On those grey, gloomy, and inflicting roads, cascaded by dreary vehicles and motorbikes, Ahaan Deb, buried in the

abyss of moral ambiguity, always finds his way home from his office without being carried away by any illicit
pleasures, to become an understanding man and a caring father. He walks furtively, avoiding any eye contact, like a
girl passing from a street full of men.

In the mornings, he takes the metro to avoid being late for the office. Metros, like local trains, are never crammed
with men in formal shirts who know everything, and the mixed scent of perfume and sweat. The only thing he
doesn't like about the metro is the way seats are positioned. Every day, he tries his best to avoid eye contact with
people seated facing him. The constant gaze of a schoolboy, sitting right in front of him carrying a school bag twice
his weight, somehow finds him either the most interesting or most disgusting human on the planet at that particular
moment. Ahaan himself would often observe people with a furtive gaze in the metro. Antiquated people coughing
hard and barely managing to not to spit it inside metro. Teenage boys insinuating each other after looking at a
middle-aged woman with extravagant breasts. Girls on their phone when alone as if they don't belong to the metro.
Furtive lovers keeping them to themselves. While watching them, Ahaan would often brood that how innocuous this
world would have been if we all knew each other's background stories; how gently we would have treated them if we
knew about the demons that keep them awake at night.
While coming back home, he always prefers walking, so that after his retirement he doesn't have to attend
symposiums in a local park with other retired men who spent their entire lives on couches asking their wives and
children for even a glass of water, now playing the fittest man alive.
The Bleakness of his menial job routine is vivid by the bags under his eyes, but for Ahaan, his job is satisfying
enough. Maybe because he knew he doesn't have any talents to be sad for.

In school, Ahaan was one of the most sincere kids. His extravagantly oiled hair parted sideways by an exquisite
straight line, blazing with his mother's expertise. His eyes were dubious and anonymous. The nose that was always
buried in textbooks and lips that no one had ever seen unfurling a smile. An amiable boy. Expectedly, he didn't have
many friends; he only had one friend. Ahaan was the kind of boy that people would look at and think that this boy
would top every exam he was going to attempt. However, Ahaan never in his entire school life touched the score of
distinction. Ahaan was below average, who always made peace with passable marks.
But, His father couldn't.

Ahaan's father, Vinayak Deb, was an assistant clerk in an urban bank. He wanted to become a surgeon but severely
failed the medical entrance thrice, and his family couldn't afford a donation. He was then compelled to make peace
with his fate and find a job to marry a congenial girl in the hope of finding peace and satisfaction in conjugal bed
and in the hope of his son's bright future. He then wanted his son to become what he couldn't. He passed his dream
to Ahaan, as if it was an inheritance passed from generation to generation. But Ahaan's report card never failed to
thrash Vinayak's dream and Vinayak's rage never failed to thrash Ahaan.

In that raging environment, Ahaan's plant of childhood never got a chance to bloom the flower of talent.
Ahaan would often envy other men who were born with inherited peace, strength, and wealth, but he never pitied his
present life. Men like Ahaan are very proud of their average lives, not because they're not aware of their miseries, but
maybe because they've fought the tag of imbecile, that society had once gave him, to become average. To become a
part of the Society. So that after few years he can sit among other average men like him on a tea shop with a
newspaper spread wide apart in his hand and can laugh and pity on men like he once was. It's so hard to escape
mediocrity in this world. There's some kind of force in this world manipulating everything towards Mediocrity.
Mediocrity is contagious and so hard to resist.
Ahaan's 3 years old son, who is the only reason of Ahaan's smile, has somehow managed to learn a few words.
Ahaan would go home every night and surrender himself to the loquacity of his son to listen to those words. He
would keep poking him until he uttered a few broken words, which often made Ahaan feel ecstatic, as if he had just
sang an orgasmic symphony. One day, he uttered the word "telescope." That enraptured Ahaan, and he heralded that
his infant son, who had managed to utter the word Telescope, would become a space researcher. The very next
evening, after several pokings, he uttered the word (Hindi-Abuse) as if it was personal. Ahaan and his wife were left
flabbergasted, His wife blamed it to the neighbouring teenagers, and ahaan was unable to figure out what could
he become from that.

