Players

One of my once-upon-a-time close friends used to call us ‘players’ many a times he spoke to us within our group.

Once I asked him ‘why calling your friends players?’

‘Life is a big game and we all are playing that game every moment we live. So, aren’t we players?’ I got his philosophical reply instantly.

A number of years passed after that and I still remember my lost friend quite often when I see people around me are playing the game of life in so many ways, in so different styles, with a widely varied range of intentions.  And I am equally an integral part of them.

We are all players in the enormous playground on the earth. We play the game of life over here till our games end in death.

This story belongs to a handful of people; they played the game of life fair, unfair and ugly and gradually vanished into the oblivion to be replaced by a set of new players. Life is, after all an unstoppable game.

Rachna came to Delhi when she was twelve. She lost her mother when she was born. Since then, she was being looked after by her grandparents in Nepal while her father Narayan had been running his food business in Delhi.

Narayan brought her only daughter to Delhi with a dream to make her a medico. He did not re-marry after the premature death of his wife. He was living in his dreams of making a big life for his daughter.

Rachna was a good student in her school in Nepal. Her marks were never below ninety per cent in the exams. Narayan’s encouragement was escalating at Rachna’s growing success in the school. He strongly felt Rachna should be given better academic opportunities which are not possible in Nepal.

When he disclosed his desire to bring Rachna to Delhi with him, his parents raised steep resistanceto let their only granddaughter leave them forever for Delhi. Rachna was also not interested to move to Delhi with her father.But Narayan was an obstinate and hot-tempered man.

Once he returned his home at Nepal after being completely drunk, had a big fight with his parents and hit his father out of severe rage under the influence of alcohol. The local residents couldn’t digest Narayan’s barbaric behaviour to his parents, bashed him up black and blue and threw him out of the locality.

After few weeks, Narayan’s younger brother took Rachna to him in Delhi with a small note of message from his father.His father has removed him from property rights and returned his daughter.

Narayan was happy that Rachna is back to him and he will be able now to take good care of her education and career in Delhi where facilities are limitless. He bothered a damn about his ancestral properties in Nepal. By that time, he had quite a handsome savings in Delhi that can fulfil his dreams to give a good start to his daughter’s studies.

Narayan came to Delhi when he was in his early twenties. He brought only one skill with him, cooking. Delhi never returns a good cook. Narayan easily found a job for himself in a road side dhaba. He knew culinary business well, so he got into his own food business after some years. And he flourished it with his hard work and strategic business approach.

He put Rachna into a renowned school of South Delhi with a thick donation. But he forgot one thing completely. A father’s responsibility doesn’t end after getting her into a good school. She should be properly taken care of at home. Narayan was busy with his business from morning till night. He couldn’t find time for his daughter. He was not aware of her whereabouts daylong.

 

 

 

I am not writing a moral story where at the end I will ask you what you have learnt from the story. I am just sharing accounts of some players who played the game of their lives in their own, preferred ways. And they made a mark for themselves like any of us.

Six years later, in one of the chilliest mornings of Delhi, Rachna was breathlessly waiting for Vikas in their usual meeting place inside Deer Park. She was pregnant. She did the test on her last night after missing her period. The test comes to be positive.

She was scared, terribly scared. She was dying to see Vikas. But where is Vikas? She called him up last night to tell him about her pregnancy and tell him to meet her in Deer Park. Vikas agreed and she has been waiting for him for long.

Rachna already sent him four SMS as his mobile was not responding. He must be on his bike, not able to pick up the phone. But Rachna was losing her patience as time passing on. What’s going to happen now? If father comes to know….’Oh My God, I can’t think about anything’

She repeatedly told Vikas to use a condom while they were making love last time. She had a suspicion that she might be in the unsafe phase of her cycle. But Vikas didn’t pay a heed. ‘Come on babe, nothing will happen. If you get pregnant I will get you abort safely. It’s nothing. I know some good docs who will do it for me without letting anyone to know about your abortion. Just forget about condom. Let’s enjoy babe’

So, they enjoyed. Vikas is an expert in bed. Rachna gave him her full cooperation. She never got a hint that this might affect her in this way.

They had been seeing each other for last six months. She met Vikas in Jayant’s birthday party. She was Jayant’s girl-friend that time. But she fell for this rich, handsome and dashing young man at the very first sight. And that was the beginning of her dream journey and finally, one day, in an outing in Jaipur, she lost her virginity to Vikas.

