Lack of sun causes despondency. Morbidity, destruction and death cloud the mind instead of good pleasant thoughts. Sukanya recalls that waiting in a doctor’s office, a write-up in a magazine disturbed her. It was a sad incident. She recalled the smiling faces of a dad and his two sons. What baffled her was what caused him to trigger a huge blast, blowing up the entire house, moments after the children were dropped at their father’s home. A custodial battle was on and he had visiting rights. We live in a violent era with growing intolerance, often born out of failures in relationships. Here’s an account, in the weekly column, exclusively in Different Truths.
Lack of sun makes you despondent. Suddenly you want to wallow in misery, myriad bad thoughts crosses your mind. I want to have happy, sunny thoughts. Thoughts of wispy clouds, pink eared bunnies and chocolaty eggs. Long limbed men with stubbles on their cheeks, a charming smile and sparkling eyes. Thoughts of good music, a nice succulent steak. Instead, all I can think of is morbidity, destruction and death. One particular incident keeps on creeping back into my mind. An incident which had nothing to do with me. Something I read in a magazine, while waiting at a doctor’s office.
It was an incident that had disturbed me profoundly. A picture of two smiling boys, and a dad.
I remember reading that the mother had gone missing, the father had some issue and the maternal grandparents had custody of the boys. This custodial business was the bone of contention and a legal battle had ensued. The dad had visiting rights, and one such morning, the caseworker dropped off the kids and while she was walking back to her car she got a terrible feeling. Maybe it was the smell that triggered the feeling. And in a few minutes there was a blast and the house was in flames. Behind the closed doors was the dad and his two little boys. Dad had used an accelerant to cause the blast, it was the smell of the fuel that had alerted the case worker, albeit too late.
Was it anger, hurt, the desire to take revenge or depression? What caused the dad to take his life and those of the boys? Is it too teach the court a lesson, did the system fail him and the boys? Is it the attitude towards the grandparents that if I cannot have the custody of my own progeny neither will you? What was it that cost those boys their lives? How can a parent hurt his own kids, are we not there to protect them? I cannot even judge the dad. I am not him, I do not know what went through his mind. I do not know how much he abhorred the society that he blamed or how depressed and anxious he was. I do not know his state of mind. All I remembered were those tiny faces and I felt very sad.
I hoped the sun would be soon out and I’d stop having morbid thoughts…
©Sukanya Juno Biswas
Pix from Net.
Sukanya Juno Biswas grew up in Kolkata, India. She did MA in English from Calcutta University. She loves books, Bob Dylan, Baez and Boxer dogs. When she gets time away from two human kids and two animals, she writes. A complete realist, off and on romantic, an atheist – in the present climate of uncertainty, would have loved a perfect world, though aware it’s not possible. She has been living in Texas for last 17 years.
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