Mr.Great

Mr. Great

The little girl had gone out to walk with her parents.

Mr. Great thought others to be abnormal. But funnily, he actually was abnormal.

Mr. Great was walking holding her hand. She noticed that her mother was left far behind.

 Mr.Great was tall, mother was petite. His educational qualification in terms of degree and medals was higher than her mother. He was a Ph.D. He was well salaried. Yes, he was honest. Her mother was a lovely housewife, and a very good-hearted lady. She was her family’s first Post-Graduate. Yes, her results were not very extraordinary. But she was an extraordinary lady in many ways. She never hurt others intentionally. She was happy the way she was and had a large heart and open mind with a growth mindset.

The little girl said,“Oh Daddy! Why don’t we stop. See , Mummy is far behind. Let Mummy come. Why don’t we walk a bit slowly.’’

Mr.Great very unexpectedly laughed and replied with ridicule,“We are tall and we walk with tall footsteps. Your mother is `batu’(slang for short) and walks slowly. Let us walk the way we are walking.’’

Well, yes, this was such a wonderful reflection of his education!

Her mother had spoken of one of her university friends. She was short and had a defect in her foot, she walked very slowly. She was very good-hearted. Her mother had accompanied her lovingly during the golden years of friendship and walked beside Debjani matching her pace, not leaving her behind. This was her mother’s education.

The girl felt horrible- is this love? How dare her father could ridicule her mother like this? Her mother loved and cared for them so much. What kind of nonsense was this?

The girl firmly said, “No. You may walk ahead but I will wait for my mother to come. She does not deserve this kind of treatment. You may walk ahead.’’

Her mother had worked all day. All her labour was unpaid labour. Yes, her father earned money but her mother did not earn, though her jobs were so important. Without her contribution the whole family would be non-functional. Maybe, she was tired and not so energetic that day. How could her father be so inconsiderate? Her grandfather had died. After that Mr. Abnormal’s behavior with his wife became more atrocious.

When he did not have a place to stay, he stayed in his shoshurbari free of cost. Still, he had the audacity to threaten his wife, “What would you if I divorce you?’’ What a shame!!

Mr. Great had good qualities. But at times, his behaviour towards her mother was very unreasonable. The girl did not like that.

He would ridicule people who walked for exercise. He developed the bad habit of asking people to give him things – his handkerchief, water. One day he admitted in his forties, “Actually I am a lazy strange sick man.’’

Many years later, when the girl had become an adult, Mr. Abnormal developed gait disorder. He had lot of difficulty walking, and could walk with very short steps. He became very slow, much slower than his mother. But her mother was so kind towards him! With so much love, she held his hand and supported him! That was her education.

The daughter had an anger on her father which she vented sometimes, “You remember the day you ridiculed my mother when she fell behind us? Now see , God has punished you. You now walk with such short footsteps! Is my mother taunting or ridiculing you?’’

She had once asked, “Mummy, why are you so kind to him?’’

Mummy had firmly replied ,“It is not my education to ridicule or maltreat a person for his or her weakness. I be myself. If I also start doing that, than that shows I lack education. Your father has also done good things for me. I forgive him, because if I keep anger stuffed inside me, that is bad for my health. The well being of the family depends on my mental health. I want to feel good to make all of you feel good. Never mind.’’

The daughter wondered, how could she shake off such insults so easily? How Mummy could think , love so beautifully?

Her education allows her to do so.

The daughter experienced atrocious behavior from him when she became an adult.

He developed hypertension with age. His behavior became very irritating. He did not have a good emotional health, let all negative emotions get the better of him. This led to more diseases. His company started disturbing the emotional health of others, often beyond tolerable limits.

 His behavior with his sweet, innocent, well-intentioned daughter became atrocious day by day. For no significant fault of the daughter, he would hurtle the most bad abuses at her, mock her, make faces at her, frame her to be someone intentionally irritating and disturbing him, making her mother shout at her for no reason. He behaved badly with his daughter only at home, but outside he was different.

For example, when his daughter was jobless, at one point of time, he did not even recognize her on the streets, neither in the cyber café. The owner of the cyber café would find it strange. He did not pay in the cyber café for his daughter’s expenses. But one day, when his University students were there in the cyber café, he came up very gently to his daughter to create a good impression as Sir and said politely,“How much is your expense? I will pay for it.’’ The daughter understood and smiled, “Not required. I will pay.’’ He taunted, bullied and ridiculed his daughter when she was not finding a suitable job, but never helped her. He was incapable of submitting his income tax form and then started to behave very nicely to his daughter. His daughter saved him from many hassles, but he was so uncultured that one day he ridiculed his daughter, “Your income is low as one of our maid-servants and not taxable at all.’’ Ungrateful shameless indeed!

 His daughter’s career had taken a different shape. He did not understand anything, but tried to undermine , bully, ridicule, provoke. This went on for a long time.

The daughter loved peace. However she tried, she could not make Mr. Great behave properly. If she ever advised him for his good, he would accuse her, scoff at her, call her abnormal, say that he will get out of the house, and even come to hit the daughter and make her mother angry on her for no reason. Then her mother would start behaving badly with her, and he would sit and enjoy this, because he did not like peace, he liked to spark trouble. The emotional health of his daughter and wife did not matter to him, he was insensitive.

One day he shouted at her, “You are abnormal. …calling his wife……“See what she is telling to me!’’ and became furious …………………….

