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 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. Men gawking at him, trying to figure out
whether he earns more or less than they do. Ahaan himself often observed people with a furtive gaze in the metro. Antiquated
people get annoyed by teenage norms. Schoolboys insinuating each other after looking at a middle-aged woman with
extravagant breasts. Girls with their solipsistic serenity. While watching them, Ahaan would often ponder 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 hairs 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 to become average. It's so hard to escape mediocrity in this world. There's some kind of force
in this world manipulating everything to become average. Mediocrity is contagious and so hard to resist.
Ahaan's son, who is 3 years old now, has somehow managed to learn a few words. Ahaan would go home every night and
surrender himself to the innocence 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 sang an orgasmic symphony. Oneday he uttered the word 'Telescope'.
That made Ahaan filled with glee, he announced that his infant son who somehow managed to utter Telescope will become a
Space researcher, The very next evening after several poking he uttered the word 'chodu' (Fucker) as if it was personal, Ahaan
and his wife was left flabbergasted and he couldn't figure out what can he become from that, After that he never dared to
assume his son's profession on the basis of word's that he utter.