Colors of Darkness

Rajat was a mischievous kid and he was famous as the ** Most Notorious ** fellow in school and in locality. Reena was really feed off his puckish behavior. After every few days , he would come home with a note on his diary and teachers would have called Reena for his devilment. She was real tired of beating him with stick and he had also become resistant of that . Even stick would start crying on hitting his numb body . As Reena was his mother and mothers know all our fears so she knew that rajat was afraid of darkness. There was a room in their home , an old store room whom they had named as "Andheri Kothri" . Andheri kothri was always devoid of light, no electricity connection, no window or roshan daan and full of broken things , axes, or other gardening tools and all unusable oldies. One day Reena , out of rage , dragged Rajat into Andheri Kothri and closed the door . Initially Rajat tried to kept his cool and then he started crying .He begged pardon from Reena and promised of not doing any mistake again. Reena opened the door in few minutes as after all she was a mother.As said by Acharaya Rajneesh " Whenever a child is born, not only is the child born -- that is one part of it -- the mother is also born. Before that she was an ordinary woman; through the birth she becomes a mother.And a mother is totally different from a woman: a gap exists, her whole existence becomes qualitatively different. Before that she may have been a wife, a beloved, but suddenly that is no longer so important. A child is born, a new life has entered: she becomes a mother." 

     But the memories of andheri kothri and his promises soon faded out as rajat met his mates in school or outside home . He again and again did something or other and Reena also kept on putting him inside Andheri Kothri for few minutes to mend him. One day he hit a boy in school very badly and this time teachers insulted Reena in PTM (Parent teacher meet). Reena was very angry and so she decided to put Rajat in Andheri Kothri for some more time. Rajat initially started shouting , crying , promising . Suddenly someone knocked at the door, reena opened the door and it was their next door neighbor lady .She and Reena came to drawing room and started chatting . She also forgot that Rajat was in that dark room. After one hour or so when that neighbor went away , it was then reena realized that Rajat was in that room. She ran relentlessly and opened the door . But to surprise ,rajat was calm and was talking to someone and when he saw reena , he stopped talking. There was no fear in his eyes . Reena took it lightly. Next time when again she put him inside that room ,he didn't cried or shouted out. When she asked him whom he was talking with in the darkness , he said its his friend . Reena was afraid so she decided not to put him in the room again . 

But things started changing suddenly ,Rajat's complains started decreasing and he used to return from school in neat dress ,no cricket ,no disney hour ,no bad report cards and no more friends .One day reena went out for some work and told their maid to tell rajat to change his dress and give him lunch.  When she returned in the evening , she looked for rajat in the lawn , then his room, then called his friends but no clue. Out of the bloom after two hours of search , she just pulled the door of Andheri kotari and saw rajat was sleeping there in complete peace. She picked him and put him in the bed without much disturbance. Now She understood that rajat had learnt to have friendship with darkness . She locked the door of Andheri kothari but till today after 18 years of that last episode, whenever she has to find out Rajat , she knows that he must be in that Andheri Kothari . No one know with whom Rajat talks with , in that darkness and Reena never questioned him  for that .

“A friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself.” Jim Morrison   

Silence Prevails,

Aditya Deadpan