A World Within by Minakshi Chaudhry Read Free Book Online

thrown out of my house at the age of four by my father. Imagine!’
    ‘But it was for your good, for your education,’ I say.
    ‘Oh! You do not know. Every child needs parents. It makes such a difference,’ he says then adds, ‘You cannot understand this as you have not gone through anything like that and you have not known displacement.’
    ‘Whenever I returned home from school or college during vacations I was treated like a king by my father and the villagers were in awe of me. I too considered myself above them, way above. After all I was the only one from the village going to a college. Then I became the first MA of Bilaspur State. It was a proud thing.’
    ‘My mother gave me an extra helping of butter; I got the pickles, curd, buttermilk ahead of my brother and sister. Villagers came to me requesting me to write letters for them, or to read letters or other revenue papers, official letters. I enjoyed the wonder and reverence that I saw in their eyes.’
    ‘You too considered yourself special, Dadoo?’ I ask.
    ‘Yes, everyone in the house would get up early and start working. My brother, Prakash, and sister, Maya, would get up at four and start doing household chores, but I could sleep till late. My mother would not let anyone disturb me and whenever Prakash and Maya complained your grandfather would just smile. I would get up at my will and hot water was ready for my bath.’
    ‘You were a spoilt child,’ I say with mischief in my eyes.
    ‘May be,’ he says calmly, ‘whenever I expressed my desire to eat something your Dadi would cook that thing immediately. I was the male child, the elder one and on top of that I was educated and had seen the world.’
    ‘But there were other things too that made me feel special. The villagers used to wait for my annual vacations to get their paper work done. I enjoyed that attention. As I grew up I started to feel that for people I was important, they looked at me with awe and respect,’ he recalls.
    It suddenly occurs to me that he got all the importance and attention but no love. He got love only from his mother. Even his brother and sister did not love him, they too were in awe of him. His father was like most men of his generation who never showed any emotion or affection. The villagers who came to him to get their letters read did not love him either. This led to a void forming deep inside him that he never fully understood but it was there. So may be that is the reason why he longs to go back to his roots but at the same time he runs away from it as he knows that there is no one there to welcome him.
    ‘My father was not a typical moneylender. He was a kind man who loved people and helped them. They reciprocated this help by making him the pradhan of the gram panchayat every time the elections were held; but this respect was only for him,’ he mumbles.
    Dadoo has another part to his personality, a part that does not want control over people but wants people to be part of his life. He wants to be able to share with others, so he always tried to make friends.
    He said to me once, ‘At times I felt that my father showed me as a trophy to everyone, that I was a matter of showing off. This robbed me of love of people. They just looked at me with admiration, they did not care for me. And remember this is very important – care and love, along with respect.’

    He repeats the same things again and again. Earlier I used to tell him that he had already told me this, but now I realize that he does not remember. So I nod as he repeats the story, ‘My father was a moneylender. The interest that he earned was his income. He used to pledge gold too. Once all gold was stolen from the house, it was more than a hundred tolas, I think. Since it belonged to other people, it had to be returned. That was a difficult time for us. Your Dadi had to do a lot of work so that the gold could be returned. It took us decades to return the lost gold.’
    ‘Why did you not put it in