A child's story

Raj didn’t have the courage to do it. Kim would be waiting at his brother’s house, clueless about why his aunt was there to pick him up after school that day. Raj could only hope that Kim was thinking more about being separated from the toy car that the kindergarten school had bought recently. Raj wondered if the toy car was the only thing that Kim liked about his kindergarten school. He remembered the kind of trouble that he and Helen had to go through when they dropped Kim at the school on his first day. He never knew a little child was capable of creating so much noise. It seemed insane to him that a child’s idea of spending five hours away from his parents was so horrendous. He remembered how he had jokingly said to Helen when they were back in the car that Kim was probably a retard. Even though he pretended to be joking, a small part of his heart did really believe that Kim was a retard. He had never seen a child cry as crazily as that before. Now that he thought of it, Raj felt like he had made the joke hoping that Helen’s shocking expression would convince him how wrong his heart was. But Helen had no reaction to the joke. She was depressed. Raj remembered thinking in his head that Helen too had no idea about how long five hours really was. He had suppressed the urge to say that both mother and son were retards and laugh about it. But he had kept the joke to himself and laughed only inside his head. It was not the time to make a joke in front of Helen. She really was depressed.

Every single day since then had turned out to be the same. Helen’s morning was spent getting a wet-eyed kid ready for school. Raj knew that Kim was more attached to Helen. He could hear Kim speaking softly to her in the kitchen, crying and asking her not to drop him off at school. Raj knew that Kim would never show the same kind of weakness in front of him. And he liked it that way. Through his experiences in life, Raj had supposedly figured out the secret behind successful parenting. He had learnt to adapt the ‘good cop, bad cop’ technique to the ‘good parent, bad parent’ approach towards parenting. He had even told Helen about it. It made perfect sense to him. The child always has one parent to go to for all kinds of things to share and to ask for good advice as a friend, whereas a bad parent would come in handy to help bring the child back on track if he or she deviates. Helen, eight months pregnant with Kim then, had nodded her head and promised Raj that he would be in deep trouble if he ‘ever laid one finger on her precious little jewel’. Raj had escaped by pretending to be joking, like he so often used to. But inside, he had decided to be the strict parent, with or without Helen’s consent.

And there sat Kim on his baby chair around the table every morning. With tears in eyes, trying his best to hide his sorrow about going to school from his father, Kim was a disaster. His dark oily skin and neatly set hair always played along with the look of being sad. The big black eyes just made it more difficult to hide the sorrow. Every now and then, a tear would try to race down his swollen cheeks. Before it could reach his chin, it always got cut off by his hand, too short for the sweater sleeve covering it. Helen had gotten used to her child throwing the same tantrum every morning. Raj, on the other hand, found this entire episode quite amusing. So much that he would actually look forward to Kim’s new ways of hiding his tears every day.

About a month had passed since Kim started attending kindergarten when the school had fortunately decided to buy a new toy car. For Kim, it became his best friend. The first thing, and the only thing, that he spent time with at kindergarten, was the toy car. It was a red coloured small version of a convertible with place for kids to sit in and pedal around. Kim absolutely enjoyed sitting in it. He rarely pedaled though. For him, it was just about sitting in the car and holding the wheel. When some other child borrowed the car, Kim would never take his eyes off it. The staff was more than happy to let Kim spend most of his time with the car, because it was nearly impossible to calm him down once he started crying. Kim was never scared to cry in front of the kindergarten staff. For him, they were nature’s chosen victims to face the wrath of his suppressed frustration at home every morning. The toy car was their method of keeping the little animal engaged. And it came as a boon to Helen too. The tears were no longer there, and a happy little Kim went to school every day. Helen was always full of joy to see her child come out of the school smiling, racing towards her every afternoon and hugging her tightly. She was glad that the car had only replaced her child’s depression, but not his affection towards her. They took the bus back every day. Raj was disappointed because he had nothing amusing to look at every morning. Even though he wanted to, he never found the time to accompany Helen and Kim back from school every afternoon because his office was quite far. Kim was sometimes asleep by the time Raj got back home from work, and it sometimes made Raj feel bad. But he never thought too much about it.

Lost in these memories, Raj was interrupted by the doctor. She told him that Helen’s lower spine was badly hurt and they had to run a few more tests before they decided to operate. They had given her an anesthetic. Raj just stood there, still struggling to bring himself to the present from the past. After figuring out what the doctor had just said, he just nodded and sat back on his chair. Raj’s brother was on his way to the hospital, accompanied with all their family and friends who wanted to know what had happened.