Now, please readers judge who is Abnormal.

Everyday his wife and daughter had certain things to do for him. They were very sincere, did everything on time, were very peaceful and non-troublesome ladies. But the man was very unreasonable. His frequency of becoming unreasonable and creating unwanted troubles and disputes in the family increased with time. His unreasonable mad behavior made them erupt and shout for no reason. For example,if he wanted something, he would demand before time, go on calling and keep on repeating until the person in question would show up. Now, calling like that makes a person panicky and the heart somehow starts to flutter. This is very bad not only for old women, but for any person. He would shout for his eye drop when his wife was handling boiling rice- the daughter would panic. Even she told one of the family physicians. When the family physician advised him, his behavior was much different than the way he would behave with his daughter, but still he would not give up.

Everyday the dinner had to be heated up at a certain time. Everyday he would panic and behave as if nobody will give him dinner.

His daughter said in a very gentle voice, “Everyday you unnecessarily worry about very petty issues. ….whether everyone would come in time…..do in time….even before time you worry…….you have hypertension……………your immunity now is low…………….you do tension by worrying about unnecessary things………..this has led to development of more health complications…………………the cost of your medicines is high. It is often said that when a person earns he/she neglects health and later much of the hard-earned money goes out for health complications and medicines. You are disturbing the whole family .

If I were in your place, I would have tried to practice anger management and meditation ………….there is something called will power……….. meditation also increases immunity.’’

But just imagine the reaction to such a helpful advice!!!

Now, one can never imagine that a person could get horribly angry on the mention of meditation. He became terribly angry. The daughter said, “You must be abnormal’’ and he shouted at her saying ,“You are abnormal.’’ Her mother came running. “This girl does not do any work but always shouts and creates trouble……..does she understand what parents are? Let your father have his dinner. You disturb the peace of the family.’’ Imagine, suggestion of meditation disturbs peace!!!

The daughter laughed and said, “Not everybody is capable of doing meditation. Now I understand why my father is incurable nonsense.’’

She felt that human beings are even horrible than dogs. Now why? Human beings are very superior, right?

Now, in the neighborhood there was a dog who often shouted – her mother would often get angry ,irritated and enraged and curse the owner for bringing such a dog. But the mouth and voice of human beings are often far more horrible! When Mr. Great slept, everything had to be quiet, everyone had to be quiet and speak in a low voice. But in case of others sleeping, he did not mind or even consider to say sorry if he called or shouted or woke someone up.

One night, he started howling at his wife. It was around 2 p.m. The daughter was in a half-sleep half-awake mode. That terrible sound of howling made her feel horrible. Her sleep ran away. She thought that he was doing something to her mother. Her mother was suffering from stress-related issues, and much stress was created by her father. She became enraged and scolded the father for being so heartless to shout so loudly in the night. She was kind of panicked and fearful and was screaming. Instead of saying sorry to her, consoling her knowing very well that stress created for her sleep related problems( she always cared for everybody and never did something which someone did not like) her mother said, “Why are you shouting?Are you crazy?” Just imagine! The mother sometimes lost her sanity when the father disturbed the family. The girl said,“ Can’t you just console me ,caress me, say sorry and hug me to sleep?” The father howled and said in a very rude and ill-mannered way, “ I won’t say sorry.” The father would not admit his fault, he did not have the education to say sorry. The daughter had often said, “ You do this with me, and get bailed. You don’t do this with other girls. Within the closed doors of a room you misbehave – you coward!”

The daughter got disturbed- the fact that she did not like his behavior and struggled with her sleep was entirely her own fault, she was a pagli. The mother kept on accusing the daughter as she struggled to calm herself down, hurtling her bad remarks which forced the daughter to lose her control and say some words to her mother. That became her fault. She thought, why would she cook in the morning? She struggled, but sleep would not come. She woke up,angry and when her mother saw her anger and discontentment, she hurtled abuses and fault accusations at her in front of the maid-servant who respected the girl. She accused the daughter to go out, she was not fit to live in society. How mean? Then when you don’t like the dog and show your discontentment? The dog has to go out. If a human being for very rational reasons shows discontentment, then that human being cannot adapt, has to go out, live in another house? Why, can’t the father say sorry and stop misbehaving? What kind of a society we live in in which most people are not at peace, have no control over themselves and by their influence, do not let others live at peace, keep control and project others in a false way?

If the daughter would have remained silent after hearing the shouting which she often did, nothing would have happened. But sometimes you can’t be silent, you feel horrible-it is your fault, not the person who made you feel horrible? In the past also, if she had expressed discontentment about her father’s misbehavior, she had been projected as the person at fault. It would remain like that. In God’ eyes, of course the truth will be the truth.

Very few parents in old age have the blessing to be taken care and looked after by a loving and sweet daughter. She felt that patents who had the blessing did not know how to value it.

He would not stop, he was senseless. This was becoming too much. But from other sides he was crippled-his mouth remained the same, but he was losing his power of locomotion, senses, intelligence……………he was getting more crippled and dependent day by day.

The daughter had patiently put up with this for around many years. For no fault if you get continuously maligned and accused, nobody would like it. She often cried for the father she knew earlier. She looked up to God as her father to seek solace. Yes, God is the true father who never ever hurts you but listens to you.

The biggest problem of most human beings is in the problems of their head. It is always important to listen to your inner voice to maintain and regain sanity from time to time- a very uphill task indeed. But try,do try, keep on trying !