Far from Fear – Close to Dear


The sky was slowly turning into crimson red and the intensity of light was decreasing over time. A wonderful scent of lavender was spreading all around and the sound of birds was getting slower. I was playing on the terrace with my brother and cousins. Suddenly, a lovely voice came calling my name but I was ignoring that voice and focusing on my game. We were escaped only because that voice was of our mother and she was calling us to eat. As the sun was setting, it was getting dark, I and my brother ran to the voice that was calling us a while ago. While we were walking down the stairs, we were in a hurry not because of our fear of darkness but the reason was our empty belly.

As we know very well from where we would get food. Within a minute, we were standing in front of our mother and she was waiting for us with her tweezers as we had been ignoring her for the last thirty minutes. We understood that now we messed up. We were constantly looking at our mother’s hand which was holding the tongs. To scare us, she moved her hand with her tweezers in the air and looking at it, we closed our eyes and started thinking that, now that thing will be put on our body but it had not happened. But she ordered us angrily to wash our face and hands properly. We just whispered to each other and we were going to do whatever mother ordered us to do. When all this was happening, I saw my sisters doing some household chores, she was laughing at us with a skewed look. To be fair, at that time I was burning in anger like a fire but……...

We washed our hands well and came back to our mother. We were frightened and wished that the mother would not hit us with her tongs. Meanwhile, Mumma told us to have food. Without any further bullying, we agreed to eat the food and drank milk also.

Finally, we finished our meal and Mumma smiled at us and went back to the kitchen with her tongs.

This was about 15 years ago, the time has passed like sand from hand, we tried to catch it but we can’t. Now, I realized that sometimes fear is very important to take care of your love.


-Deepak