Umesh saw the young lad lurking behind the beached catamarans. He would have been in his late teens. He recognized him. But he didn't have time to mess with him. He had more important things to do. Today he could not catch a single fish, and he didn't quite like his food without a dish of fish. And now he had developed this bad cough. He couldn't afford to go to a hospital. He hoped it would clear by itself.
"Hallo sir," he calls after a group of tourists. "You want to go for seeing fishing? I fishing with big lines. Big fish seeing." he tries speaking English. "I put bait on line and waiting for big fish to catch. 500 rupees only. We can also cook and eat fish we catching," he adds. The tourists walk away. They pretend not to hear him. He looks away dejected. "Maybe it's the cough that drives them away," he thinks.
He can't go deep into the sea anymore as his fishing net needs to be repaired. It would cost him at least a thousand rupees to mend it. He is not in the pink of health either. He has hardly got enough money to buy food for his family. And since Bakt left home, things have been different. He isn't sure if things are better now than they were when he was around. He would give the family some money once in a while and that would help them tide over a specific need. But he always got into so much trouble, Umesh was glad he was gone. It meant there was one less person to be fed from the fruits of his hard work. "I shouldn't be saying that," he thought, "After all he is my son."
Umesh had some clear cut goals to achieve in his recent future. One was to mend his fishing net. The other was to buy a motor for his catamaran. The other fishermen had motors and they could go deep into the sea for the catch of their lives. Even the tourists seemed to favour motorized catamarans. They were always busy, and wanted to get the most of everything in as little time as possible. And they always paid half the price the fishermen asked for. Foreign tourists used to pay more. But the advent of the internet had been bad for the fishermen. It meant people from all over the world could discuss anything and that included even the fares for a boat ride from the beach. Over the years Umesh had seen tourists from other countries bargain for their price while in the early days they usually paid whatever he asked them for. Times were changing. And they were changing for the worse. He needed money. And he needed it real bad.
The boy tried to make eye contact with him. He looked away. Umesh knew the boy was one of Bakt's friends. He had a lot of friends. And they were all bad. He wished his boy had never been in the company of such rotten tramps. They had always been dirty, these urchins. But Bakt seemed to have a special liking for them. Wherever he went he would make friends with the meanest of the lot. And now he was paying for his deeds. He saw the boy closing in on him. He couldn't remember his name. Didn't want to. He was just one of those people who made a savage out of his boy. The boy greeted him. Umesh nodded. The boy looked at him quizzically and said, "Of course you heard about last night." Umesh didn't want to strike a conversation with anybody. It was evening and he still hadn't tasted fish the whole day. His wife and his three daughters would have cooked some vegetables from whatever money they got that day selling shells on the beach. But he was a fisherman, and food for him meant fish. He nodded again. "So what are you going to do about it?" asked the lad. "About what?" Umesh opened his mouth for the first time.
"You know, about Bakt," came the reply. "What about him?" asked Umesh. "Oh. So you have heard nothing about it," said the lad. It was true. He had heard nothing about last night. In fact he didn't hear of anything that happened in the settlement anymore. He didn't have many friends. He was just a poor fisherman, with a loser for a son. He wished Bakt was more responsible and at least help him with his work, if not go fishing all alone. The new generation was lost. Totally lost. And the insurgence of tourists was to be blamed for it.
"You heard nothing about Bakt?" the lad's voice brought him back to the present. "What happened? Did he die?" asked Umesh, his face devoid of any expression. "No," came the reply, "They caught him with the stuff." "You mean the police arrested him for possessing drugs?" asked Umesh between coughs. "Well, you know what I mean," said the boy. "And you? Are you here to tell me the story of your daring escape?" asked Umesh. "I quit their company ages ago," replied the lad. "You are all evil. Young devils. You lead my son into the state he is in right now and when you found things were not happening the way you wanted them to, you quit. My poor son is addicted to that stuff. You hear that? He is addicted. He cannot quit," roared Umesh. "That's exactly what I am here for," replied the lad, "I know Bakt very well. He is so childlike. They are exploiting his naïveté. You have to save him." "Save him? Even God almighty can't save him. He is not my son anymore. I don't have a son by that name. Anyway, a stint in jail would serve him well. At least he won't be able to do drugs there," said Umesh. The boy smiled.
"Have you ever been to jail?" he asked in his casual manner. "That is the place for the likes of you. I have had nothing to do with it my whole life," replied Umesh. The young lad raised his voice, "I have been to jail. Okay? I have been there and I know exactly what happens there. And that's why I am asking you to save him. They have a steady supply of the stuff there in jail. People go there and become more addicted, that is if they don't die of an overdose." Umesh was not used to being spoken to so sternly. "So what do you want me to do?" he asked earnestly. "Bail him out if you can," came the quick reply. Now it was Umesh's turn to smile. He smiled at his own incompetence. He was so helpless. Here he was, unable to even buy food for himself and his son's friend was asking him to bail his son out. "I would have thought of it, if only I had the money. But then again I could buy something good to eat for my family with that money. Tell you what? You and your evil friends got him into this. Now you find a way to get him out of there," he told the boy. The lad shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
Umesh tried to put the whole conversation behind his back. His chest and his tummy hurt from the incessant bouts of cough. The sun had set at the horizon but there was still the fading twilight. He wanted to check his net for the final time. He was lucky. Two big crabs were caught in the net. Now he could eat something from the sea for supper. He snapped away the crabs' legs with ease and then carried everything home. It would soon be dark.