Ahaan's wife, Shalini, an inch taller than Ahaan, spends as much time in the temple in a day as Ahaan has never
done in his whole life. Women somehow are far more religious than men, maybe because so many of their tragedies
are either socially accepted or too shameful to bring out in society, so they have to rely on a greater power in order
to seek justice.
Shalini was the oldest daughter of Ahaan's uncle's friend. Living in extreme poverty with three daughters, her father
wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible. Shalini was a bright girl with extravagant talents gleaming within her.
After getting used to of her father's rough behaviour, who constantly behaved like he owns her life, all the men she
had in her life did nothing but made her dislike men.
A girl who dreamt of becoming a woman, a woman who would live far away from that place and the poverty lurking
in it, where she would be independent. She would expect nothing from no man. She would eat from her freedom.
She would sleep under the roof of her dreams. She dreamt of making small wishes from life. She dreamt of not
being a burden on anyone. She dreamt of a life where she will have her grief, sorrow, disappointments, and
Heartbreaks. But she will make her way like a flock of birds rustling through the winds. But soon Ahaan's Uncle
came to Shalini's father with the sympathetic offer of converting their friendship into Kinship, as if he's doing a favor.
Unfortunately Shalini's father took it as a favor. Somehow brides family is always obliged to groom's, as if they're
getting rid of a curse furtively, and the condescending Groom's family behaves like they're doing a favor by accepting
a girl who will cook for them her entire life and who will take care of the needs of a man who yells like a madman
when couldn't find his underwear or socks.
All Shalini's dreams and fantasies subdued in front of the tired charioteer of her father's life who is ready to collapse
at any moment.

She accepted her father's decision and the Fate of her tedious life with Ahaan.
Until a couple of days of her marriage, she ignored her father's call and behaved as if she's very angry from him. Not
so surprisingly, her father never came to placate her. Fathers marry their daughters to strangers and forget about
their existence.

Ahaan from the very first day of his marriage knew that his wife, with whom he will spend the rest of his life, will
never love him. He will spend his conjugal life in ignorance until she subdues her Grace. But he always tried to
impress her by doing little things, he will bring her gifts(That neither she wanted nor liked), he will take her out on
weekends, helped her in chores and tried to do everything that he could do, like an ideal man even if it cost him his
own comfort. But nothing helped in getting the love of his wife, that he thought he deserved. Soon enough Ahaan
made peace with her ignorance. Somethings can't be fixed no matter how you try, The more you'll try to fix it, the
more you'll make a mess out of it.

As soon as Ahaan's son took birth, Ahaan distracted himself from the elegance of her wife to the innocence of his
son.
When you accept the things you can't change and your life as it is, You move a step closer to yourself and Everything
starts to feel endurable.

So abominable life has been to this young men in formal shirt and and grey pant held together by a leather belt. He
don't even have anyone to talk about his tragedies, he will dwell over his disasters in the solitude of his declining
years.

Ready to go Ahaan stands on his tiny balcony with his cup of tea, looking at the empty street three floors below, and
then at the rest of the buildings in front of him. He hated this part of his day, because he can't miss this moment of
this solipsistic serenity and he can't stay either, he has work waiting to be done on his dreary desk.
At the left street, the decrepit banana seller, making no sale at all, stopped bawling and sat on his own cart, His face
looked like he would've screemed his life out of him if he hadn't stop, Ahaan saw his tired face and the capitulating
life breathing in it, and wondered if Machines took people's place or people took Machine's. He saw a few floors
above that seller only find Parthiv waving at him to catch his attention. Parthiv Mani, Ahaan's clever classmate,
Above Average, but not excellent, in everything. A kind of boy who remains in his peace far from any external trouble.
He had a big head like the funny sketch of politicians in newspapers, his eyes, that seemed like they have seen the
truth of everything, which made him seem like he knows something deeper than reality. Ahaan don't know what
Parthiv do for living, he lives with his wife, who usually live in abroad, that's what Shalini told him. But he doesn't
care. He didn't like Parthiv, infact he didn't like any of his classmates, maybe that's why he had only one friend. He
ignored him as if he saw through him or the wall behind Parthiv was so interesting that he couldn't see parthiv. He
slowly turned his face to front and stood there in hesitation for sometime only to let Parthiv know that he hasn't
seen him.
Gulping down the remaining tea, he left the balcony.
Later in the office, A Boy in his early twenties