Rarely has so much pain been inflicted by one single individual on an entire
neighbourhood! Single-handedly, Sudhir’s father recounted the sorry state of
affairs to anyone who happened to be within a mile of the quarantined residence!
He raved, he ranted, he cursed family deities and their entire entourages with
impunity, such was his rage at being cheated out of “first-class” success,
vicarious as it may be!
And from that day to this, I have asked myself the following question : “In the
grand scheme of things, in the Lord’s creation, wherein the Music of the Spheres
gave so much pleasure to our ancestors, did Sudhir’s performance (or
non-performance that unfortunate year of the Chickenpox) at the S.S.C. exam
really matter that much?”