Title assigned: Optimistic outlook to Luck!

Submitted into Contest #98 in response to: Write about someone who’s desperately trying to change their luck.... view prompt

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Drama Historical Fiction Mystery

      Manmohan the main protagonist of this good luck or Bad luck of this unfortunate story began his career at the age of twenty-two only getting a job of an office clerk at the Central Secretariat Office just four years after partition of India in 1951 when he was twenty-four years. Quite appropriate age not very late in life. He got a starting salary of one hundred and fifty rupees which was not a bad start in those years.

                      He worked for two years and he got married to one girl from Aligarh who was also a graduate, Shruti Kakkar. But just two months had elapsed when she asked him to become a business man where there were many possibilities of becoming one of the richest persons of Delhi. He could not tell her a no as he was badly infatuated in his new two months Model wife. He told his father Shri Ganga Ram “Babujee Shruti wants me to become a business man and resign from my government job.”

           “No my boy you should not resign a government job that insures income steady for your whole life and also pension when you retire.. His salary had gone up from one fifty rupees to one hundred and seventy. He kept quiet for two months But two months after he became obstinate because Shruti Too was obstinate and pestered her husband the moment he Returned from the office, Ganga Ram was having a good bungalow in Kingsway Camp and had an established business Shop in Chawdi Bazaar and he was dealing in Parker, Sheaffer, Blue Bird and Swan fountain pens, he also dealt in inks of Parker and swan’s inks besides rubbers, sharpeners and geometry boxes. He had been a very successful man and he had built a wonderful bungalow that itself spoke of his wonderful success. He had been an owner of a nice Chevrolet and a driver who drove him to his shop. The glamour of his Father made him unconsciously think that he too should follow in the footsteps of his babujee. But successful film stars also have sons who are not as successful as their father. He became a fellow who like mice makes thousands of holes in a sari when finally he had no option left but to succumb to the wish of his this son. He resigned from the government job and began to share his father’s shop along with him. Soon Ganga Ram began to send him to trips to Ghaziabad, Muzafarnagar, Meerut, Agra and even Allahabad and Roorkee to personally Meet the business holders and get bulk orders. But even when He was thirty he was not as fast as he ought to be. He brought business but he would take eight days to complete the job when it could have been done in six days. His luck too was slow as he could not be fast. Luck welcomes a smart running horse.

                Soon domestic wrangles began between Smriti and her mother-in-law and Ganga Ram sent him to his another house in Kamla nagar. Smruti went to Rohtak to study for B. ed. Degree necessary for becoming a school teacher and her expenses were born by her father-in-law. After doing her B.ed she became so indolent that she would go to sleep instead of sending her two sons to school. Mr Manmohan had to carry on the job of sending the boys and this work that should have been done by his wife, he had to do. Thus his energies could not be fully directed towards being a good business man and half of the day was wantonly wasted. He had to run now to his

Father’s bungalow or to Chawri gate. Ganga Ram now decided

To send him to get orders for his articles by personally going to

Different cities such as Ghaziabad, Agra, Meerut and Mathura.

He would bring orders from various business dealers but he would need six days for a job that could have been done in Four days. One day he fired him on account of his wife. I say why the hell she has not got a job of a teacher forcing me to Spend Rs five thousand on her fees and maintenance. She was summoned to see her father-in-law and she was politely admonished to become a school teacher and be helpful to her

Family. He told her that he did not need even a rupee from her.

But instead of hearing his advises she began to cry like a tender

Doll Soosi.

       A month later she got an offer of a job in a school in Ghaziabad. But here as well she objected that she could not go

Every day by D.T.U. bus as it would take three hours going and

Coming back. Go and settle down there and gert a rented house and get your sons admitted in a school there. Man mohan can go on carrying on his business from Ghaziabad and see me in Delhi once every ten days.  But she was a woman who was always ready with lame excuses. She slapped good luck point blank into her face. Luck only helps those who are Positive running race horses. But she was like a pig who stays in mud. In her para-unconscious she had a hidden feeling that to earn money was a job only for a man. Women have to take Care of domestic duties. Years went on running and an elderly Woman suggested that she could begin tuition classes for boys and girls going to appear for tenth class examinations. But she had become a woman of lassitude and lazy mentality,

                      In next few years later Ganga Ram became so old that he could not manage the shop and he could not call Shanti Lal or Jai dev pal. He had himself advised him to go as a lecturer In Nagpur University, department of English and Shanti lal was working in Delhi Municipal Corporation and he was addicted to Liquor drinking. Fountain pens and inks business got dissolved

In the age of ball pens.

                    Manmohan took to business of birthday’s cards, marriage cards, Deewali, Holi, Christmas cards becoming the Representative of Teerath Das and Company and the owner Used to come once a year but Manmohan had to meet them every quarterly.

                  The turning point of his destiny almost declined with

The shop of Chawari Bazaar that was sold away to some party. By now Man mohan’s sons had grown up and Got married. They could not help their parents except being served with two times dinner.

                  He began expecting financial help from his brothers who helped them whenever they needed cataract, prostrate Operation and so on. But one can help four or five times not the whole life. There was born a dividing distance as he had nothing except lamenting over his financial situation’

                      Smruti could not offer even one time lunch to her

Brother in law, Jai dev Pal who had come all the way from Nagpur. He had been doing a Ph.d. degree from Aligarh Muslim University the place where his guide Dr Ziadin Muhammed was staying. The cycle of Time spares not any one. Could they challenge the Onslaughts of time that can be kind or ruthless. Mridula breathed her last in nineteen eighties and Man Mohan also Came to face bodily termination around nineteen ninety five.

          These were the people who slapped the hot cheeks Of Time and got proportional consequences.Manmohan’s father Ganga Ram had been a very successful Business magnate of his times but these got planted very successfully in Jaidev Pal’s son named Dinesh kumar who has Seventeen stores in New Jersey and Pennislavania and that’s that. Man Mohan got a wife who was a queen of lassitude and Indolence. He was much better off as a clerk in Central Secretariat and if he had not resigned he would have ended as Senior Income Tax Officer. He had not any genes of his father,

                      This couple did not work hard. A thought never struck that Shruti that once you are born on this earth you have To work hard at any cost. They threw the rock of good luck with Their feet from the summit hills of Shimla.

June 18, 2021 13:05

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