WAKING UP

Shankar opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the old ceiling fan revolving slowly as if it was

ready to take it's dying breath any moment.

Shankar was not from a well -to-do family .

His father worked as a teacher for the Government elementary school of the village,

which coincidentally was also the only school in a three mile radius.

So his family's financial condition was on the lower side of the strata.

He thought of the dream he just had and the incident that marked the beginning of it.

He had done his bachelor's degree from the university at the nearest city Bikrampur.

Which was also the only third class city within a one days ride.

He had dreamed of doing his masters degree, get a good job and to finally bringing

his family out of poverty.

But it seemed that luck was against him.

On the last day of his final semester he had that damned accident.

It threw a wrench on all his plans.

He was a straight A student which he had maintained throughout his course.

He didn't want to lose his track record for anything.

He wanted to do everything to fulfill his dreams.

All this thoughts had made his nerves tensed and the excitement that he was finally

close to his goal kept him awake all night.

After daybreak as the day progressed the fatigue of pulling an all-nighter combined with the stress of the last few days began to catch up with him.

Shankar didn't know when he fell asleep but when he woke up it was already nine fifty AM.

He sat up with a jolt.

He was late.

Only ten minutes and the doors of the university will close.

His nerves became tensed immediately. He grabbed his blue shirt from the hanger

and started running.

The hostel was a good 15 minutes walk away from the main campus.

Here also his poor background made him stay farther away from his university building.

The students who were better off lived in rented apartments near the university.

Bikrampur govt. University, although a university in a semi urban city

it had a large area and was a city in itself.

It had everything. A market, hotels, bus stands, and even a movie theatre.

Perhaps he was so focused on getting to the exam as fast as possible that he ignored the road he was running on.

This negligence cost him very dearly.

While crossing the road in front of his university main gate if he had paid attention

he would have seen the grey Toyota running towards him.

When the driver saw the emergence of the sudden human figure in front of his car he immediately pushed the brakes.

But ALAS it was already too late.

The bloodied figure had already stopped moving.

-x-

When Shankar regained his consciousness he found himself lying on a bed with a splitting headache. After he became a little more aware and opened his eves he saw various machines displaying data he didn't understand along with a beep beep sound.

He tried to move.

An intense pain assaulted him immediately.

When he was still trying to move he heard a "don't move, it will only hurt you more"

The sudden voice attracted his attention and he looked towards its source.

A nursing member in a white nurse uniform was looking at him with serious eyes.

" I need to go, I am late for my exams" said Shankar

"Kid , you have been in a coma for twenty one days" came the reply

he felt like the nurse was playing a joke on him, "how can it be? please don't joke with me. I must go, I have worked so hard, I am so close to my goals I cannot keep lying here"

Unfortunately it was not a joke.

The unthinkable had happened. He had missed his exams and will not be graduating this year anymore.

-x-

Shankar sighed as the past events resurfaced in his mind.

After shifting from a lying to sitting position he tried to remember the dream.

He had started having this dreams approximately three months after waking up from his coma.

When he was still thinking about the dream he heard his mother calling him

"Shanku beta it's already 7.30,wake up"

"yes mom" he replied and climbed down from the bed.

Shankar currently lived with his parents.

He was twenty two years old at the moment.

If everything had gone according to plan then he would have graduated and would have been working somewhere.

But his circumstances made him stay with his parents.

In many countries of the east it is very common to have kids live with their parents till they get married.

In some cultures it is also not uncommon to have four generations living under the same roof and Shankar too belonged to such a culture and country where kids could stay with their parents their entire life.

Every member contributes for the betterment of the family unit without having quarrels.

Parents take care of their kids when they are children.

Kids take care of their parents when they grow old.

Such a culture may seem strange to people from other cultural backgrounds.

But the earth is big and all kinds of cultures inhabit in it.

Shankar's culture was just one among them.