Pain

-Guru Prasad

‘Our daughter, Punitha has run away! Run away with her lover, Suresh! She has left a letter behind!’  Raghavan opened his eyes as he heard the wailing of Geetha in the early morning. Hearing this news, his head started spinning. He felt darkness before his eyes. Last week she was talking of her love for Suresh. Raghavan rejected him! And now she had rebelled!

Raghavan could not understand where she could have gone! He didn’t like going to police! He didn’t take food for the whole day. She was his only daughter! So he had brought her up with all love! She had repaid his love this way! He was boiling over inside! More than him, his wife was shocked! She was crying since the morning!

Cell phone rang! Raghavan took it and heard! And then he sat on the sofa!

‘Who was on the phone? Was it Punitha?’ Geetha asked in exasperation, and Raghavan’s eyes became wet!

‘Your daughter......has married her lover...married Suresh in a temple. We brought her up for the past twenty-one years! She never thought of us! What people say is right that the hearts of the children are made of stone! She proved it right!’

‘Yes! You’re right! Long back when we married after running away from home, our parents too would have felt the same way............would have writhed with the same pain!’ The words of weeping Geetha were hitting Raghavan like a hammer!