He found his mind wandering back in time. Maybe he himself was to be blamed for the state his son was in. Bakt had been born after his three daughters, the long awaited son of the family. They had doted on him, and in fact had spoiled him from an early age. He used to get everything he wanted. Umesh would even take him into the sea just for a ride on his catamaran. He knew it was dangerous but the little boy would cry incessantly till all his demands were met. He remembered how Bakt had dropped out of school at an early age. He didn't like the teachers. Bakt was the master of his own spirit. He believed in doing things the way he wanted and when he wanted. He wouldn't go with Umesh to the sea. That was too demeaning for him. His father's job was demeaning for him. He used to hang around with the tourists.
He boasted that he could talk in five different foreign tongues. Bakt believed he was better off with his tourist friends than he was at school. And he even tried to convince his father in those lines. He was nice to the tourists and they seemed to fancy him too. Once he had told Umesh that a German friend would arrange a job for him and take him out of the country. He was always in his own dream world. Someone had taught him to play the guitar, and had even bought him a brand new instrument. He practised on this for years and finally was singing at the beach, entertaining tourists. Umesh would try to get his son to go fishing with him but to no avail. He was so indifferent that once when Umesh fell ill, he didn't even come home. He spent almost an entire week at the beach with his friends, while his family starved. Bakt used to hand over some money to his mother, whenever he had excess of it, which was not very often. Umesh wondered what he did with the money, as he was sure the tourists paid him well.
Soon Bakt was becoming a rock star. At least that is what he told his family. He said he was going to make it big. He took pride in the fact that he could talk English as fluent as an Englishman. And he even challenged his friends to point out any difference in his speech from that of an Englishman. The tourists used to give him some music tapes and he would listen to them and practise songs so well that he really sounded like the voice on the tape. As his popularity increased, he started talking about how important alcohol and drugs were for the acceptance of a musician. Umesh had tried to prevent him from joining a rock band in the city. But before he knew it, he was in the band, the members of which looked like they were right out of hell. He was back at the beach with his band, singing at the various bars, and restaurants.
The tourist crowd he was involved with changed pretty soon and Umesh watched helplessly as he found his boy singing with acknowledged drug addicts. He closed his eyes or looked the other way when he saw his son peddling drugs. Finally Bakt discovered that whatever amount he earned couldn't suffice to buy the drugs he needed. He resorted to the next easier thing to make money. Stealing. Soon the village branded him a thief and exiled him. And now he was under arrest. The next few months Umesh noticed a burning desire to go meet his son. He wanted him back, whatever state he was in. He loved him. He was his son after all. They hadn't seen each other for such a long time. But their relationship had not been the best of the kind.
His cough had gotten better and he reckoned he could go fishing deep into the sea soon. But the net had become worse. He now spread the net near the rocks and that meant fewer fish. One day as he sat debating whether he should go to see Bakt or not, he caught sight of the young lad who had told him about Bakt's arrest. He walked slowly towards Umesh. Umesh was very excited. He ran to the lad and asked him, "Son do you have any news from my boy?" The young lad looked at him. "They are letting him go free today. I heard they were impressed by his behaviour in prison. He has changed a lot, your son."
Umesh didn't think twice. He put on his best clothes and took the next bus to the city. He waited outside the prison gates. It was a long wait. But he didn't have the nerve to go inside. He hated the prison. That was where the filth of the society loitered, whiling away time to get out and pollute the world again. He couldn't imagine what his son would say to him. He didn't know how he would react to his presence. He waited. Finally, the gates opened and out walked his sweet boy. His long hair was cropped very short and the rings on his ears were gone. Bakt saw his father. There were tears in his eyes. Umesh's heart melted when he saw the tears streaming down his son's face. He ran towards him with arms wide open and hugged him. "Come home, my son, your family is waiting for you," cried Umesh. Bakt didn't answer.
He didn't open his mouth even as they reached home. Umesh didn't care. His son had changed. He knew that Bakt wasn't his old self. His mother and his sisters ran to greet him. He just stood there staring at the ground. Though he returned their hugs, he seldom opened his mouth. Umesh attributed it to his guilt. He explained to his son that nobody was perfect and that it was more important to realize that one had gone wrong and correct oneself. Bakt just nodded. Umesh couldn't shake off the feeling that Bakt still did drugs. He didn't want to believe it. And he wasn't mean enough to spy on him. He sure didn't look like he was on drugs. But Umesh could never satisfy his curiosity. He wouldn't dare ask Bakt about it. Bakt spent most of his time in the shack, playing his guitar.
One day Bakt went out. He never told anybody where he was going. When he came back, he handed his mother an envelope. She opened it to find a lot of money inside. He told her it was for the family. She hugged him and ran to give Umesh the good news. The next day the son took the father to the hospital at the city. He was diagnosed with Tuberculosis, and was started on medicines. Bakt insisted that they buy the medicines for the entire course of treatment at the onset, but the doctor informed him that the government gave the drugs free of cost, and that the patient had to get them himself from the dispensary. Then Bakt took his father to a store and bought him a new net. He bought him all the accessories that he needed, and then he bought a motor. Umesh could not help but wonder where all the money came from. But he didn't ask his son. He was glad his son had finally taken the family's responsibilities on his shoulders. As the duo neared home, Bakt ordered a brand new catamaran, saying the old one had served its purpose, and it was high time they got a new one. That was one of the best days in Umesh's life. He didn't care if his boy never looked at him on the face when he talked. He no longer wanted him to smile. His son had become responsible, and that was enough for him.
That evening, as he prepared to get his catamaran out into the sea, Umesh was intercepted by his son. He told his father that now it was his turn to go fishing. Umesh's could not believe his ears. His son who detested his job so much was offering to do it in his stead. He knew that Bakt had enough experience on the catamaran. He had taken tourists into the sea on trips so often. He blessed him and stood on the beach, watching him paddle away. He stood there watching his son, till the sun went down. Then he went home and slept. He never saw his son again.
