Bijendra Kumar's Blog - Posts Tagged "fresher"
First Chapter: Three Jobless Freaks
Certain writers, of whom I am one, do not ever think someone can ever hold their book; and particularly those who consider their time relevant or of crucial importance. On that when you’ve bad English.
But, some people are so wonderful in this world that against all odds, they decisively opt to go through your book, just to know what and how you expressed. Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to discuss this novel as a whole or any part of it. Dear reader if you will really like it, I will add, I am as proud of it as I was on the day when I thought of writing it. I do not mean to imply that I knew, when I wrote it, that the ‘Three Jobless Freaks’ would get shortlisted by any publisher. I knew only that my more than two years of work would not be wasted as at least by then I would learn good English.
But it really isn’t that important right now. Anyway, in case if you guess this is my story, then actually it’s not. Well, it’s somebody else’s whose journal named ‘Freaks’ I found in the train on my way back to home. The pages had handwritten text. I read out the label on the cover, ‘By S. K. Mehra, Chief Justice, Patna High Court’.
‘Freaks – the real story by a chief justice … sounds exciting,’ I thought and repeated the phrase mentally, ‘S. K. Mehra, Chief Justice, Patna High Court’.
I didn’t think of what I would have to do, but of what I would have to ask from the men who sat around me. Courteously, I asked each one of them if they identify Mr. chief justice or that journal. But, no one claimed or paid attention even after my repeated inquiries. I let out a huge sigh.
It was a winter night. And, the train was neither very filled nor too empty. All murmur ceased, and silence fell in the compartment as the train passed through a tunnel. Nobody spoke anything for a few moments. A tea seller walked past me in the loudest allowable sound, made the whole compartment take notice. On my side berth, there was a man dressed in wrinkled pajamas, bare-footed. He looked like approaching fifty, who had crossed into age from adolescence, without the intermediate stage of youth. What I disliked most about him was his habit to look straight into my eyes suspiciously.
‘What do you want?’ snapped that man.
‘I just came to ask if you could identify who this journal belongs to. I am just asking everybody. Maybe somebody will tell me.’
He didn’t answer at once, and then said quietly, ‘I don’t know. Whosoever it belongs to, he will come. You don’t bother.’
‘Alright.’
Although his response was not so encouraging but he was right. I came back to my seat, and sat up straight. I took a sip of water from my bottle. My seat was right in front of a girl. Looking at her face, I felt the weariness of having seen it for years, even while seeing it for the first time. Her complexion was not so fair. But I could tell one thing, her body - once you looked at it, you couldn’t turn away. She had blurred hazel eyes and an ermine cape and beautiful dupatta that had slipped off one shoulder, revealing too much of her breasts.
Analyzing her body every time I looked didn’t sound a good idea to pass fifteen due hours of the train ride. Plus, I had no books or magazines to read. So I flipped the first page of ‘Freaks’ and then few random pages of the journal to kill my time. Massaging over my forehead suddenly my eyes stuck on the last page – which had a suicide note stapled. I read,
Dear Maa,
I don’t know how and when you will read this letter. But, by the time you get this, I may not be in this world. I have no other choice left than killing myself. I always let you people down and broke your dreams and pride. But now I did something, for that you could never forgive me, for that I could never forgive myself. Neither could I see your teary eyes every day and hear you cursing yourself on my existence nor did I want you to be ashamed of after me. So, better I shouldn’t disclose. If anyone asks, to avoid the reality, say I met with an accident.
Today I want to open my heart to you and say what I wanted to say on the right day, but that day never actually came in the twenty two years of my life.
Maa, I was never happy after getting separated from you so early in my life, missed you so much! My eyes had never gone dry after then, and they are still wet. Wanted to see you and Dad once but I don’t have that much guts left. You know, I have always been unlucky.
Lastly, I don’t know if you would be so proud to know that I got a job offer from India’s no-1 and biggest software company.
Your useless son,
Anik (31st December 2005)
It is not every day that you hold a suicide note in your hand. I felt a sudden spin in my head, not because words were hypocrisy, but because they were true.
