Life of Guilt

"Raj... He spoke.... He spoke for the first time. Come fast... Your son called out 'Mummy'.." joyously shouted Rajshekar's wife from the bed room.

For Rajshekhar, a BPO professional, it was a life of struggle. From the time he had landed in Bangalore, barefooted, without a penny in his pocket, without a spare dress, he was fighting against odds. But he was a survivor. He had a happy marriage and his son was now almost a year old.

His son uttering first word 'mummy' did not make him ecstatic. It should have. He tried to feel elated. He failed. Instead he felt numb. He wanted to run to the bedroom taking his camcorder. Instead he was slowly slipping to a corner of the balcony. He remembered what had happened one fateful evening 25 years ago, when he was 8 years old.

It was a small village in Bidar. Though everybody could see him walking on the road, nobody could see him sobbing and weeping. The heavy rain had dripped him wet. He continued to walk, mindlessly, without knowing where he was going. Just one thought was in his mind: "Why did my mother stop loving me?"

He had been recently shifted to a convent school from his old Kannada medium school. Like usual he had rushed back from his school, with his arms wide open to hug his widow mother, shouting.... "ammmaaaaa", Kannada word for mother. Her hug that day was cold.

"Raja.... From today you will call me Mummy and not Amma.."

"No Amma..why .... I don want to..."

"Raja, from now you will call me Mummy. All your friends call their mothers' so. "

"No Amma.. Please.... I will do anything else you ask."

His mother had remained silent.

"No Amma.. I can't"

"Go.. Your mother will not love you."

His mother had not replied to his sobs. He had not realized that it was raining for long time after he had walked out of his house. Some stranger shouted out "Hey boy, get under a roof. Else you will catch fever". He had not answered.

Rajshekhar could not remember what had made him get onto the bus. He was tired, had caught cold, fell asleep. When he got up, he was in a city, which he found out to be Bangalore, much later.

When Rajshekhar came back to present, his wife was beside him, with the baby. He could neither hear what she asked, nor hear what he answered. His past was haunting him now. It had always haunted him. Was the reason for leaving his mother serious enough? In the hindsight it had always looked trifle. He could never justify himself. He knew his mother would have been breathing grief every breath. Somedays when he was alone, the world would shout deep in his ears that he was the cruel most son ever born on earth. But he had never muttered enough resolve to go back to see his mother. He thought he did not deserve to see his mother again. He thought he deserved a life of guilt.

But today he felt as though someone had squeezed his lungs from within. He decided to go to his village and meet his mother. If she forgave him, he would see to it that she is happy for rest of her life.

The next day Rajshekhar located his old house after great trouble. It was dilapidated and seemed forsaken for years. He feared if his mother was dead. He enquired the neighbor who told: "oh the woman, whose son had fled her? She was never happy with her middle class status. She got married to a filthy rich old man within a year of her son leaving. See .... we never came to know why her son left or where he went. That woman never seemed to care, you know, because she was only his stepmother. She shifted to a new place with her new husband, who I heard passed away long time back and she is living a luxurious life. By the way who are you?"

A cold wave of resentment engulfed Rajshekhar, as he headed back, and then began a life long search.