The Kashyup Redemption

xxi. Prophecy

Life in the Saxena household began in a rather reluctant manner.

Unlike Parth, no one was particularly a morning person.

Parth had the habit of waking up at six in the morning to make himself some tea. The isolation of the large kitchen, pristine and modern, with all the appliances that any person who loved cooking would ever dream of, roused mixed feelings in him. He wanted to use them all and see what he could create. He wanted to run away from them because he was afraid if he touched them he would somehow spoil them.

Sitting in the dead silence of the kitchen, with its slightly dim lights gave him a much needed time for reflecting what had happened over the past 24 hours.

He'd run. He'd found a family. He'd found a loyal friend in Sahil despite the way he'd underestimated the man in the past. He'd found a future.

But he isn't alone and his family is eager to support him in the transition his life has taken.

He is glad he doesn't have to pretend with Namit, who offers him some solace from his thoughts by challenging him to a basketball match or teaching him about the latest PS4 games that Parth really has no interest in. Parth delights in kicking Namit's ass in most of their basketball games and the friendly competition about who is better at Destiny.

He is glad for his father's insistence on getting him acquainted with the basics of the company and an online university hunt for a good MBA college, the interest and time his father gives him.

He is glad that his Badi Ma is as interested in cooking as he is, that she has offered to teach him how to cook desserts, his weak point. That she is interested in his tales from the Underground fighting and Tai Chi lessons.

He is glad that Isha likes books as much as he does, that she adores thrift stores and the notes left in books by previous owners. He likes the fact that they can just sit in a room without speaking, reading their own books. He likes her enthusiasm for TV shows and the fact that she pulled him into the gripping world of GRR Martin. He likes that they can watch the crazy, brilliant violence on screen and place bets on future events.

But there were things he has left behind, things he'd sacrificed. His mother's wishes- him never having anything to do with his father. Thoughts of her, how she would react, what she would do entered his head like uninvited ghosts. Haunting him until he was forced to admit that which he'd been denying for a better part of five years, ever since he had started taking psychology seriously.

Denial is affecting him. He knows it was always an obstacle for him. But in this new life, he had to build for himself, it bothers him deeply. This is the life he has always wanted, one full of honest work he could devote himself to.

He has already gone over a few of the documents his father had put in his room for him and he was happy to learn that his father did not look at people as mere resources to be exploited but coworkers to help grow. His father was more or less a transformational leader, the kind of person Parth naturally respected.

As much as he loved his mother, he could see now that she had been a stubborn and selfish woman who resented seeking help but thrived when she could help others.

A detached, third-person perspective of himself told him that he had imbibed a lot of his mother's strengths and weaknesses. Nature or Nurture, he did not know what had the bigger share in the way he was. Whatever it was, if it was not conducive to the vision he had for his future, it had to be overcome.

He was good at overcoming material obstacles. Poverty. Hunger. Thirst. Exhaustion. Tangible and simple. Easy to accept.

It was the emotional ones he found harder, even with his trove of theoretical knowledge. It was always harder for him to curb his instinct and use his reasoning when it came to his personal issues. He has a tendency to react and it had caused him a lot of pain.