Tales of the wretched: Ashok and his mother – Chapter four: Redemption flowing 7-8 October 2025
Courtesy freepik.com
Ashok slowly disengaged from Annie’s embrace attempting to put some distance between them and have a calm chat with her. His arms were still limp by his sides as he eased himself out of her clutch. He realised from her vice-like grip that it had been a long time since anyone had been kind to her. He thought about his mother again and how she had been helpless with nobody showing her any kindness while she struggled. This is how people were pushed into desperate actions because they felt completely disregarded by everyone around them. He sighed internally thinking that he had been too young to find a solution to their predicament and his mother had literally worked herself to death while reserving most of the food she could get her hands on to him. There had been no shelter when he was young, just places for single young pregnant women to go to until birth of their child.
He looked at Annie whose face seemed crestfallen as she wondered what to make of him pushing her away. He was not sure how to handle this as he had kept his feelings under wraps for the longest time ever, even while he was married, even when he was happy when dating his wife before he married her. He had always felt that if he gave in to his emotions it would be like a dam that might obliterate everything around him. He had hated his relatives for such a long time and with such passion that he was afraid of expressing any other emotion lest he get carried away and start expressing those feelings of hatred as well, be submerged by them and act only in line with what they released within him. At times he had felt that the hate was such that it would turn into a fire that would physically consume his heart.
- Annie, I just want to help you and your son but I have been a lonely man for such a long time that I do not know how to speak normally with people. - You did talk to me at the shelter - Well you see, that is different. At the shelter I have a role that I embraced and that is to help people in the shelter with food and blankets. I know the drill. It is unemotional, safe and almost always the same. I did feel sympathy for you because you reminded me of someone I knew a very long time ago but I usually interact with those who come to the shelter in a very mechanical way. There are no other emotions than perhaps a slight touch of pity. When I saw you at the shelter, it made something stir in me, something that I had thought I had let go a long time ago - So you don’t feel pity for me? - Not really. I am just overwhelmed by the need to keep you and your son safe.
After a long pause, he decided to tell her everything about his childhood, the desperate times when his mother could not sell what she had made, the resulting famine-filled days, how his mother had become so gaunt that she looked like a corpse, the absence of his relatives, their presence when she had died, his hatred of them, the orphanage that had saved him from the hatred that was eating him – at least for a while.
- Did you ever marry, she asked - I did, he answered - Did you love her? Did you have children? - I did love her but I guess the hatred inside did not allow me to love her properly. The love I had inside of me for her was like a shell, it was not bright and happy like she would have liked it to be. The hatred inside kept making a hole that neither my love for her, nor hers for me could ever fill and appease. Eventually she got tired of waiting for me to love her like she would have liked to be loved. Five years of a relationship that had the dull ache of unresolved hatred festering within it and she decided to move on. We never had children as she felt that I was broken and she thought that broken men should never become fathers. She had her own issues with her father who was never able to express love. It has been almost ten years since that day she decided to leave me. I guess it is best for broken men like me not to be in a relationship. - I don’t think you are broken. The man who left me with his child, that is a broken man. You don’t hurt someone you have loved unless you’re broken. Nobody who is whole would hurt another soul without reason. From what I have seen from you, you have only been kind to me and I did not see you hurt anyone else. You might have been badly hurt but you are not broken, not like what I would think of a broken man - Thank you Annie but I think she might have been right. There is this hole inside of me that never goes away, or at least not until that evening when I saw you feed your boy and something stirred inside of me, not until now when I saw how happy you were to be here. - Thank you for helping us. My boy had not had a good bath in so many months. They did not always allow us into the Bain des Paquis and I could not use them anyway during the winter months. I tried to stay under the radar so social services would not take him away - You can stay here as much as you want. You do not need to go to the shelter anymore, I will bring the food here.
Annie rushed and hugged him again and he let her hold him fiercely this time. His arms were still limp by his side but he started feeling like a stirring in his shoulders and arms which slowly twitched and his arms then rose to hold her around the shoulders, softly pressing her onto his chest. Her tears fell freely again on his coat and he sighed as he felt a stirring in his heart while he could see behind his closed eyes a slow glow that seemed to fill his chest. All the sadness of not having been able to help his mother seemed to soar from his heart to his eyes which brimmed with tears. As his tears mingled with Annie’s tears, he felt like a wall had crumbled within his chest. All the years of self reproach on his lack of initiative to help his mother flowed with the mingled tears, washing both their hearts from sadness and pain. It was as if redemption flowed within his heart and he smiled with gratitude for being able to help Annie and her boy.
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