Father and Son

 

My brother Amit is a cool and composed IT professional. He has never been ambitious in the sense that we see people toppling apple carts to rise in careers and professions. A handsome six-footer he has never been too eager to shake the stage too enthusiastically to make his presence felt. At the beginning of planning a career he showed zeal for joining the Indian army and gave a serious try but things won’t work out. Then he dropped the yoke of career aspirations for some time. He took to farming on a part of our land and after finishing the tasks in the morning, he would settle down, after taking a relaxing bath, dressed very-very casually, to read newspaper under the neem tree in front of our house. Father had retired by that time and pulled the family cart with his pension money. Father would smoke and drink tea throughout the day. He still maintained his routine of leaving the house in the morning like during his office days. But now it was the little tea shop in the town where a few of his friends gathered to pass time. He would return from the town in the afternoon.

As he reached home, Father would—having failed to incite his younger son into a volcanic eruption regarding career even with almost cataclysmic fatherly outpours of care, concern and anger—greet the newspaper-reading gentleman with a question in great Krishnamurti’s style, ‘Sir, are you a retired pensioner?’ ‘No sir!’ Amit would reply with a slight embarrassment. Later on, Amit made a career in the IT sector, a bit belated though. But now is doing quite well in his job.