‘Who is this guy?’ I said, speaking to myself keeping my eyes still on the date: 31st Dec 2005.
I broke into cold sweat, and re-confirmed the journey date in my watch; it was 5th March 2006, means this had happened just two months ago, my God.
‘It’s pretty recent. What’s the matter? And that you can’t really say in all honesty whether this is real or just a hoax? How … I mean,’ I had crazy mental conversation with myself. And, everyone sitting opposite to me saw me grumbling to myself.
I licked my lips that had suddenly gone dry. I wished the train would go faster. But, I knew it was not the Rajdhani class train. I wouldn’t sleep; I thought. And, my all feelings that were now coming more often than ever broken with a jolt, before I knew what it was I looked out the window. The train stood still in the middle of empty fields.
It was already 09:30 pm. And, the girl on the right front of my seat who sat at the window of the train, her head thrown back, one leg stretched across my seat had now spread a bed sheet on her berth, and arranged the pillows and blankets. I guess she was planning to go to sleep. In fact others were also preparing to sleep. I prepared myself for a sleepless night. Each word of that note kept spinning in my head and blocked all my senses.
When the train jerked forward; she turned to face me. As she looked at me, her blurred eyes went slowly from stillness to dirty. It didn’t astonish me now, just as it had not astonished me that day when I first looked at myself into a mirror. And, I disliked myself.
I slid under the blanket. She switched off all lights except the one which was above my head. From the corner of my eye I tried to see her, I bet in the semi-darkness she could win national beauty contest. A sweep of brown hair fell back, almost touching the line of her shoulders, trembled in sudden jolts once in a while. She was unconscious of her own body and that it was a woman’s body. Her cleavage looked like a crazy river crossing Napa valleys.
Hoping to not regret it later, I somehow pulled my gaze away to avoid more judgemental remarks, and opened Mr. Chief Justices’ personal journal to read – that begins below …(well, what you’ll read is - of course - my version of his journal in the form of a book. And also I’ll come again somewhere later to continue with this train story)…
But, some people are so wonderful in this world that against all odds, they decisively opt to go through your book, just to know what and how you expressed. Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to discuss this novel as a whole or any part of it. Dear reader if you will really like it, I will add, I am as proud of it as I was on the day when I thought of writing it. I do not mean to imply that I knew, when I wrote it, that the ‘Three Jobless Freaks’ would get shortlisted by any publisher. I knew only that my more than two years of work would not be wasted as at least by then I would learn good English.
But it really isn’t that important right now. Anyway, in case if you guess this is my story, then actually it’s not. Well, it’s somebody else’s whose journal named ‘Freaks’ I found in the train on my way back to home. The pages had handwritten text. I read out the label on the cover, ‘By S. K. Mehra, Chief Justice, Patna High Court’.
‘Freaks – the real story by a chief justice … sounds exciting,’ I thought and repeated the phrase mentally, ‘S. K. Mehra, Chief Justice, Patna High Court’.
I didn’t think of what I would have to do, but of what I would have to ask from the men who sat around me. Courteously, I asked each one of them if they identify Mr. chief justice or that journal. But, no one claimed or paid attention even after my repeated inquiries. I let out a huge sigh.
It was a winter night. And, the train was neither very filled nor too empty. All murmur ceased, and silence fell in the compartment as the train passed through a tunnel. Nobody spoke anything for a few moments. A tea seller walked past me in the loudest allowable sound, made the whole compartment take notice. On my side berth, there was a man dressed in wrinkled pajamas, bare-footed. He looked like approaching fifty, who had crossed into age from adolescence, without the intermediate stage of youth. What I disliked most about him was his habit to look straight into my eyes suspiciously.
‘What do you want?’ snapped that man.
‘I just came to ask if you could identify who this journal belongs to. I am just asking everybody. Maybe somebody will tell me.’
He didn’t answer at once, and then said quietly, ‘I don’t know. Whosoever it belongs to, he will come. You don’t bother.’
‘Alright.’
