Nilbhai got angry today which has never happened. The actions of the son were such that one had to be angry. After seeing not just one or two, but twenty-one girls, Rajkunwar didn't like a single girl, Sunilbhai realized that the situation seemed different. At first he asked calmly, 'Megh, are you okay? I mean, you don't have any faults as a man, do you?' In response, 28-year-old son Megh smiled and stroked his beard and moustache, 'Dad, ye kale ghane lambe baal, ye hai meri mardangi ka kamal.' Sunilbhai's head cracked after seeing his son's dramatic answer and defiant laugh, 'then why don't you say yes? I have shown you twenty-one girls who are better, beautiful, cultured and educated than any young man could desire for marriage. Fifteen of these girls were liked by the patavi Kunwar of any king-kingdom. Today I am definitely going to get up. Do you want to get married or not? If you don't want to do it, don't say it. I do not work wrong.' Megh said, 'I don't want to get married.' Saying this, Megh went to his room and Sunilbhai went to his wife Sonalbehan. After that, for an hour, the parents continued to comment on the incomprehensible way of thinking of their eccentric, free-spirited and impudent son. Megh was a truly independent-minded young man. He became a civil engineer. After working in a well-known construction company in Ahmedabad for the first few years, he joined the government job only last month. His voice was serious as a cloud. He was tall, dark and handsome in appearance. The smile on his face was reminiscent of the smile of Lord Shri Krishna. There was a glint of intellectuality in his eyes. All the trouble was due to this intellectualism. He was madly fond of reading books. He used to read stories and novels when he was a teenager. After completing his graduation he turned to serious reading. He loved to read the books of the great philosophers of Germany and France. After reading Franz Kafka, he became pessimistic. He became an existentialist after reading Albert Camus, but when he read Paul Satran, his mind became dizzy. Suppose that a lover and a lover are in a deep embrace in a deserted place and are enjoying the moment of kissing, what happens if the skin cover disappears from the body of the beautiful lover at that very moment? If the two thighs like rose petals become muscles dripping with blood, the face becomes a mass of flesh tinged with blood vessels, the nose and eye sockets look like those of a witch, the rest of the body becomes a mass of blood, flesh, bones and nerves, what man would embrace her and can kiss Megh's thinking also changed after reading such words of Paul Satra. Meghan remembered the construction of the building. Beautiful coloring and …. Beneath the plaster lies a skeleton made of brick, lime, sand, gravel and iron rods. As the color on the wall fades a little, the people living in that bungalow get angry. If the plaster peels off, the house or building becomes a ruin. Inside every gleaming and flamboyant building lurks a dilapidated ruin. The same is true of the human body. Sunilbhai understood the world. He understood life, but could not understand his son. Meghne jagat, life or father; None of these three were interested in understanding. Where Paul Satra's famous statement was pointing him, 'All beings in the world are born for no reason, continue to live because of their infirmity, and then die suddenly and unexpectedly.' Bitterness increased between father and son. Megh transferred himself to a remote government project. A big dam was being built on a river. It was a small settlement. A nearby village had a small population. Two rooms were lying vacant on the plain of a poor Brahmin's house. Got it at a very cheap price. Megh lived on the ten to five site. The rest of the time is good, his solitude is good, and the companions of his solitude are good. Downstairs lived the landlord father and his young daughter. Hardly any sound came from there. A colleague once asked him, 'Don't you ever feel lonely?' Megh said without a smile, 'Do you know the difference between alone and lonely? Where Paul read the Seventeenth. Then it will be understood.' Sometimes he would get up in the morning and sit on the balcony overlooking the road, fill the mug of instant coffee he made himself and watch the people coming and going. The other characters kept changing, but two characters were seen almost every day. The young daughter of the landlord's elderly father was seen walking up and down the steep road with a shackle on her head. On the opposite side of the road, a handsome young man standing near the panna galla used to see this girl every day and mumble the line of this song: 'E apke jata johi panghatni vate, maru mana mohi gaye…' while singing this, the girl trembled seeing the lust in her eyes and the saliva dripping from her mouth. She used to get up and enter the house barely keeping her hair on her head. Seeing this scene played out everyday, Megh was not bothered. The gluttony of that mind was nothing more than folly. Of course, the landlord's daughter was fair, slender and beautiful, but was it all just a skin tone? A pool of blood, an arrangement of bones, a sheath of flesh-marrow, and a white, sticky covering of skin overlaid by a tangle of nerves. If once it happens that the Panihari comes full of water and the skin layer disappears, then the person will die seeing the real form of the human body! Run away to Gothimada without looking back. At what level do all these Palmer creatures live? Will the interested men who are sighing hotly after seeing this girl's white flexible waist know that there is dirt inside it? Two months passed. Evening time. Coming from the Site, Megh was climbing the steps to go up, when the landlord called him. Holding Megh's hand with trembling hands, he said, 'Son, I don't know how long I will live. As long as I live, I am sitting as the roof of this motherless daughter. You see! That scoundrel is behind my back. Three daughters of the village have committed suicide because of it. What will happen to this when I'm not around? I join two hands. You save my daughter.' In an instant, all the thinkers of the world like Albert Camus, Kafka, Satra and Bertrand Russell disappeared from Megha's mind. An innocent, beautiful, Mugdha stood in front of him with her head bowed, shrouded in shame. He extended his right hand. The girl placed her palm in that outstretched hand. That union was not of two skins, but of two hands.}
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
