From My Cradle to My Cadillac

Fifty- Three year old Vignesh Rao was in a contemplative mood that humid night of June as he returned home from work. Work. He gave himself a little smile, thinking how outrageous it would have been to his father, calling what he did for the past thirty years of his life as work. "Sitting around a desk all day and yelling over the phone is anything but work", would have muttered his old man, hunched over an iron board, with his heavily corded hands pushing his huge coal filled iron with a calculated ease over the carefully placed clothing. He took a look at his own hands gripping the steering wheel of his Cadillac. They were pasty, slightly coarse, with a few blue green veins sticking out. The latter two features gave a hint into the kind of work that he delved into for five years. "Real work"- assembling, disassembling, tuning and repairing boilers for five steady years as he eagerly climbed the ladder to one of them desk jobs; which, over the years, lead to the pasty skin. 

  He still remembered the time when he fell in love with machines as a young man in the village. The rich lawyer's wife, who just lived across the street from their shack, was finding that sitting around all day in the hot summers was an unbearable task. Besides, the magazines bored her.  So the husband humored her and got her a fan along with a brand new radio. Quite a luxury it was in those days to have either. It so happened that the radio stopped working at the peak of one of those heated days when the lady fiddled around with one knob too many. Vignesh used to deliver the clothes in his spare time. Fate seemed to play one of her moves on his life and so it came to pass. The crone was desperate to get it fixed before her husband came back from work. She was a little skeptical when the skinny laundry man's boy offered to help on one of his routes. He however, gave her the assurance that he would at least not make the machine any worse off than it was before, if he couldn't completely fix it.

  After much tinkering for an hour and a half, Vignesh tightened a lose wire behind a knob and got the whole contraption working as good as new. The miser of a woman was actually ecstatic enough to part with 2 anaas for his help. Vignesh politely declined and asked as to where the wares were brought from. The shopkeeper he was pointed to gave him directions to an electrician who used to help him out with a faulty fan or a busted radio at times. It turned out; the electrician was a good childhood friend of Vignesh's gym teacher (who used to treat him like his own son) and immediately took him under his wing.

As Vignesh turned 18 and nearly finished high school, the electrician began to discuss Vignesh's future with the gym teacher. The boy's mind worked with a cold logic. His hands had the necessary care and his mind the correct spark for curiosity and innovation. His appetite to learn was insatiable. He just couldn't watch him washing, ironing and delivering clothes like his entire family before him. He knew that Vignesh was meant for bigger, better things. The Gym teacher felt the same way. The two went over to talk about it with his parents. They proposed that he get a diploma in electrical engineering. After much thinking, they thought that it would be better to send Vignesh to Pune, where his distant cousin could house him for a while to save costs. There were going to be debts, but if they did take a chance and Vignesh kept his focus and got the grades, they could surely pay it off and let him have a shot at better things. The people of the village were not visionaries; they were used to playing it safe. Vignesh's father was given a chance to immigrate to the UK as a mill supervisor, but the family vetoed his decision to go (considering he was the sole bread earner). Another time was when he wished to open a liquor store. But this dream was also shot down for the investment of capital and the overall "filthiness" surrounding the whole affair. Not this time. Not with his son. The elders who never got out of their safe pond were no more. It was time to make the right decisions. Vignesh's father borrowed five thousand rupees from his goldsmith friend whose son was also studying pharmacy in Pune, a big city no one in the village could even think of visiting, let alone stepping out of the village itself. Nonetheless, swallowing all inhibitions, with complete faith in the boy, arrangements were made by the trio of father, gym teacher and electrician. Accommodations were arranged, relations were called, and bags were packed. The rest if history. Vignesh completed his diploma in three years, got a job, paid off the debts and really did move onto better things. Better than anyone else in his entire village would ever dream of.

With a smile of good remembrances, Vignesh entered his plush apartment. He sees his younger son sitting on the couch, with a laptop and earphones plugged. He receives the usual greeting of "Hey Dad!" with a touch of guilt. There were one too many pock marks on his son's face, and the crown of his head was no more resplendent with a head of hair. He also noticed that it was no more that squeaky voice he loved to hear after a hard day's of work, but a rich and deep voice that answered his questions. Too many late nights at the office meant he didn't see either of his sons much. He missed seeing them grow up. But for some reason, the younger one always understood. He was always more mature than his age. Vignesh remember the many talks he had with this son of his. How he told his story of his debts and how he had to pay it off with six months of his salary to clear them all. How he used to study till four in the morning under the street lamps. How he almost failed his classes as he didn't know English properly. How he learnt to grasp English in his spare time and how he later aced his exams. How he has been working in the same company for thirty years and how he climbed the ladder with handwork, dedicated efforts and sincerity. Vignesh always felt a need to give his younger son a push once a while. He always used to tell his son that he was doing this so that he could more confident, outgoing and reach his potential to the max. It turns out that all his talking did some good after all. The small boy is becoming a man now. The wife tells him that he is keeping good grades. His elder son tells him he got into the basketball team of his college, started playing the guitar and is the president of his writing club. To top it all off, he is next in line to represent the college in architecture conventions. With a big smile does Vignesh run his hand through the boy's bristled, shaved head (kids these days!). Sure enough, Vignesh gets a warm, double dimpled smile in return. Who ever says that teens are moody all the time?

