Hell Right Here

Last few weeks have been hell and yes I did meet the devil. I realized the huge power that he holds … a power to ruin anybody or anything within a blink of an eye.
Not that world hasn’t seen worse things happen, neither that I am unaware of such things happening …only that I always believed that a solution exist at least for sensible educated people But as I learnt. Jab gidhad ki maut aati hai toh woh shaher ki taraf bhagta hai aur jab insaan ki maut aati hai toh who beer bar ki taraf bhagta hai.

This is an incident involving a normal middle class family. Father very well educated earning quite well around half a lakh a month. Mother house wife but well educated and a postgraduate. Kids two – beautiful and brilliant. Both toppers and merit holders. Only one problem in the family. The father had a little affinity to alcohol. Well a little affinity won’t do any harm...does it...…well I thought not…But I was all wrong.
This affinity rose to love and love gave way to addiction and before anybody could see it coming he had a heart attack. This was his first chance to improve and all his friends and relatives, who knew he was well educated, sophisticated, belonged to a middle class family with limited resources and was a man who knew his responsibilities towards his family, thought he would grab the opportunity with both hands.
But he didn’t…..he had already drowned……drowned deep in his bottle of alcohol and he couldn’t see anything from there… not his family…..not his job...nothing…
His eyes were blinded by alcohol. He started hurting his family when they tried to oppose his drinking…..and I thought this happened only in lower class or upper class family…how foolish of me.
Things went so bad so quickly that people started advising him for rehab. Also his financial situation deteriorated to a state where his children’s education became a liability he was not able to fulfill. He still had his job but the money went to alcohol shops not to his home. I could have digested all this considering that I have learnt that this happens.
But my hatred (Not for the father but for this thing called alcohol ….I had anyway long lost any feeling for the father. You can only take the horse to the water, you cannot make it drink. Life gave the father enough chance to turn back but he didn’t and I don’t think people who don’t take the opportunities given to them are worth your time) reached a level where I am falling short of words when a mishap took place in the family.
The father and mother met with an accident. Though the father escaped with just a scratch the mother was hurt very badly. With stitches all over, jaw broken and clots in the head she was in a very bad state. The father got her admitted but instead of staying with her every minute he walked off to drink leaving her all alone in the hospital. Chill runs through my spine thinking of that mother’s situation. She is in a unknown hospital in terrible pain, no relative in the city to call for help, her kids alone at home not knowing where their parents are and her husband has ran off to drink. Even if, God forbid, something happens to her, nobody to come to her rescue.
They then brought the mother to our city as the father’s parents are here and so is better medical facility. Also the kids were brought to stay at their grandparent’s house because the father was not responsible enough to take care of the kids. We having known the family decided to help out in this time. And I was shocked as to how crude life could be. The father not only left her wife in the care of his old parents who at this age neither could physically nor financially support both the kids and their daughter in law in the hospital. But also asked them for money for his drinks. Even though the grandmother is a heart patient she took all these blows coolly. Though while talking one day she said that instead of the daughter in-law getting hurt she had hoped her son died in the accident. That said it all. A mother can never think bad for her child leave alone curse him and if she could wish her child to be dead I can imagine how much torture the person might have been to his family.

In another incident that I know happened recently, a young widow of the man who died of drinking whispered to her friend, “I am relieved in a way. At least now I can be sure that my income goes to secure my child’s future and not to make some bar owner’s future.”

Then what attracts people to drink. Does it taste that good? From what I have heard, it tastes bitter. It sure makes your life bitter and your mere existence bitter to your loved ones. Another explanation I have heard is that it takes you to a state where you forget all your problems. Well if you are drinking in my opinion you are sitting with your biggest problem and are sure not forgetting about it. Anyway I till date have not been able to find a rational explanation. And by the way the devil I was talking about in the first sentence was not the father, it was ALCOHOL.

PLEASE SAY NO TO ALCOHOL