Subhash and Kush are sitting side by side on a
bench. Both are wearing crisp white shirts. Both are feeling equally fidgety
and are cracking knuckles to ease the tension. Both are awaiting the result of
their job interview for the post of a driver with an agency.
Yet, the very observant eye would note that Subhash
was wearing a cheap polyester shirt, washed and ironed carefully to look
perfect while Kush’s shirt bore the label of Manzini.
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Kush was born in the family of a millionaire. A rich
dad with killer looks and shitty values. A beautiful mom who came with lots of
dowry and a warped sense of morality. Kush was never given the chance of
becoming normal. From the moment he was born he was told in every way that the
rest of the world existed to serve and pamper him. When Kush’s teacher gave him
a note for destroying school property his dad sent back a cheque paying 10
times the value of the apparatus.
Next time Kush had punched a boy in the eye
resulting in partial loss of vision. This time the principal expelled Kush from
the school. But this was still not a problem. His dad poured in more money to
get him admitted to an even better school. Kush’s father told his son, “Remember
son, always hold your head high…no one from our family should ever have to bow
his head.” Kush’s mother secretly felt very proud that her husband never allowed
the world to make her son feel guilty.
So Kush grew up like that. A rich kid with plush
degrees but zero education. Kush’s dad thought that it would not matter because
he had plans to train him personally to handle the family business soon after
his fake MBA was done. But people like Kush’s dad usually make many enemies and
one day he died in what looked like an accident.
Then came the bad times. Suddenly within a single
year, all the wealth of the family got wiped out in front of Kush and his
mother. Instead of taking charge of the situation, his mother watched the
series of events unfold with helpless eyes. It is at such moments that people
realize why it is a grave sin to raise a girl with Sita like values. But Kush’s
grandparents were long gone and no one actually stepped up to help them keep
bankruptcy at bay.
And that’s how it happened, a little boy who was
never given a scope to fend for himself suddenly found himself penniless after his
father’s demise.
As Kush’s last car was towed away, (to pay for a
loan that he never knew to exist) he stared at the scene vacantly. Their
chauffeur who just lost his job chose to look past his personal tragedy. He
came up to Kush and offered him some insight. Life has to go on…and Kush needed
to find work as soon as possible. Kush father’s enemies had flooded the market
with enough rumors to prevent him from bagging a job. It was his idea to set
Kush up for a cabbie’s job. It was not the ideal situation but he hoped that
the job could buy Kush some time to look for a job befitting his social status.
So that is how Kush came looking for a job at the
driving agency.
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Subhash was born in a below poverty line family.
When his father lost his life to an expensive ailment his illiterate mother
took charge of the family. She toiled day after day to support her son and
herself. She would not have needed to work half as hard had she not planned to
give Subhash the gift of education. But whenever she saw her employers leaving
for work wearing tailored suits in air conditioned cars, she could not resist
the temptation of offering her son the ticket to that world.
Subhash was a good son who helped his mother to run
the household. He was in fact very willing to work as fuchka peddler from an
early age to assist his mother monetarily. But his mother insisted that he
should study. His mother never really understood that Subhash found studies to
be incredibly dull. When Subhash got stuck with Geometry he ran to his mother
for help. She hung her head in shame and decided to arrange for a tutor.
There was no way that she could afford to pay for a
tutor but she decided to skip one meal every day and arranged for the money.
Despite her best efforts Subhash could manage to study till Higher Secondary which
he barely passed with a third division. Subhash never could make himself fall
in love with studies. He was a good guy but he just had a preference for manual
work.
His mother asked him to go to college but this time
Subhash put his foot down. He felt like an idiot who was wasting his mother’s hard
earned money. He wished to learn something exciting and useful. Learning that
the combination of sodium and chloride ions gives us common salt did not make
sense to him. There was no way that Subhash could use that piece of fancy
information to earn some money. It was time, he decided, to learn something
useful. He enrolled in a driving class.
His mother agreed. She was getting old and her frail
body could not support the weight of her big dreams any more. She thought maybe
her son was right; maybe she could be happy to see her son settled with any job
that paid a decent salary.
After a few months of training, Subhash applied for
the job of a driver at the agency.
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Well, Subhash and Kush both got the job.
Subhash cried a few muffled tears of joy and ran
home to tell his mother that she can finally retire from work.
Kush went home quietly and took few big swigs of
whiskey and hanged himself.
PS: Up in the sky, the Creator sighed. His project
of Egalitarian Society has been stuck in the testing phase from 1902. Ever
since angel Biley proposed the model of Egalitarian Society He has tried
numerous test cases. But the experiment seemed to fail every time.
Equality probably cannot ensure happiness for everyone
in this complex world.
