||THE TEN YEAR OLD DEAD BOY|| When he was born, he was a normal child, with happiness all around him. For him, "Happiness has always meant his family, his friends". He slowly grew up into a cheerful 10-year-old boy, and for him, the meaning of happiness still didn't change. He always thought that everything around him was as translucent as he saw it to be. He could only see the happiness, the love, but the ten year old boy failed miserably to notice those hidden tears of his mother, and that helplessness of his father. He could never read those buried emotions that his parents kept roaming around with, feigning to be the happiest couple. He adored them, he adored his parents. But, apart from being his parents, they were nothing together. They were just there for the little, innocent life that they have birthed, Abeer. His life turned out into something very drastic, that he could never imagine. His family broke apart in front of his eyes. The 10-year-old saw it happening with his bare eyes, and he could do nothing. He saw his mother crying, he saw his mother committing suicide, and he saw his father doing nothing, and he saw his father running away like a coward. He wasn't able to understand this drastic change. How would the 10-year-old be able to do so? How would he be able to understand what his mother did? And how would he able to understand that why, his father, who was his idol, had to run away like a coward? He wasn't able to understand at all! All the happy family dreams that he has pictured on those blank white sheets with so many colors, were painted black. For him, his father, his superman, was no more in the picture. For a child, who knew nothing but love, who knew nothing but happiness lived with his broken dreams and hatred for his father for several years! His father, who was once a role model to him, turned out to be a strangely looking silhouette to him, something which he never knew what it was. He realized, his dreams were nothing, but a mirage. And a 10-year-old boy had died that day, succumbing to so many losses that had occurred to him all at once. He forgot, who a mother was, and who, a father was. All that remained with him was those black and white painful glimpses of his past. His Maaso, held his hand, when no one else was there to. She led him from a place of complete darkness, to a place, where there were at least the moon and stars. It was all that she could give him. It was all that she had. She was a mother to him. She nurtured him, and gave him all the values that a mother would give her son, but still, Abeer could never consider her as his mother, as his mother was a part of his that dream, which wasn't true. His mother's role in his life was completely darkened. He thought, that how darkness can mend darkness. His mother never died for him, but was always around, then how could he give that place to someone else? Wouldn't it be his disloyalty of his love towards his mother? He wasn't like his father, after all! It wasn't easy for that 10-year-old kid, who died, but was alive, not growing anything out of life. He grew up, he had to. He was a twenty-something year old young man now, but still remained that 10-year-old dead boy. He had a Maaso, who still couldn't be his mother, to call his family. He could never call her, his mother. She remained his Maaso. What if she leaves him as well like his mother did, once? What if he loses her as well? He didn't want to realize all that he had! He didn't want to dream colors again! He was fine dreaming all his black and white! He was fine with his mother being the most special one to him! For the first time ever, he got attracted to a girl, Amala. Little did he know that his mere attraction would turn it to be the mere sin of his life? Not only her beauty, but her shining soul, and her smile had attracted him towards her. For him, she was a mystic fairy. He was wooed by that magical aura that she carried around. It was the first time, after so many years, that he felt this magical. His mother carried the same aura with her. And he was attracted to the same aura. So, definitely, she was something very, very special to him. He wanted to talk to her; he wanted to borrow some of her aura that he had been missing since so many years. Maybe he was in love with her already, and he didn't realize. He didn't need reasons to love her. His love was, and is, definitely pure and untouched. He knew the value of it, after all. His friends, were his soul-pals, was what that he thought. He would never even had, had imagined that his so-called-friends would turn his life, which he has just now started to gather the pieces of, into a burning hell. And the decomposed body of the little 10-year-old boy was burnt again, and he came out with even more scars, wounds and much more pain. The love that was reappearing in his life was lost, once again. This even went to a stage, where he wanted to end his life, but couldn't. This pained him more than anything that, he had become the reason of someone's pain. He had become the reason of someone disgusting their own life. He had become the reason for love to disgust him again. His love broke him into pieces again. And again, his colorful dreams, that he dared to see, were painted black. His life has turned the most miserable thing for him; his own life was a pain to him! And moreover, he was guilty for destroying the life of someone he loved, so ruthlessly. Even he didn't know how much it had pained him. It was as if he had become a magnet to the buffet of different kinds of pains. He suffered a lot; he has suffered more than anyone did. His love, his happiness has broken him into pieces, and his pain, his sorrow, built him again. He knows he hadn't done anything, but still he doesn't want to leave her, he doesn't want to leave his wife alone. He can't make her suffer anymore, and ends up suffering her part of it, himself. All that he gets from her is the different shades of hatred and disgust, but all that he has to offer her, is his immense and unconditional love for her. The layer of the molten hot wax on his foot was a nonentity before the pain with which he has been roaming around for years. He is a grown up man, still roaming around with his childhood fears. He is a grown up man, who lost his faith in his superman, but was today, the superman for someone else. He is a man, shaped out of pain and sorrow, eating someone else's pain to keep them happy. He is a man, colored in black, filling colors in someone else's life. He is Abeer Anand, the smiling, dark silhouette. ****** 
Cricket
Anupamaa