Raj had always relied on his brother during times when he needed emotional support. When he had received the call from the hospital about Helen being hit by a car on her way to the bus station, the first person he called was his brother. Always a thoughtful and considerate person, Raj’s brother arranged for everything to get done, including having his wife pick up Kim from school. Sitting in the hospital, Raj knew that he needed some support from his family and couldn’t wait for them to arrive. But he dreaded seeing Kim. Raj had always been very objective about life and death. He sometimes used to contemplate losing a loved one, and he was pretty sure that he was strong enough to face it because his rationality would come to his rescue. Now that he was actually in the situation, he could have easily walked to the doctor and ask her the single most important question – would she live? But the more he thought about doing it, the weaker he felt because a horrible realization had just dawned on him. He was thinking about Kim. Helen was the only reason why Kim saw sense in opening his eyes every morning. She was his world. And he knew that no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to be what Helen was to Kim, even though he loved him just as much. Raj felt weak and powerless, and then he felt fear after so many years – fear for his son’s belief in happiness and hope. Raj found himself wishing that he could go back in time, and develop a stronger bond with Kim. He didn’t want Kim to be lost because of losing a mother, because he still had a father who loved him just as much. Kim perhaps didn’t even know the meaning of death, but he would never be the same ever if he didn’t see his mother every day. It was getting too much for Raj to handle. He was silently praying to God to take care of his child, when he saw his brother along with the rest of the family.

Kim sat on the chair his aunt pointed out for him, still dressed in his school uniform with the long-sleeved sweater. He had been to a hospital before and he remembered his mother had told him to maintain absolute silence at hospitals. He looked around and saw his father, surrounded with family. He looked different to him than usual. Somehow he felt like his father didn’t know that he was sitting there, because not once did he look at him. Kim was hoping to see his mother at the hospital. He wanted to ask his aunt where his mother was, but he remembered his aunt asking him to be seated in the chair no matter what. Raj had been gathering courage all this time and finally decided to talk to Kim. It was going to be his one shot to make Kim believe in him as one loving parent. This was the cliff. Beyond this point, they were both going to fall into depression, and he didn’t want Kim to feel lonely. He wanted to let his son know that his father was still there to love him as much as his mother did, before he told him about his mother’s accident. He walked up to Kim and sat on the chair beside him. He looked at Kim and even though he had looked into those eyes so many times, only now did he realize that Kim had Helen’s eyes. And that made him think about Helen, not just as Kim’s mother, but as his own soul-mate. And that’s when he realized how much he was missing Helen. If the worst happened, he didn’t know what life was without Helen, the person who had loved him since high school. She had supported him for his entire life, and Raj owed a lot of his happiness to her. Raj tried his best not to fall prey to memories again. His son was looking at him, expecting an answer. He couldn’t fail him. He couldn’t act weak right now. He finally told Kim that his mother was hurt and that she would be taking rest for a few weeks before Kim could see her again. That was the best Raj could come up with because he was fighting hard to hold back his tears now. Kim didn’t seem to understand and just continued staring at his father. Raj was losing control over his emotions. He looked at Kim again, and that did it. Tears collected in Raj’s eyes, just like they used to in Kim’s eyes every morning. They raced down as soon as Raj closed his eyes. But they didn’t make it to the end, for they were all cut off by a sweater sleeve, which was getting pretty good at wiping tears. Kim wiped his father’s tears, without caring that this was the first time he was seeing his father cry. Raj realized that it wasn’t just the eyes that Kim had inherited from Helen.

Of all the things that Kim could ask his father about, he asked him if he had seen the toy car in his school. Raj hadn’t actually seen the car, but just heard of it from Helen. He asked Kim to tell him about it. And for the first time in his life, he saw Kim’s eyes sparkle with excitement as he was about to describe to his father the greatest thing he knew of in this world. Listening to Kim, Raj realized that it wasn’t Kim who needed to be protected. Kim would probably be the one to protect both of them from losing hope in life. The little red toy car, a simple thing made by someone looking to make money, had become the most important thing in Kim’s life. Raj was happy to know that Kim knew and cared about the fact that his father loved him too. He wondered if children were closer to living life the way it should be lived than all adults. All his life, Raj was taught how not to be himself. And now looking at his own child, he began to wonder if he had wasted time learning things in life which wouldn’t even come to his rescue when they should. His child, who was in kindergarten, knew better about dealing with it. If he was discussing this with Helen, he would probably make another joke and say that it was perhaps not that bad to be a retard. After all, when has intelligence ever stopped men from doing stupid things.