On the way to his room, Vignesh bumps into his elder son. A well toned, strong, but gentle hand holds him straight. He gets the smell of musk perfume and a takes a look at his son. A cute boyish face always confuses acquaintances about who is the elder one amongst the two. He sees a well built, strong man in front of him with a short crop of hair fashionably (and equally fashionable clothes) set up. "Heading off somewhere?" asks Vignesh.
"Yeah dad, It's the weekend, hanging out with some of my friends…I told mom I won't be home for dinner… remind her if she forgets will you?" ,says the elder one.
"Sure! You take care now" says Vignesh, with which his son gives him a nice pat on the shoulder. With smile and a snort, Vignesh recollects the Assam and Kolkata days when the elder one was just a boy of five. He used to fight with anyone and everyone he didn't like. The one time when he came back from work, he saw three midget figures squirming, rolling and kicking in a whirlpool of dust. In an instant did he recognize his darker song fighting with two girls three and eight years older to him! Vignesh dropped his suitcases and ran to the scene of commotion he yanked his son who was still blindly punching. Unfortunately, one of his flurries landed right on Vignesh's nose which led to a gush of blood on impact. The boy may have thrashed the girls, but boy did he get a good thrashing after that!

He never had to worry about the elder one much. Hot tempered, resilient and a very strong personality- the traits that were a part of the family. That and hair loss. And diabetes too. That strong nature of his son's led to many a tussle and bitter arguments later. But as he matured, the arguments became more of discussions to get to the facts. He only worries sometimes whether that hot temper of his son's would ever get into trouble sometimes. Hence the cautionary "take care" at the end of every conversation.

After a quick shower, Vignesh groped around the bed for his perfectly pressed white set of kurta-pyjama. The clothes his wife had been setting on the bed for the past twenty seven years of marriage. Donning them, he takes a look at his bureau and the family pictures placed on it. There he sees a picture of his entire family on a Hero Honda CD-100SS with the fair younger one the tanker, and the wife catching onto the darker, restless elder one at the back. With a sigh does he wish for the older times with his family. He remembered always chastising his wife for always eating after her husband arrived during the North east and Kolkata days. Vignesh always entered the home after ten thirty or eleven. This would keep the wife hungry for more than ten hours or so (a cup of tea with some biscuits in the evening never counted). He remembered stealing away with her in a corner of the dark kitchen and talking about everything under the stars with her for hours and hours every Friday. His countenance changed from a smile to a dark frown as he remembered the next fifteen years in Dubai. Constant work pressures meant very few hours spent with his family. It began taking a toll on his health. Diabetes sprang up. On top of that, the years of isolation and lack of company turned his shy better half into a very bitter woman. It reached to a point of corrosive arguments with her. He remembered seeing the younger son huddled in a corner watching his parents verbally abuse each other with large, glazed over eyes. He looked so helpless. He was so scared to even shed a few tears. Vignesh always regretted scarring the boys childhood in such a horrific way. He was grateful the one time when he was about to hit his wife, but thankfully, his elder son stopped him with his strong hands. He would have never been able to live with himself had he hit her.

  Things got a bit worse before they got better once again. Vignesh found out that his tenure in Dubai was about to finish. The company promoted him to the head of technical assistance for the entire chain and asked him to return to the city that made him- Pune. Relations with his wife were at a dead end. They barely spoke. There seemed to be sense of dead weight around the place he was supposed to call home. His shoulders would feel more burdened and he would feel the ice cold hatred with his wife's prescience. The only thing that kept him going was the warmth and the energy given out by both his children. He would vent out his feelings and his problems to both his sons whenever he could. They seemed to understand it and take it with infinite patience and understanding. There suddenly came that fateful day.

  Exhausted, he came home one day to see the wife sitting on the couch. Her hair in disarray, Eyes filled with a reserve of tears waiting to be shed and her face contorted in the most beautiful expression of loss. Her mother had suddenly passed away. The kids were away. In an instant did Vignesh realize what had to be done. He dropped his briefcase, sat next to her, and held her like she was the most precious object in the universe- just like the old days. And she cried. She cried for all that went by in the past fifteen years. She cried for her mother. She cried till she couldn't accommodate that bitterness anymore…He cried when she was done and apologized over and over again for all the neglect. He promised he would make it up to her and the kids. Then the silence played as a balm on their souls till the sun rose into the azure sky…

It's been a year and a half since that day. Things moved fast after that. Vignesh's wife had to suffer two more losses (her sister and her brother) before they finally came back to Pune and settled in their new house. The younger son got into college and the elder began working. Vignesh got more responsibilities and still worked hard at what he loved doing. As he sat at the dinner table facing his son, and his smiling wife on his side, he couldn't help marveling at the beauty of life and how it keeps moving on. He mentally said a prayer of gratitude for the gift of life and all that it still has to offer him, fixed his nightly peg of scotch and dug into his dinner. Just then he gets a text on the blackberry. "You should learn to turn it off at the dinner table at least", says his wife reproachfully.
"It's your son" says Vignesh.
"What's he saying?" says the wife with a bit of concern.
"Nothing, you fretter bug! He just wants us to count him in for tomorrow", replies Vignesh with a laugh.
"And what exactly should we do tomorrow good sir?" ,Vignesh turns towards his younger son and says," Well boy, it's your last week here before the next semester begins, what do you have in mind?"
"Well, I heard this great place in KP that just opened up! It's perfect for…" With that, Vignesh thanks the almighty once again and makes plans for Saturday.