Anjali Shah, Managing Director of Ganges Enterprises, a successful HR consulting firm; running the place efficiently and to the best of her abilities was her motto. To achieve the goal she dedicated 12-14 hours of her day. A chauffer driven car took her to work in the morning and brought her back home sometimes early, sometimes late. She had breakfast with Sohan everyday. She never missed it. The only time Sohan had an adult conversation in his house was between 7-7.30 in the morning. His mom usually fished out 50 rupees from her bag, left it on the countertop and after bidding goodbye rushed away. At night the family sometimes had dinner together or not, depending on how the day went for all of them.

He had everything in the world at his feet. Money was never a problem until recently when he started experimenting with several other ways to dispel the ‘want’. He ended up battling with his father who refused to give him more than he needed. He dangled between a mother who sometimes gave, but never questioned; a father who questioned too much but never understood the reasons. He wanted to talk, talk a lot about everything that was going on, but he couldn’t find anybody to talk to, and neither did they have the time for him. He wanted to belong to someone, but nobody had the time to share themselves with him.

Keerthi Shah sat at the foot of the bed and stared at his son’s face swathed in bandages. His left arm was in a sling and tubes of various kinds ran from his son to machines around him. An uneven breathing sound, clicking and humming of machines broke the stillness in the room. Nurses walked in and out checking on the machines followed by doctors. He had used every resource he had, had influenced every doctor he knew to attend to his son. He was jolted out of his fast flowing life when the news of the accident had reached him. He had dropped everything and ran. He only wanted to see Sohan alive. He had wept like a baby when they had rolled the boy into the ER. There was nothing else he wanted but his boy alive again.

Anjali Shah paced up and down in the corridor. She was unable to sit or stand at one spot. The tears wouldn’t stop flowing. A mixture of emotions - guilt, anger, love, sadness -cruised through her veins and threatened to explode in her head. She occasionally walked into the room peered into Sohan’s face for some signs of recovery and walked back. It was more than a week. Sohan’s parents camped out in the hospital, taking turns to watch and hope for their only prized possession realizing they had almost lost him for nothing. The lives that had run parallel for too long, never intersecting, found itself at a dead end now.

Sohan sat around with Shail and Sameer downing the third beer. Sameer was refilling his glass again. Weak protests were ignored. Underage drinking was rampant but who cared. It relieved Sohan of his emptiness, his ennui and everything else that was bearing down on him. He had finished the Level 1 of his exams with flying colors. At least he seemed to be on the right track but nobody knew and the people with whom he wanted to share it the most were away partying at the corporate office since they had met their respective deadlines. Shail and Sameer were friends who revolved around him to have a good time. Tonight he wanted to have a good time. He couldn’t drive he said so Sameer offered to drive him home. Shail insisted they stop at the wayside dhaba for a ‘chutka’. Then they headed home laughing and singing oblivious to everything else. Sameer had bent low to retrieve a cassette that he dropped. Then the inevitable had happened. The car careened off the highway. It spun around like a top and hit the wayside tree with full impact. Sameer was killed instantly while Shail and Sohan lay there bleeding profusely from the impact. A passing truck driver had noticed them and rushed them to the nearest hospital.

Weeks later Sohan was recuperating at home. He opened his eyes and looked around. His father sat in an armchair by the window reading his newspaper. The sun trickled in lighting up the room, its yellow glow casting a bright hue in the room. His mom sat at the foot of his bed with a laptop balancing on the pillow. She was comfortably attired in her nightclothes and typing away furiously. He shifted to sit upright, the sound alerting both his parents. They turned around towards him and in unison greeted him, smiling profusely. Sohan’s mom rushed off to bring him breakfast while his father tended to him walking him to the bathroom. A scene of a loving family unfurled before his eyes. Over the weeks and months that ensued Sohan saw a discerning change in his parent’s attitudes towards him and their own life. They brought work home and stayed around him as much as possible. They no longer rushed out to work as if the whole world depended on them. He spied his parents laughing and talking to each other more often. And to his delight his mom banished the cook on the weekends and cooked his favorite food.

Sohan rushed home, parking his bike in a hurry in the driveway. He had called from his mobile to appraise his parents. He had graduated with honors and an on- campus recruitment had selected him for internship in a reputed company. There was so much he wanted to share. His mirth knew no bounds. Life was a roller-coaster ride ever since he recovered. His inner sense of well being had propelled him to heights he had never known he could reach. When he opened the door and rushed indoors a thunderous applause followed by screams of “surprise” resounded from the living room. He was grabbed, hugged, applauded by family, friends and well wishers as confetti fluttered around him.

Sohan had found his groove…