Bliss

He used to abhor the mere sight of her. Hatred and apathy used to intensify with having her around him. He simply could not stand her. How he craved to have a person who would look after him, take care of him, pray for him, take a stand for him and above all quench his thirst for love and affection. How much he yearned for bliss. How much he desired to have his mother back...

He was told at a very early age that his mother, due to unknown reasons, had left him and his father for good. As he never got to know the real story, he developed his own version, in which he pictured his alcoholic father coming home late night with his hand around the slim waist of a flimsy dressed woman he had acquitted during his countless rounds of drinks. Amidst was his angel like mother sitting, weeping on the mat, silently praying to God for his husband’s righteousness. But than one day she could stand no more and she’d left miserably crying, with a white chaddar on her head and a torn suitcase. Though she must have had put up a great fight for the little Basit but due to her husband’s riches all had been futile. Every moment of each day she must have tried to hear about her son. She must have written countless undelivered letters explaining why she left. She must have spent an eternity on the mat praying her son’s goodwill.

This was the version that went through Basit’s mind every moment he say ‘her’. She was his stepmother whom he believed had met his father in none other but his endless night parties. Finding out the situation and riches of the man, she’d tricked him in to marriage and soon moved abroad so that Basit’s mother could never be around. And so living up with such believe Basit grew up hating his stepmother whom he suspected was only good to him for his father’s money. He was he gullible to believe that she was the one responsible for his father’s recent stroke. She must have had found a way to weaken him.

With the hatred going so strong and being desperate to find out about his mother, the eighteen year old Basit rode out of the house and decided he would only return with his mother. Knowing that his mother lived in Pakistan, Basit made the long, tiring journey from Toronto all on his own. Once reached, Basit started to made inquiries about his mother while residing at a distant relative’s home. The searching turned out to be extremely tedious and painstaking as his mother was no where to be seen. Basit feared that the pain of separation from her son might have been fatal. However Basit didn’t loose hope.

Finally one day, he found her, it might have just been the best day of his life, might have been the fruitful of all his painstaking days, might have been the most blissful but alas! The truth pouring forth was not what he had pictured all his life. Basit’s mother belonged to one of the professions that only a few spoke about in public. It was actually his mother whom his father had met during his rounds of drinks, it was she who ran after his money and it was she who left him for a richer man, even though they had a son. The realities were too painful for Basit and churned disgust for his mother who didn’t even seem to remember her own son. Basit passed out...

Disappointed, Basit returned home wondering that he would never have a motherly figure in his life, but as he walked through the doorsteps his eyes meet the worried eyes of his step mother who actually seemed to gone sick in Basit’s absence. And than realization struck him, the love and affection that he flew thousands of miles away was right in front of him, it was his stepmother who was his father’s real wife and had accepted Basit as her very own. He walked up to her, looked her in the eye and called her by the name he had never used before, ‘mother’ and hugged. With all the emotions pouring forth, Basit phased out again but this time his mind and heart were at peace. He had finally found bliss.