The Regret –

It was month of November. It was early morning, around 7-15am. He was not feeling cold anymore even with the cold chilly wind blowing around. His eyes were moist. He had not realized that he would have to face this situation today. He was now thinking if only he had been a little bit brave on the previous day; this situation could have been avoided. After every few minutes he used to remember this very moment and again the tears would gush down his cheeks. Even the cold blowing wind could not dry the tears up on his cheeks.

It would take another half hour to reach home now. He was traveling on a two wheeler sitting on the back seat. His dad was riding the two wheeler and they were now returning home. He was hoping that they would reach home early, very early, but you cannot beat the distance by just hoping. Even without any traffic on road, his tuition classes would take atleast 45mins of travel on two-wheeler. Usually every morning his dad would wake him up early and travel all the way to drop him to his tuition class which begins at 7am. It was a daily routine, but today was different, a lot different. So his agony did not end even when he reached home after half an hour. His dad parked the two-wheeler in basement; he did not look at his son at all. He just entered the house and straight-away headed to bedroom and slept off. He knew that it was his son’s mistake but he had already forgiven his son for this. His mom followed him right behind and took his temperature reading and result read 103 degrees.

His tears were not stopping at all. He just wanted to say that he was truly very sorry to his dad but did not muster any courage to speak and he continued to cry and cry silently sitting in a corner of the hall.

It all started in morning when dad knew that it was public holiday today. Also he knew that he was not feeling well that day, so he asked his son – “Are you sure, you have your tuition classes today?” Son - “Yes, Sure dad, our teacher did not inform about the class being canceled today”.  So he got dressed up as usual with an additional sweater on to protect as much as possible from the cold wind. At 6-45am Dad and son were in front of tuition place. The son gets down and rushes towards the classroom only to see that it is locked with a note on door saying – “Class canceled due to public holiday”. Son was shattered to see that. He had dragged his dad out in cold when he was not feeling well. He knew it was his mistake which he did on the previous day and he realized it now. He thought he would spend some time there and wait till his dad returns back. He could not dare to tell his dad that it was holiday and they had traveled all the way needlessly in this cold weather. He peeped through corner of the wall to see if his dad is still there and saw that his dad was waiting for him without returning. Son had no choice now. He had to go back to his dad now and tell him the truth. He mustered all the courage that he could and went back to his dad. In meantime, his dad had already asked the watchman of that building to check if classes were being conducted today or not and after knowing the truth he was waiting there for his son. He did not ask anything more to his son, just saw his son return and turned on the two-wheeler to return back home.

On previous day – At the end of the class, he knew his teacher had informed all students about something which he could not hear clearly. He now realized that it was this same thing about classes being canceled. If only he was brave enough to just ask back the teacher on what he informed or for that matter of fact, any student who had listened to the teacher’s information, this situation could’ve been avoided. But he did not, nor did he care to bother. His ignorance had now turned into a biggest mistake of his life. He could only sit in the back seat behind his dad and regret for what he had done.

Even after many years now, the regret still lingers in his heart and he only wants to tell his dad how sorry he was for that day but alas the hard truth is that his dad does not live anymore today.

[THE END]

Three Amigos and a memorable drive – Part – 2 -

(Missed the first part…. Click here)

Suddenly we saw a hotel open and a petrol bunk nearby. We decided to intake our fuel first and let the car wait for sometime. So we barged into the hotel and a waiter came to take the order. Me: “Idli vada for all?” Others agreed, but it means nothing if we agreed, the main guy waiter replied: “No idli vada. Still not ready, sir” Ok, so we changed our order to masala dosa or poori. Waiter: “Not yet ready sir. Only vegetable upma is available. If you wait for five minutes, I will get vada also”. We all stared at each other then in one voice: “Get the upma first and start making vada’s and get them too.” When you are hungry, anything you eat seems tasty. That day, the upma was so tasty that we were almost tempted to order another plate, but just as we finished our upma, the vada’s were ready on our table. We pounced into vadas and finished that in no time. It was hot and again tasted delicious. Then had a cup of coffee each and then as we started to leave, we remembered that it was a decision time. Remember we had to take one of the two routes from spot 1. This was exactly the spot 1 where we had to deviate from highway. We looked at each other and discussed on which route to take. Obviously we were not able to decide. Best thing now was to gamble. Out came the one rupee coin, heads – route 1 (little bad one) tails – route 2 (better one). Flipped the coin in air.

We took car to petrol bunk, added fuel and continued on the route 1. Few kms on that route and it seemed to be nice road. So Prashanth spoke up: “Hey this is not bad at all. Seems good road” Just then the potholes started from nowhere. After some distance, the road got better. This time Prasad said: “Ok, seems like only that part was bad” Just as he spoke, again the road got bad. Some more time and again the road got better. We stared at each other and nobody dared to speak about the road condition now. We did not want to take any chances especially when we had encountered such situations with rain first and now roads. So we continued our drive silently. Thankfully the road continued to be better and finally we reached our first destination Sirsi. In Sirsi, we had to search for some new bus stand and continue on that route to reach Hulekal.

So whenever we came at some junction where the road split into two, we searched for sign boards as to which road goes where. Surprisingly the sign boards always pointed in one direction and always showed the way where one of the roads lead. There was not even a single clue as to where the other road leads. Somehow with our own guesses we took one or the other roads and at every such split junction, we always knew where one road goes but not the other. Thanks to the “well planned” sign boards. Finally we had to take help of some people who mislead us for some time on wrong routes and finally lead us onto the correct one.

Finally we reached Hulekal. People greeted us and gave us some scolding for our night drive. Then we freshened up, had one more round of breakfast and at this moment we were totally tired and exhausted. Our eyes were slowly coming down and vision was getting blur. At around 10am, all 3 of us thought of taking a small nap and slept off. We slept like logs on that day and don’t think we even changed the position in which we slept and finally we got up when we were forcibly woken up for lunch at 2pm. Then had lunch, went out for some shopping and finally returned home at night for yet another long sleep. Next morning we were supposed to leave back to Bangalore with my wife at around 7am, but as usual we got up late due to our tiredness and finally left for our return journey at 11am.

So this marked the end of my first night drive and the most amazing till now. I still don’t know how our elder people agreed for our night drive. We three amigos set off without any planning or schedule or the proper decided route on this memorable and the most enjoyable drive which I would cherish all the time. As far as possible, would be avoiding anymore night drives as it is always safer to drive in the morning than night. Nevertheless, this night drive would always remain as a wonderful memory for rest of my life.

[THE END]