“Sharm nahi ati? Ab yeh din bhi dikhayega kya? Guptaji ke bete ko dekha hai? He’s doing engineering “, my father yelled at my brother, Ravi Bhaiya.
“What is wrong in cooking papa?”, he tried to figure out.
“You are so whimsical Ravi. Would you cook like girls now? Start wearing chudiyan too”, Papa went out of the house saying it.
Ravi Bhaiya was a dreamer. A day dreamer rather. He wanted to change the world. He said he would do what nobody had done. Maybe, he was too modern for his generation or for our country. He tried to look beyond recognition. Ravi Bhaiya wasn’t a science-maths material. He wanted to do something different, something creative and food fascinated him a lot.
He loved playing with spices and he expressed his creativity through the decoration on the top of the pudding. So he decided to become a chef. He said, food expressed human psychology. One who ate spicy was adventurous and one who loved sweet dishes was more amicable. Utter nonsense. He loved the world. He loved people. And he loved reading them too. He just didn’t like the way people spoke. Papa was right. Ravi Bhaiya, indeed was capricious. He was one of a kind.
“Ma, make him understand. I won’t become engineer. I want to become chef and I’ll become that anyway, anyhow.”
Ma just smiled.
She too wasn’t happy. She just showed she was with his dreams. Her heart wanted something else. Engineer is what she wanted him to become. He knew this somewhere. Maybe he didn’t want to accept the fact or maybe he had become presumptuous by then. People never failed to shoot snide gazebos at him ever. He knew his dreams were different and he knew people in India would blabber about it no matter what.
But one day his patience betrayed him and that day his dreams and he died forever at the age of 20, just like many of us die.
Here, in India our parents never fail to compare us, our dreams and our percentages with pass wale Sharmaji aur Guptaji ka beta. This becomes irrational at times. I don’t understand wh people need to compare our interests and capabilities with someone else. Everyone is different and unique in a way. Indian parents, after all. They can never understand this simple logic.
Sharma ji and Gupta ji had never come to ask Ravi Bhaiya how his board exams went but were the first to ask about his results.
“72% uncle.”
“Sirf? Acha, apko toh waise bhi khana hi banana hai. Koi nai “, he said in a sarcastic voice (Only? You will be cooking anyways. Marks doesn’t matter)
“Haanji uncle. I have talent, patience and creativity. That’s why I want to become a Chef. I understand you have none and no wonder you don’t understand the value of the profession.”
I could see his blood boiling. His eyes were red with anger. I could see him breaking down mentally. He wanted his family to support him.
“Papa. Papa”, he called him.
“Hmmm.”
“Will you give money for the hotel management courses?”, he asked him sternly.
“You won’t get a single penny from my house. You get that?”
“Alright, I’ll apply for a scholarship and will request the university to give financial aid”, he was leaving.
“Ravi! Stop! Don’t you dare come back to this house again,. I won’t accept any cook in my house.”
Ah! So brutal papa was! He knew his weakness and he very cleverly stroked it.
Next day papa and Bhaiya went to some engineering college for his admission. They came back after 3-4 hours with a box of sweets.
“Congratulations beta! You’ll become an engineer after few years!”
“Congratulations papa! Your words have become a murderer. Yes! Their hands have my dream’s blood on it. I wish I could report against it”, his eyes full of tears, his voice choking. He could barely speak now! I had never hated papa more.
Almost 10 years have passed since then. I have hardly seen them talking to each other. I think papa has realized his mistakes now. He is guilty for that. For everything. We often hear him crying in his room.
Ravi Bhaiya is a mechanical engineer in a small industry. Although he hates his job but earns a decent amount to run his family. He has a son, who loves his father a lot and loves his father’s hath ka khana more.
“Daddy! I’ll become a chef. And I’ll cook and will give tadkas just like you. You’ll teach me no?”, little Tarun said excitedly after eating dum aloo.
“I’ll teach you how to cook shahi paneer and rajma champ”,
Father and son smiled after years.
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