion, mom came running to the study table. “Don’t hit the child”, she said. “Can’t you explain to him patiently?”The next thing we saw was his notebook flying across the room. Mom ran to pick it up. She dragged the crying boy to the next room and opened the book. “Read the question properly before you try to solve the problem”, she advised kindly. The boy found it hard to understand the concepts and made a lot of mistakes including careless ones. Dad found this hard to digest, and hit him mercilessly. Soon the situation went from bad to worse. Blows rained on him and tear drops smudged the numbers in his book.
Teaching him for the entrance exam, especially for the Mathematics paper, was a nightmare. We girls sat at the small study tables in the hall for studying and could barely concentrate as all we could hear was father screaming at him. If he didn’t understand a problem, father would explain again and again, but with no results. Exasperated, my brother would finally pretend to understand, only to stumble when he actually had to solve it again. He would get beaten. Scared, large tear drops would form in his eyes, afraid to fall onto the notebook below. The answers in many of his notebooks were smudged with tears. The problem he was trying to solve became unreadable. He never dared to even cry loudly. I remember that once my father hit him so badly that he wished his hand would fracture.
Looking back now, it appears to me that he perhaps had ADHD or dyslexia. But those days kids who don’t study are merely considered lazy and faced severe punishment. The atmosphere at home was tense. I hated going home to all that violence. Home is not always a great place to get back to… At home I tried hard to shut out the violence and in school and with friends I had to pretend everything was normal. Nothing was normal at home any longer. It was just about the get worse.
Finally the D day arrived. On the day of the entrance exam, nobody was confident that he would pass, let alone qualify. I remember mom reminding dad that Prateek didn’t have a wrist watch to check time. Dad immediately took off his watch and threw it at her. It fell and broke into pieces. As expected, his name didn’t appear in the merit list. He had failed in the entrance. Now the only chance he had for joining the prestigious public school was by occupying the place of one of his sisters. We girls had already joined the public school and had done quite well in the entrance exam. One of us giving up our position for his sake seemed unfair. We had struggled so much to get admission to the school. Surely dad was not going to allow that, I thought.
As we feared, Prateek didn’t make it to the merit list. When my friend Veena came home the next day, mom was in a bitter mood. She told her that we were all planning to commit suicide. Veena was shocked and tuned to look at me. I cringed in shame. I couldn’t believe my mom had said that to my friend. I hated bringing friends home. Veena went about telling this story to others, especially my classmates, causing me so much misery. I was so embarrassed to face my friends. At fourteen kids don’t like to be belittled in front of peers. We don’t like it at any age, for that matter.
The next day I was sitting in my room reading when I heard someone weeping. I couldn’t believe it was my father! I always thought he was strong and confident. Men don’t cry! I remembered hearing him talking to my mother between sobs. Something was terribly wrong. When I went to their room, I heard my father begging my mother, “Please don’t do anything”. That was the starting point of a hate story. A situation that could have been handled well, but had not been! I heard my mother threatening to commit suicide. I felt terrible. As a 14 year old I loved my mother so much that I couldn’t imagine a life without her. We all needed her. We were scared. I thought it was mean of her to threaten us that way. We needed her! Can’t she understand that? My father broke down crying. He was begging again, “Please don’t do anything”. That was the first time I heard my father crying. I hated my mother for making him cry. How could she do that? It was his worst hour. She should have comforted him, instead of making him cry in front of kids, I thought. She kept blabbering about her ideas of a mass suicide to avenge his ‘failure’, making him even more miserable.
We tried to comfort her just to get back to a normal home every day. But she said we all should commit suicide to spite the school principal who refused to admit him. The idea seemed appealing to her. I hated her. I argued that we all had a good future to look forward to. My brother could surely study in some other school and still do well. She didn’t agree. She said we should kill ourselves if he is unable to study in the same school. I said, “NO”, we were not ready to die. She can’t force us to kill ourselves. Then she said, “I will poison you without your knowledge”. I was shocked. Hatred welled up inside. I was worried she might poison my poor brother or sister. I imagined all of us lying dead in our house and people gathering around to see us. Similar scenes from movies played in my mind. She seemed completely lost. I was not sure she wouldn’t do it. And I hated her intensely and worried about my brother and sister. Would she poison us? My parents were crying a lot and the proposal did not seem fake to me. Life seemed so nice to me otherwise with school friends and sweet crushes. I did NOT want to die.
Around that time I had read in news paper stories about how a family of five, just like us, had committed suicide. The eldest girl was supposed to have been pregnant. I lay down alone in the terrace imagining how the little ones would have agreed to consume poison. Were they forced? Did they protest? Did they cry? Did the eldest girl agree readily? Did she feel terrible for causing the death of her younger ones? It felt miserable. The situation at my home did not feel very different.
Crying, my dad asked me, “Sweetheart, will you do a sacrifice for your brother? Will you give up your place in the school for him so that he can study here? Where ever you study, you’ll do well. But your bro
ther will not have any chance in another school”. I was shocked. I looked at him unable to believe my ears. He hung his head in shame. I felt sorry for him. But then, it seemed the only chance for a normal life. My mom would be happy. She would no longer threaten to commit suicide. My family will be happy. Our life will go back to normal. My dad will be free of mom’s threats. My sis has nothing to lose. My brother will be happy too. Only I will be sad. Does that matter so much? I nodded ‘yes’ to my father. I really did not have an option. He seemed relieved.
Parents are not infallible. They have their own priorities. My happiness need not be at the top of their list. That’s the whole truth. “Face it if you can”, I told myself. How can I trust them again? My happiness is not the topmost even in my list of priorities! My relationship with my parents changed almost overnight. Whenever my father travelled I got nightmares about my mother brandishing a knife trying to chop off my arm. I woke up drenched in sweat. I lost my innocence and grew up overnight. I distanced myself from everyone. It was not fair, I