“All that exists today, will be dead tomorrow” something I never really understood in my younger days. Good times last, bad times last longer. But neither of them seems to die! Time and again my mind wanders back to days gone by. Things that happened my way, and times that didn’t bring no joy. Of times that reduced the life ahead to a mere question mark. Why? Why do they haunt me? I know im thorough it. I have realized my mistakes, and at times my helplessness. Is this what he designed for me? Questions I have, lot of them; no answers.
Thinking of the sadder times, one thinks of what went wrong. Things that haunt you the most, are ones you had no control of. Where you made no mistakes. Things just didn’t go your way and made it miserable. Such are times, when one finds self blocked from all corners. There is no where to run to, you know your life is changing with each passing moment and each turn you make is wrong. Many things have gone wrong in my life. I come from what they call a privileged family. My dad is in the civil services and life is supposed to be all rosy and glory. The first thing that comes in people's mind is “POWER”. Well this is what I thought as well, when I was a kid. Hormones? I think they do teach. Oh yes they do. They made you admire women in a completely different way. They gave a meaning to those tears. They introduced you to emotions earlier not understood.
Emotions! I feel is the most important aspect. Ya, I feel!
So there was more to office than what met my eyes. It was not power, it couldn't be. For I saw a man crumple, shattered, a man who gave up on life. Things lost meaning, and scotch lost its aroma. The true power he believed in; honesty. So did it really not exist? It couldn’t have, for how could such a thing happen. Mind loses all logic and fears no future. Yes, bad times do that to you.
Smoke rose high from a distant garden, he had no courage to return to the smoking ashes of his own belief, while his heart still twisted and turned in the fire. The pain I could feel. Life became miserable. He quit on his job and went in for a year long leave. He was not the man I once called father. All signs of life reaped away from those once rosy cheeks. He couldn’t be, for my father was supposed to be all strong and tough. Then was that really a drop of tear that I saw on those cheeks. Something that im not going to forget for the rest of my life. I don’t know if good times get better, but I certainly know that bad times do get worse.
But it wasn’t supposed to last this long. For he taught me the true meaning of strength. Bad things happen, they always do, everyone faces them. And they always do break the man inside you. Strength does not lie in defying such moments. It lies in facing them and accepting them. Strength brings you back to life. For weak is the person who knows not off a second try. When something of this magnitude happens you are bound to be broken. But strength takes it own time to mend you. He knew he was right, because god had now given him the strength, the strength he once believed in. I now faced the officer he was bred to be. Yes these people are amazing. Everything about them is fascinating. The air around them, something you got to experience. The power that makes them so. My dad was now busier than ever. The blood returning back to his cheeks. He wasn’t going to let this happen to him. He was going to retaliate. I saw strange people come home at odd hours. I saw my dad rush away at minutes notice around the clock. Sights of people in prison, the third degree and stuff like that. Strange phone calls…..
In the end he was victorious. The magnitude of his victory? …… the cabinet had to loose a minister with speculations of my father being closely related to Harkishen Singh Surjeet! Life was good again and back in motion. It was strange, the way I felt so helpless. The point where all hopes for happiness had flushed away, the pain which still makes my heart pump more than blood into my eyes, and the salty water that seeped down my throat. Years have passed by, but each and every detail clinging to my soul like leaches slowly draining the soup of life from it. But it is a pain I have learnt to live with, strangely not turning numb. Things could be worse; I don’t want to see them. The pain is now the greatest gift god gave me. I remember it and I remember how we got over it. The sign we and my father needed. The sign from god which strengthens our beliefs in the power of truth and honesty. For there is no power or strength greater than this.
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