Over the years, the bond between Raj and Kim grew stronger. They both now shared Raj’s secret. They knew how he had lost to life’s game and given up when Kim had dragged him back into the field, using his sweater sleeve. Sitting at the breakfast table, two years after the incident, Raj makes it a point to kiss Helen and Kim before leaving every day. He wants Helen to think that he does that to express his love. But Kim secretly knows that he does it, because he needs it.

Love and the Gorilla

I couldn’t stand it anymore. The emptiness of my existence was becoming clearer to me every day. Yes I was earning a decent living with my old job but I wanted more, especially in the so called ‘job satisfaction’ department. To make things clear right away, let me introduce myself. It doesn’t matter what my real name is. I am mostly referred to as the ‘cartoon’ by kids at the mall, where I dress as a “cartoon” by wearing a fluffy suit and jumping around entertaining people. One of the reasons why my life had become pathetic was because I had a professional identity crisis. They could have made the suit of any well-known cartoon and given it to me. At least kids would then refer to me by that cartoon name. But the mall management didn’t want to take any risks with the trademark issues and so, I was not made to look like any normal cartoon. I was just “the cartoon”. I would sometimes stand in front of the mirror for half an hour trying to figure out what exactly I was, and my closest guess was that I looked somewhat like a gorilla – a pink one!

Initially, around ten years ago, I found it to be an interesting job. I got to study people and their behaviours around a pink cartoon gorilla, tall and hefty and fluffy. There were two feelings that people got when they saw a giant cartoon like me – fear OR cheer. And then it all got saturated, in the sense that there was nothing much to it. That’s all the insight that I got in my ten years of career as a giant gorilla. There was no talent training and career growth and human resources and other similar myths that people count on. There was nothing - just plain old work and money. No drama, no action, nothing. I didn’t even have a life. I thought I did. But then I went through a divorce. She thought that I lacked the patience to hear her out and that I was no longer the sweet gorilla that she had fallen in love with at the mall. We had a painful time fighting and finally, when I made a comment which ironically compared her and her family to gorillas, she left. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Ever since the divorce, she made it a point to come to the mall once every weekend with her friends to have a good time right in front of me. I also found from a mutual friend that she was seen with a man on a date. She dismissed it saying that he was just an “old friend” of hers.

I went through trauma after the divorce. I thought of the life of a joker, who would have to keep smiling to perform even after going through a tragedy. I didn’t have to be that way though. I could simply cry inside the suit, and the gorilla would still smile and spread cheer and, in some cases, fear. I cried and cried inside my cave and it seemed to be like an eternity there. I slowly grew into the suit, never wanting to come out of it, never wanting to see the real world, never wanting the world to see me. My mother would visit me sometimes and I would be sleeping, inside the suit. Only she, who had seen me in my purest form since I was born, had the right to see me without the suit again. This continued, for a very long time. I had lost purpose, and my job wasn’t helping. The emptiness of existence took over me and I didn’t find a single argument from my mind strong enough as a reason to live anymore. And then I decided to let go. I hoped that the next life that I would get, if any, be a better one. If not better, I wished to at least be reincarnated as a real giant gorilla of the jungles which enters a city, tearing everything apart in its way – houses, gardens, roads, “old friends”…….

And then, “the incident” happened.

Being the self-centered person that I am, I wanted a lot of attention to be paid to my suicide. “The end of the age of the pink gorilla”, I imagined the next day’s headlines to read. I would attract the most attention by doing it right in front of everyone, especially in front of my ex. I decided to find the most appropriate route to put my master plan of my demise into action. I needed a solution in which I could make a final statement to my ex and then announce my death before killing myself. I thus needed a way where nobody could stop me if they suspected something. And then it struck me. I came up with the most dramatic demise. I would go to the top floor of the mall, which is mostly abandoned. The mall has a hollow rectangular shape. The shops on three floors are aligned with the four edge walls, with corridors running along the perimeter, while the central part of the mall is open to direct sunlight, with a glass roof on the very top of the building. So I decided that I should stand on the railings of one of the four corridors of the top floor and right when my ex enters the mall, I would make my statements while she is looking up at me and then I would jump off, to fall right in front of her, dead. I precisely estimated that the mall wasn’t very tall for my sound to not reach her on the ground floor. But it was tall enough to kill a person.

