Memory I

A Chapter by Chinmay

A certain memory never forgotten. What would it be to be in his shoes ?

I finished my first year of engineering at an Engineering College Of Pune. Our college gave us 2 month holidays, as opposed to 1 month which the university college gives; my college is autonomous. Anyways, I always tend to forget why I hate to return home. But I remember when I reach home. The reason is simple:
Poverty.

I entered home and felt the stale air. After cleaning myself up, we got to the usual chat and watched some T.V. and then slept. At home I slept on a mattress made of cotton while in my hostel I had been provided with a foam mattress. I never think that I feel uncomfortable at home, its just that I had a saperate budget when I was staying in hostel.
While sleeping, I remembered that my mattress had bedbugs. But again, who cares. I slept as uusually I sleep, not caring about the bedbugs. I had grown kind of accustomed to it. I woke up and I remember the day when mom needed money for something. I don't remember exactly what for, but she went to the living room and asked him for some. Me and my brother were in the bedroom and our house wasn't that big so usually you could hear if someone said anything if they didn't whisper. Dad said that he didn't had any, he had given her all he had. She asked for again, I don't know the reason why, but I don't think it was ill. I think he got a little frustrated. I remember exactly what my dad said:
"You make a man feel humiliated".

The memory ends here, but i feel that man was always measured by the coins he held. What I also know that there exists some diseases not to the body, but to our souls. One of them is poverty. It scars your mind every moment you are reminded of your so-called "position" by fate. The feeling of sacrificing a trivial thing which you cannot buy, it be clothes, food or a movie ticket. A thing which saperates you from your confident self. I know that with determination, you can cure yourself. But a wound is , after all, a wound.
It hurts to see my parents and my brother suffer, and I think of the day when we will remember these days once in a while, talking about the "old days".