Balanced!

Ratnesh pondered over the years that had gone by and calculated again. Ten years. And after all these years, he had received a letter from his mother. The first ever from her, and it was from a remote town near Delhi. He paced the length of the room twice and stood near the glass bow-window that overlooked London’s evening skyline. His mother had just written one sentence in it “If you are done, then please come back. We miss you.” And the burden of that one sentence had outweighed all the determination that had driven him to come to Oxford to study and find a job here in London. He had gone back some times, but yet, the visits were not enough to satisfy his father or his mother. They wanted their son back and they wanted to spend their lives with him now. A fear had constantly been there in his father’s mind that if, God forbid, any one of them succumbed to the inevitable, then his son would have been so far away that it would have been nearly impossible for him to come back in a short span of time. Ratnesh was aware of this, and in his annual visits to his home, he would ensure that they have enough money in their bank account to fulfill all their needs for at least a year. He had also ensured after having a word with the bank’s manager that they got all the money they needed in case of any emergency. He had ensured that his parents had regular medical checkups and in the telephonic discussions that he had with his parents, he kept advising them to take care of their health.

He had read somewhere that it is an impulse inside our hearts that prompts us to take a decision, but once we have decided, we have to think and rethink until our mind gets exhausted. And after all the thought that we have given, if we make a decision; we just have to go with it. More importantly, never regret later.

Ratnesh kept looking outside and in retrospect he saw all those nights that he had stayed up, just to ensure that he is the best in his office. And never had he failed. He had outperformed nearly everyone at office and had an additional fifty percent of the total wages that he had earned, as incentives. He was rich he thought, but there was an immense amount of money to be earned in the years to come.

He thoughts took him back in time, and he saw himself studying day and night at Oxford; just to be the best. And best he was. He smiled when he thought of the time, that his professor had advised him to study more than a regular student as he was slow at learning and understanding the subjects. He had used nearly every method known to understand the basic principles of finance. Sometimes reading a particular article had taken more than two to three days, and he had done this, just to ensure that he understood it completely. Gradually, his grades had improved.

He took a deep breath and looked around the living room. He was still alone, no one to accompany him. His thoughts went further back in time, and saw himself study for his classes tenth and twelfth and the times when he passed with an excellent percentage. He recollected that he used to keep a small piece of paper in his pocket with times and subjects scribbled on it. This piece of paper served as a time-table and he used to follow it blindly, allocating an appropriate amount of time for a subject as necessary. He was strong in English so it was just half an hour a day. Mathematics used to take 4 hours in two sittings. Three slots for half an hour breaks for lunch, evening snacks and dinner.

His thoughts were interrupted when he saw a beautiful girl pass by on the opposite side of the road. He smiled in contention at the decision he had taken long back to remain a bachelor all his life.

At last he saw himself as a child. Sitting next to his mother on the cold bare floor where she sat cutting vegetables for dinner. He recollected himself saying to her. “Ma, when I grow up, I’ll be rich and will earn a lot of money.”
“Won’t you leave me when you are rich?” his mother had asked jokingly.
“Never”, he had responded seriously.

He walked to his couch and lay down with his head leaning on the arm-rest. He imagined himself to be sitting on an enormous see-saw. With himself, his ambitions, the tremendous amount of money that was about to come, and his flourishing career on one side. His family was on the other side along with some memories of his childhood. He knew that he had to let this see-saw remain balanced to ensure a perfect life for him, but he had clearly outweighed his parents. “But in a career in London, this was bound to happen?” he thought. “Do I really need to feel bad about this? They knew it too but why create so much trouble now?”. On the other side, his mind was not allowing him to settle down. The other side of his mind just asked one question to answer which he gave up all the resistance. “Your parents are old and frail, whom will they reach out for help if they need it? And, God forbid, what if…”. He shrugged at the thought. Perhaps, now is the time to let something go and attain a balance in life. He took a deep breath again and decided to balance the see-saw by letting go of prospective money and his career here in London.
In a final decisive moment a thought came to his mind, “career can be fetched in India also”, and he stood up immediately and moved towards his study table.

He took out a blank sheet of paper, wrote a single sentence “Ma, I am coming back. Forever”

He folded it, kept it in an envelope, addressed the envelope to his mother in the remote village near Delhi in India, and kept it in his office organizer between the first page and the front cover.