Really Short Stories

The Boys

The world is a complicated place. The more we think about how it works, how it should work, the more we come to know that it is not the way we think that matters, but the way we do things. Now, ordinary people like us, we have just one goal – to survive and do our duty. We don’t have the luxury of giving up. We are the people that the world is made of, yet we are the people that serve the world.

There were a couple of young boys living by the riverside, along with their loving mother and disciplined father. Like all the youngsters, they had a flock of robust friends, ready to die for them but not willing to part with their own prized possessions.  The two brothers were named Rohan and Rakshit, always looking happy and merry. They laughed so loud that our landlord would scold them, and they were so sincere that they never received the same from their parents. Rohan was a sports-person and Rakshit a bookworm, and together, you can understand, they could smother a storm. What was their age, you ask? It doesn’t matter. But for relevance, they had just entered the tumultuous period of acnes and heart-breaks --- The Adolescence.
Now, their friends weren’t the same as them, because a group is always unified by its diversity. Vinay had a knack for being caught in troubled situations that Dushyant would be responsible for creating. But every group has a poster-boy. He does not necessarily reflect the traits of each group member or even the group as a whole, but he is someone who can give the group a front and an ideal. Sulok was their poster-boy, not because he was smart or brave or calm, but because he knew how to communicate. We are often taught that the communication skills we possess can define our career and lives, but it is so rarely acknowledged that these communication skills are a source of confidence and inspiration not just for us but for our accomplices as well. Sulok had this quality that made him the unwilling poster-boy and also the unknowing victim.
Going on with their surprisingly busy lives, these friends had a strong bond based on just one thing – trust. For instance, Vinay didn’t like being pulled into pranks on other people but Dushyant knew that he wouldn’t refuse Dushyant when in need of help. Rohan and Rakshit always had each other’s backs. And Sulok would always be relied upon to handle a tricky situation while sometimes being the major culprit. But they all had diverse behavior; and one day when their unity was being checked, the diversity of their thoughts put up a great question mark on their trusted friendship.

The world is filled with co-incidences. It has formed due to an infinite number of coinciding events, all conjuring up one single moment to remember. These co-incidences happen in our daily lives so frequently and they determine the path that shapes our destiny. One small turn, and a new destiny awaits. The same happened with these boys. Sulok and Dushyant found themselves in a spot of bother due to some hurting comments on a person with a different religious belief than theirs. Now, I don’t know the truth, because truth is but just a point-of-view. But from what was understood by me amidst the entire ruckus, I know present to you.

Dushyant was in the middle of another one of his prank, this time on a girl, who was the one from a different religion. But the girl did not find the joke amusing at all. Vinay, as meekly as he could, stood up for the girl because he was fed up of the amateurish behavior of his delinquent friend. Trying to extend the joke further, Dushyant made some unwise comments about the girl and Vinay and invited upon him the wrath of the girl’s father. In the hope that the situation could be handled, Sulok tried his smart ways with the words, but in vain. After a healthy beating and a threat real enough to make them shudder, they decided to take the man on and wound him in order to escape from the situation. This was helped by the two brothers, sincerely trying to help and succeeding vaguely. The five friends escaped the situation physically, but in their minds a new and far more defining situation arose – what do they believe in?

The brothers thought that Dushyant might have gone overboard with his antics but Vinay should not have gone against him. Vinay believed that what he did was right in every sense and he was the righteous man. Sulok thought that the situation was exaggerated by the girl’s father and that it should not have come to a physical assault. But in their discussion, they forgot the important difference, that this country does not let the reasonable handle with reason.