Although his response was not so encouraging but he was right. I came back to my seat, and sat up straight. I took a sip of water from my bottle. My seat was right in front of a girl. Looking at her face, I felt the weariness of having seen it for years, even while seeing it for the first time. Her complexion was not so fair. But I could tell one thing, her body - once you looked at it, you couldn’t turn away. She had blurred hazel eyes and an ermine cape and beautiful dupatta that had slipped off one shoulder, revealing too much of her breasts.
Analyzing her body every time I looked didn’t sound a good idea to pass fifteen due hours of the train ride. Plus, I had no books or magazines to read. So I flipped the first page of ‘Freaks’ and then few random pages of the journal to kill my time. Massaging over my forehead suddenly my eyes stuck on the last page – which had a suicide note stapled. I read,
Dear Maa,
I don’t know how and when you will read this letter. But, by the time you get this, I may not be in this world. I have no other choice left than killing myself. I always let you people down and broke your dreams and pride. But now I did something, for that you could never forgive me, for that I could never forgive myself. Neither could I see your teary eyes every day and hear you cursing yourself on my existence nor did I want you to be ashamed of after me. So, better I shouldn’t disclose. If anyone asks, to avoid the reality, say I met with an accident.
Today I want to open my heart to you and say what I wanted to say on the right day, but that day never actually came in the twenty two years of my life.
Maa, I was never happy after getting separated from you so early in my life, missed you so much! My eyes had never gone dry after then, and they are still wet. Wanted to see you and Dad once but I don’t have that much guts left. You know, I have always been unlucky.
Lastly, I don’t know if you would be so proud to know that I got a job offer from India’s no-1 and biggest software company.
Your useless son,
Anik (31st December 2005)
It is not every day that you hold a suicide note in your hand. I felt a sudden spin in my head, not because words were hypocrisy, but because they were true.
‘Who is this guy?’ I said, speaking to myself keeping my eyes still on the date: 31st Dec 2005.
I broke into cold sweat, and re-confirmed the journey date in my watch; it was 5th March 2006, means this had happened just two months ago, my God.
‘It’s pretty recent. What’s the matter? And that you can’t really say in all honesty whether this is real or just a hoax? How … I mean,’ I had crazy mental conversation with myself. And, everyone sitting opposite to me saw me grumbling to myself.
I licked my lips that had suddenly gone dry. I wished the train would go faster. But, I knew it was not the Rajdhani class train. I wouldn’t sleep; I thought. And, my all feelings that were now coming more often than ever broken with a jolt, before I knew what it was I looked out the window. The train stood still in the middle of empty fields.
It was already 09:30 pm. And, the girl on the right front of my seat who sat at the window of the train, her head thrown back, one leg stretched across my seat had now spread a bed sheet on her berth, and arranged the pillows and blankets. I guess she was planning to go to sleep. In fact others were also preparing to sleep. I prepared myself for a sleepless night. Each word of that note kept spinning in my head and blocked all my senses.
When the train jerked forward; she turned to face me. As she looked at me, her blurred eyes went slowly from stillness to dirty. It didn’t astonish me now, just as it had not astonished me that day when I first looked at myself into a mirror. And, I disliked myself.
I slid under the blanket. She switched off all lights except the one which was above my head. From the corner of my eye I tried to see her, I bet in the semi-darkness she could win national beauty contest. A sweep of brown hair fell back, almost touching the line of her shoulders, trembled in sudden jolts once in a while. She was unconscious of her own body and that it was a woman’s body. Her cleavage looked like a crazy river crossing Napa valleys.
Hoping to not regret it later, I somehow pulled my gaze away to avoid more judgemental remarks, and opened Mr. Chief Justices’ personal journal to read – that begins below …(well, what you’ll read is - of course - my version of his journal in the form of a book. And also I’ll come again somewhere later to continue with this train story)…
Important Information: Three Jobless Freaks
Official FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/threejobless...
Review: http://sunflarearthouse.com/2015/05/b...
Interview: http://www.sakaaltimes.com/NewsDetail...
Availability : Amazon, Flipkart, Infibeam, Paytm
Review: http://sunflarearthouse.com/2015/05/b...
Interview: http://www.sakaaltimes.com/NewsDetail...
Availability : Amazon, Flipkart, Infibeam, Paytm
