A few days ago, one of his students asked him, “Why did you choose to be a teacher?” At the time, he didn’t say anything. Let’s say, he was not interested in giving the answer. By the way, he’s interested in nothing nowadays. After eleven years of teaching at private schools, he had started to get bored. He is disgusted by everything—his family, his friends, his students, his boss and his profession. He was never a students’ favourite; they always remained away from him.
But this time, without any particular reason, a student had asked him this question after class. He had been a shy teacher, kind of an introvert. This was the reason behind his silence at that moment. Nevertheless, the experience of years had boosted his attitude and removed his shyness. Still, he found himself unable to create an intimacy with his students. Quite often, he’d avoids contact with them. And, though interested, he daren’t make sound conversations with them. He just avoided their eyes, looked at them from the corner of his eyes, as if he was looking elsewhere, and pretended to be concentrated in his task. He did the same, rendering the student clueless.
“Sharma sir!” He felt as if awakened from a daydream when the lady at the tea-shop called him. “It’s already 9 pm, you need to move now. I am preparing to close.”
He had been sitting there for more than two hours thinking about this and that. Mr Sharma, who is a dark-skinned man—(that’s why he was sure that his students called him names such as Kalia, Kallu, as has almost become tradition among students)—usually visited this shop for tea. He sometimes happened to spend extra time here. He got up slowly pondering upon the student’s question once again.
Yes, why did he choose? Did he choose or was it just the way things were? He was not very fond of teaching, really, but this is what he had been doing for years now. Circumstances in life had made him a teacher; he had been in this profession for more than a decade. He had many reasons to contemplate on life. He often remembers his college days; his eyes burning with fire, “We must do something that will be of use to society. It’s very difficult, but the efforts of every individual can have some effect.” These were the kind of words spoken by Mr Sharma whenever he met his friends those days. He was then a dynamic Surendra Sharma, not merely a ‘Sharma sir’ like he was now. He had never thought he would be so easily distracted from his aim. En route, he had confronted numerous obstacles and become a zero. He was hapless to avoid his own principle of life. The routine of everyday life was too tedious for him. The frustrating mishaps that had occurred on different occasions had made his life worse.
A young man is running down the street. He looks anxious, even desperate. Who might this be? Surendra Sharma…He has probably heard that his college results are out; he probably doesn’t know that the results are not in his favour.
When he ran his eyes through the wall where the result had been pasted, he was stunned. There began his sad days. No one was happy to see his face that evening. It was not because he was unhappy; it was because he had failed. He had been hoping for some consolation, but didn’t get any. He then decided to fight alone. He had never thought he would lose the support of his family for such a small reason. That was one the greatest factors that made him despise his own life. He felt tremendous pressure pile up on him, and couldn’t get away from his problems. He had always thought he would contribute to society, but he apparently wasn’t good at it.
He had tried becoming a man of action, but wasn’t very good at that either. His life felt worse when relatives began thinking of him as an “unsuccessful man”. It was kind of true that he has come out a loser in this competitive world. Only people who earned money were, after all, thought to be successful, and Mr Sharma was quite unsuccessful in this regard. He himself sometimes compared his life with that of his friends. He found that his friends had at least done something, or bought something in their lives. But, Mr Sharma, working as Sharma sir, had collected nothing precious. He was only just able to live a life; he had struggled a lot simply for his existence.Mr Sharma was alone in his room. He began, again, to think of his achievements. The list didn’t go very long. He had not received anything from anywhere. Frustrated, he began thinking, “Is this all my life has become?”
He had always imagined better things. He looked around his room; it was empty. Nothing important; there wasn’t even a couch to sit on let alone a TV. He thought of how much easier this would be had he bought a revolver. “O, Sharma sir!” Hell, it was the voice of his landlady. The knock on his door was persistent. When he opened the door the shrieking voice of his fat land-lady bellowed upon him, “Sharma bhai, you always leave your lights on late into the night. Don’t you know how high the bill’s going to accumulate? Don’t repeat this, all right… I’m tired of telling you the same thing a thousand times.”
No, no, this lady never tired; she was lying. Mr Sharma didn’t respond. He only nodded and closed the door. He was surprised; the landlady had said it was “late night”. He looked at his wrist watch. Oh, it was out of duty now. It had been that way for more than a week now. He really was short of money; so no new batteries…He just guessed it might as well be “late night” and switched off the light.
He felt a certain tranquility creep up all around him, but couldn’t find it in his mind. In that darkness, he observed the pictures revolving inside his brain. He saw that there was not much balance in his bank account; he also saw that he was being treated as a psycho by his friends, his relatives were judging him as a failure, the was boss complaining about his work, students were calling him by unusual names…
He could have no peace. He got up from his bed and walked to the kitchen table. In the darkness, he groped around for a knife. What would happen if he slit his wrist-nerve?
People would find him dead in the morning with blood all around? He held the knife tight for a few seconds and threw it back. He regretted; regretted for not being able to be able. He remembered that his life had started with a failure. This is what had made him dumb all through his life. He started to sob; tear drops rolling down his cheeks.
Mr Sharma had never been this sort of a person but today he couldn’t control his emotions. It was as if he had become the greatest weakling on earth. He heard all the people laughing. They were laughing at him. If only he had Godly power; how easy instant revenge would be. But he was a common man with common features; it was impossible. He felt more helpless. He felt like getting away from this life. He imagined death…His face was shaking and his eyes, flashing. The only way out; the only relief was death.
But in this darkness, he could do nothing besides regret. He regretted not being able to earn enough money, not being able to buy a piece of land and build a house upon it, or even a beautiful farm. Most of all…he regretted never having bought a revolver.
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