Missing

By Ravi Ranjan Goswami

For several days, Suresh slept too late at night and waking up late in the morning. Then one morning, when he woke up, he felt weak.

His all joints were tight and sore. He took a day off from the work and rested. By evening he felt better. In reality, as the wedding date was drawing nearer Suresh was growing stressful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ravi Ranjan Goswami
• Release date: Apr 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005017415

Ravi Ranjan Goswami

The author is a science graduate,a revenue officer(IRS) by profession,writes poetry in Hindi and fiction in Hindi and English,lives in Cochin,Kerala,India.

Book preview

Missing

Novella

By Ravi Ranjan Goswami

Translated and adapted by the author from his Hindi short novel titled Palayan

1

The moment Suresh entered the home his mother cursed him without directly addressing him, The entire world is busy doing something. This Nawab Zada does not like to work. Sitting and eating has become his habit. Not bothered about the marriages of his sisters. Oh, I would say take up even a coolie's job and contribute something to the family's income.

Suresh had graduated two years ago and had attempted to find employment without success. When MBAs and engineers were faced with the problem of unemployment, who would hire a simple BA?

Suresh got used to the curse on his mother. He knew that his mother's anger was partly due to her high blood pressure, family concerns, and her husband's neglect. But that day, he was kind of upset. The mother served food in the backyard in the evening. He took a morsel in his mouth and mother fired the question, Got any work?

Suresh had an outburst of anger and frustration. He let out a scream surprising all his family members, who rushed to him to find out the reason for his screaming. He pushed the dish to a side and escaped to his room without having food.

Mother murmured, Now he doesn't like homemade food. He might have eaten something at a hotel.

Harilal and Umadevi had four children, two sons, and two daughters. The sons, Suresh and Amit were twenty and twelve years of age, and the daughters Rekha and Rashmi were twenty-four and seventeen years.

Harilal worked as a teacher at a government high school in Orai, a small city in the state of Uttar Pradesh. His wife Umadevi was a housewife. Rekha had been unemployed for four years following graduation. Harilal wanted to marry her but was unable to obtain a suitable alliance. Rashmi studied in class IX and Amit in the 6th standard.

Harilal's financial position was no good. Uma Devi was much worried about Rekha's marriage, which was getting delayed. According to Umadevi if Rekha's marriage did not happen shortly it would be too late to get an unmarried man to marry and she would get only a divorced man or a widower.

It also annoyed Umadevi that her husband did not have an interest in teaching private tuition. Umadevi knew other teachers in the school were earning more than their salaries by teaching private tuition. Some teachers even forced students to take private tuition.

Harilal sincerely taught at school and do not urge a student for tuition. If certain students wanted to come to him for tuition, he took them in.

These students were only a small number. Most of the time at home Harilal kept himself busy reading the newspaper or watching TV at leisure and usually turned a deaf ear to Umadevi if she demanded or complained about anything. There was no flaw in Rekha, but her marriage was delayed. Sometimes her horoscope did not