And finally the weekend arrived. I met all my loved ones and without their knowledge, hid some letters in their houses, which they would find later. It would hurt them terribly, but indifference toward them would be even more painful for them. All the calculations were made. I went to the mall. I looked at my suit - my shelter, my life. I had grown so attached to it that the fear of death did nothing to scare me but a separation from my suit gave me a chill. The suit defined me. It had seen the real me, my suffering, my happiness, my life. And I decided to put it on. The dramatic person that I have always been, I walked to the mirror, touched the suit with my hand, which was also inside the suit and I said, “It’s been an honour”. Little did I know that a janitor had seen this and would later report it to the police.

I pushed myself upstairs and waited there. And she finally turned up. The moment I saw her I sprang into action. I climbed on the railing. A huge pink coloured gorilla standing on the railing so dangerously was not easy to miss. People suddenly began to turn their heads upwards and the gasps started echoing, until finally it reached her, and she looked up. Half of my efforts paid off when I saw her expression. Everything was mixed – fear, care, love, awe and to my satisfaction, a little bit of guilt. And I looked back at her. It was as if the suit didn’t even exist. We shared our last moment on this good Earth, with a look at each other. That look said much more than what we had said to each other in our years together. A tear trickled down my eye. It was time. I shouted, “FOR YOU, MY LOVE”, and I knew everyone had heard it. It was terrible that the suit maintained its smiling face through this emotional exchange.

And then I let go, and jumped off. Gravity was stronger than what I thought it was. I closed my eyes to see the white light, lying there in my suit, waiting for the agony to start. I hit the floor, before I expected. I braced myself for the pain of death. But it didn’t come, yet. The suit compressed, and the next moment, I was launched back like a kid on a bungee! I opened my eyes again to see what happened, and to my shock, I saw that I was moving up. I came till the second floor and was clearly able to see the people looking at me, more shocked than ever. And I fell down back again. And was launched up again, this time to a lower height! The disbelief and gravity were working their way into my head, and finally I passed out.
I woke up in a hospital, not a single scratch on my body. The fluffy gorilla suit had been too fluffy and had acted like it was supposed to, bouncing me back into the air every time I hit the ground. They told me I bounced twelve times until I finally came to a halt, and that I covered the entire floor area of the mall. My ex was in the same hospital, for she was going through trauma. I couldn’t believe it initially. But I accepted it. The cartoon had saved me, by taking me on a bumpy ride.

Life changed after that, forever. Nothing looked same anymore. I was put under home arrest for two weeks, with a psychologist visiting me every day. The letters that I had written to my loved ones, in the hope that they would provide solace to their grief after I was gone, were recovered soon and it was decided that I had a mental problem and it wasn’t safe for my own sake to be kept anywhere alone. It was decided to move me to a mental asylum. The newspapers were crazily behind the story. They wouldn’t have cared so much had I passed on. I was the infamous star of the new era. They referred to me as “the crazy gorilla-man who was planning on bouncing to death”. The janitor found his way to the police and reported what the newspapers published as “gorilla man was seen talking to himself in the men’s room before ‘the incident’ and mumbling non-sense.”

Frankly speaking, I really didn’t care about all of that, for I had found something greater in life. In the face of death, I had seen that the emptiness of my existence was simply my failure to see the bright side of my life. When I bounced back up for the first time till the second floor, I saw in people’s eyes two things at the same time – fear AND cheer. And I realised my failure right there and then. I had failed to appreciate the depth of these two simple feelings. At that moment, I wished for nothing more than to be able to see the people entering the mall again, through my suit. Indifferent when they enter, I gave them either cheer or fear. And, in the face of death, I realised that I was not an unaccomplished person. I invoked feelings in people and that, by definition, made me an artist – comparable to any other artist who ever walked on this planet. And I realised that right there, at that moment, when I bounced back in the air, was the performance of a lifetime. I wanted nothing more than to just go back to my life, my job, and explore more of these feelings. I am a real artist, Mr. Joy. And now, I have got another chance to live a fulfilling life. But I am unable to begin it without making amends. I, through my acts, have brought a lot of sadness to my ex and you. I would want to ask for nothing more than forgiveness. But I have something more to ask for. I want you to cherish the time that you spend with her. You will find nothing more pleasing in this world than to see her happy. Take it from me.

Also, Mr. Joy, don’t think of her referring to you as her “old friend” a fallacy on your part. It was rather her method of preventing me from doing something stupid because of our divorce. I think we will both agree, along with the entire nation, that the method didn’t work.

Yours most affectionately,
Crazy gorilla-man