Rachna had a pocketful of boyfriends in the last two years, but she always drew the limit to the physical intimacy with each one of them. The relationship never grew beyond smooching and fondling of the private parts. But Vikas was irresistible. Rachna couldn’t help bumping into his fatal attraction.   Vikas demolished her last resistance to protect her virginity so ease and with his rich sexual experiences, made her enjoy the whole episode thoroughly. Since then, Rachna made a habit to have sex with her boy-friend on regular intervals.

So getting pregnant was the natural consequence.

She had a gut feeling for last couple of weeks Vikas has been slowly withdrawing himself from her. She was constantly fed with a number of philandering stories about Vikas, especially by her female friends during the peak phase of their affair, but Rachna had ignored them completely. She had a feeling they are just an outcome of jealousy as she hooked someone very special like Vikas.

Today in the chilly winter morning, when she has been waiting for Vikas for last two hours, he is neither responding to her SMS or call, her suspicion on Vikas’s infidelity was becoming stronger.

What she will do if he does not come?

Who will help her in these crisis hours? She has lost track of all her friends who could have stood beside her today at these emergency hours.

Rachna realized she has committed a serious mistake. She ignored his father’s advice and shattered his dream. Her father had a big fight with her grandparents to bring her to Delhi and he gave a huge price for that. He had lost all his connection with his parents and relatives in Nepal, in return. But he had never lost his heart because he knew his daughter will save his face by becoming a successful medico.

And this is what she has been giving to her father in exchange? An unwed pregnancy through an irresponsible and infidel lover?

Rachna suddenly found herself crying like hell. Her heart was filled with a strong compassion for her father. The silver lining of confidence emerged in one corner of her mind that her father will definitely rescue her from this crisis, forgive all her misdeeds and she will be able to start a new life to fulfil her father’s dream afterthat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘You don’t have any remorse for what you did?’ asked the officer.

‘No, not at all’ the man didn’t fumble for a second. ‘I am not unhappy for my act’ his answer was straight forward and sharp.

‘You are a killer. Don’t you know what it means?’ the officer said angrily.

‘You will hang me till death. I am ready for that.’ The man’s voice did not distort at all.

‘You killed your own and only daughter, damn it. She was just eighteen. How can you be such a ruthless father?’

The man’s eyes blazed for few seconds and became cool once again. ‘I killed her because she killed my dreams’

‘You have no right to kill anyone’ the officer felt like slapping this arrogant man.

‘I have every right to kill my daughter. It is me who brought her in this earth. It is me who looked after her since her birth, so I have the right as well to eliminate her from the earth’

‘You are worse than an animal. You should be shot dead like a dog’ yelled the officer.

‘Cool down, man’ the second investigating officer consoled the first one. ‘We have to write the report and produce this man to the court. We should not expose our emotions like this’.

‘You continue with this investigation, let me go. I can’t stand this bloody man for a second.’ left the first officer.

‘So, what exactly happened that you killed your daughter so brutally?’ asked the second officer.

The man kept quiet for some time and asked the officer back, ‘Do you have a daughter?’

‘Yes, I have two daughters. Why?’

‘Do you want them to do really good in life?’

‘Of course, every father wants that’ replied the officer

‘I did want that too, but you know what my daughter did to me?’

‘What’

‘She became a w***e and came to me crying that she is carrying a baby in her womb and wants to abort it’

‘And you killed her when your only daughter came to you to seek your help?’

‘No, I told her to get lost and stay away from my life’

‘What did she reply?’

‘She told me’ the man paused for a while and said, ‘she wants to live a new life and fulfil my dream to become a doctor. She begged to me to give her a second chance’

‘And you…..’

‘She could never be pardoned for what she had done. I can’t stain the name of my family by giving her a second chance to live her life. I took out the cricket bat and hit on her head, not once or twice, many times, till she breathed her last’ the man said slowly throughout an overall coolness that astonished the investigating officer completely.

‘You will only understand my feeling, Sir’ the man said again, ‘if your daughter betrays you and shatters your dreams you dreamt for her’

The investigation didn’t move further after that.

The man was given death sentence to brutally kill his pregnant teenaged daughter.

 

 

 

The players had played their games.

 

 

Reviews

[Allie]

This is definitely a piece that will make me think about my own life and the decisions that I have made.

[Manpreet]

A nice write with a different perspective of live. Altogether a great write!

[Raven Starhawk]

Players who play sooner or later get played. I know I have had my experience with a "player" although he was not much of man if you ask me because he liked to basically have relations with girls under age. Anyways...there is room in this world for all kinds. I don't like playing games though because people are...a creature that learns from experiences and heartache. I don't want to be the person who breaks someone's heart and all that.