The Kind of Nothing That Meant Everything

By Shubham Kumar

These days, love is a game of surprises and saying “I love you”, and “I love you too”. Love is not what can be expressed in words or with surprises & expensive gifts. Love is a special feeling, a blind faith. It should be felt by both sides, individually, for each other. It should not be forced. Love can never happen through the brain, it happens just like that, without a warning. All the greatest love stories are between strangers.
Whatever happened between them, how and where, explains how today too, humanity and love exist in this beautiful world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Jul 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9789388930628

Shubham Kumar

Shubham Kumar is the author of “The Kind of Nothing That Meant Everything”, and a new entry in the writers’ community. He is an army brat, lived in North Indian cities, from Punjab to Assam, for most of his childhood. He graduated from Dr D Y Patil Arts, Commerce & Science College, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune. He’d never imagined being a writer until he failed to graduate in 2015. He got the idea of this story during a train journey, when , while travelling alone, met with an Army personnel doing relief work for the Himalayan Tsunami in Uttarakhand.He’d never thought about being a writer. But after losing all hope, he did what he believed in. Thinking beyond a particular genre, he penned something that evoked him less as an individual & more as human. A self-proclaimed eccentric, he loves to play chess and travel.

Book preview

1

Dehradun

An irritating noise of hawkers and honking cars and bikes come in through the window. These irritating sounds are making me sick. Somewhere from a hole in the roof, rays of sunlight come directly on my face. Within seconds, I forget what I was thinking. The lush blanket and the soft pillow on the bed called out to my tired body, tantalizing me with their promise of luxury.

‘Hmmm…’ I yawn. ‘Oh shit! It’s 1pm. Dad’s going to kill me,’ I think, checking my wrist-watch.

By combining all my remnant power, I stand up and move to the bathroom, so I can see whether I look good enough to face my dad after last night’s incident. Dad is my biggest critic in this whole world. I have never had a healthy relationship with anyone in my family, especially him. He has some expectation of me, and I am not good enough in his opinion.

The previous night was quite dramatic. I had a small yet intense argument with him on my professional life, and after that, I’d left the house.

‘Maa…! Maa…!’ I shouted.

‘Why are you shouting? She isn’t at home right now,’ a familiar voice replied, rudely.

‘Holy shit! Dad is home,’ I whisper. He’s never home this time.

Now I’d have to find an excuse to escape, I thought.

‘I am not shouting!’ I replied.

‘Where is she?’ I am looking for her so that she can cook something for me, and, more importantly, face dad for me.

A mother is always good to her children, and so is mine. She is the only one who can face him. No one else can do what she can do for me.

‘She is at Rahul’s house. You may not know, but he got selected in the SSC exam,’ dad tells me. He said it like Rahul was his real son, not me.

First of all, the great Rahul was not my friend. He was just an old classmate from school, and he was with me only till ninth grade. In our colony, he was the ideal super boy for all the elders, especially for those who were parents. And, for my mom and dad, he was someone I could never be like in my life. My parents always compared me to him, and I seriously hated it. Some people have faith in themselves. They believe that one day they will be a part of something bigger and better. I am one of them.

‘Rahul? That weird, shy, asocial geek? He got a job in what…? I can’t believe it. Don’t fool me.’

‘Check it for yourself,’ said dad.

Silence.

What has happened to our government exams these days? People like him get selected in competitive exams, people who don’t have any personality. And look at me, I have everything – a great personality, qualifications, and I am handsome as well! But I don’t have a job. So what if he is intelligent? Personality is something that I have, I think.

I broke the silence, ‘When? How? Where?’

‘When you were busy wasting time with your stupid friends.’

‘My friends are not stupid,’ I said.

‘What? Say it... say it again!’ He reacted like I had said something very unusual.

‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t defend them.’

‘I am not defending them.’ He always blamed my friends.

‘I know what they are and what you are.’ He said.

He doesn’t want to listen to anything now.

I started mumbling under my breath.

‘Whatever you are saying, says it loudly,’ he yelled at me.

Silence, the argument was at its peak.

‘He got a job, so what? One day, I too will have a job and you will proud of it,’ I said loudly.

‘Yeah, I know, in your dreams. And with that so-called tour guide like job, no doubt,’ he said sarcastically.

‘Okay! Okay! I get what you want to say. You have told me these things many times.’

‘No, you don’t get it. If you really learned from what I have been trying to say since the last two years, you would not be standing here as you are standing now.’

Now, I was bored with all this. I ignored him and whatever he was saying.

‘Okay! I am sorry. It is my mistake. I accept it... It won’t happen again. I asked you for Mom. Now, please tell me why she is there.’

He calms down. His anger vanishes