AWARNESS

AWARNESS
by A.Priyangah

            It happened again. He was caught. This time by his father, the more he tried to hide it the more the emotions came flooding over. He felt embrassed. In one swift motion, he stood up. Walked to the door and closed it in a bang. The more he thought of it, the more depressed he felt. But something more swallowed all his feelings. He fell down on his bed and went into deep slumber.

            Rahul’s father was standing in the doorway apparently shocked. He returned and sat on the sole. His wife hurried to his side.

“You know it rite” was all he could ask. His wife nodded admist deep sobs.

            He had felt he knew more about his son than anyone else but what he saw shoked him. But he knew he must do something.

            Rahul had been an only child and lone Grandchild. So he was given more than enough attention and pampering than he had always needed.

            True to theory, he grew up to be a rude and disobeying boy.

            But he feared his father. It was his father who had kept him under contro. This was why he never liked to share anything with his father.

            It was his mother that he told, shared and asked anything for, be it marks, friends, money etc., But being the mother of an single child was yet another difficulty.

            His mother didn’t know whether to encourage her son’s actions or to control them. But she let him do things his way since she loved him a lot.

            Rahul was the most sought after builly of his gang.

            He has at first refused to many things his friends had asked him to do, but he had also wanted to be their gang leader.

            So and so he learned a lot from them. May be even things he shouldn’t he started smoking with them.

            At first it was only to gain their attention, but then it became uncontrollable.

            Soon he started taking alcohol. He had felt worst and fearful in the beginning. But to his surprise his friends encouraged him.

            It had then become an habit.

            However it was only an month ago, he saw a friend of his using injections on himself.

            It didn’t make any sense to him at first. But slowly he came to know that they were drugs. Nothing could stop him now.

            One small try wouldnot make a big deal he thought. But that was all was needed.

            It felt wonderful for him.

            He got addicted.

            Rahul was once caught by his mother, for consuming alcohol, but he had silenced her by telling that he did all that only for his friends and that he would stop it in a few days.

            At that time, his mother has believed him too. She thought he would stop.

            But she was wrong.

            The next day when rahul woke up. He saw someone sitting at his bedside. He sat up started . it was his father.

            It was only then he remembered the incidents of the previous night. He feared. He knew his father was a hard man. But the expression on his father’s face took him by surprise.

            His father looked as though he had cried all night.

His father started speaking after a brief moment’s silence, “will you please listen to what I’m saying?”

Rahul nodded.

His father continued. “I would like to tell you a story from my childhood. When I was a little boy, I used to see my father drinking coffee everyday. He enjoyed drinking it. The very smile in his face reflected that.

It was then that this seed of desire was soon in my mind. I too wanted it.

But as a child, my desire was refused.

I became adamant. I gathered strength until I threw up a tantarum.

The coffee was given to me.

Eventhough it tasted a little bitter and different, it was peppered and flavoured by my feelings, by how much I had to struggle to attain it.

So I loved it a lot.

It was where it started. I drank it in the morning everyday, because I had a deep belief that it fueled my day.

Not one day was complete without having in the morning.

But after consuming it for nearly 20 years, I started having problems.

There was acidity, excess of bile and a lasting headache, but I couldnot stop it. I had become addicted.                            

It was one fine day, that I was drinking it like every other day, you who were a little child crawled towards and asked for it. It was exactly the same, u started crying when it was refused.

Only then I became aware of how a simple up of coffee had chained me to it invisibly for that half an hour experience every morning and evening.

And I realized that you would also become bound to it, just like I was.

“I stopped drinking it then, for your sake.”

His father continued, ‘I know you too are addicted to drugs. Let me tell you something as a personal experience. There are three steps to come out of addiction. The first step is awareness. The second step is awareness. The third step is awareness.

Awareness liberated us from these enslaving habits’.

‘Once you become aware of how it influences you, I’m sure you’ll come out of it’.

‘And last of all, please don’t demolish the high hopes we have on you.’

So, saying Rahul’s father patted him on the shoulder and left the room.

That evening when he entered the house, he enquired his wife about Rahul.

She told him that he had been confined in his room all day.

He slowly opened his son’s room, he saw Rahul busy cleaning his room and arranging his stuff in place.

He smiled to himself.

He knew he was also cleaning his soul……