A Silent Voice

Lakkim  Bayung Rai

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Today almost 15 years have passed since you left and settled to city area with your own family without saying a proper goodbye or without sending a letter per month. I guess your work is not giving you enough time to think about it. But I hope you are giving enough time to your family who are with you there at both of yours good and bad times. Living alone make me remind of you.

When you were at age of 5,you never went outside to play with your friends even when they called you from the main door of the house. Every time they came to call you, you used to give them a reply of No with the expression of relief. So, with the pass of time they stopped calling you to play. But it didn’t even matter to you as you were always concerned about your studies and your future only. So, you never understood what is happiness and what is fun when we are with the people who care about us the most.

As you grew older, you had an argument with your father. You wanted to go to the city area; but your father refused your plan. At last, you ran away from the house without telling your father as he would never give you permission for your plan. But before running away, you told me about it and I happily gave you the permission as I got to know that you already had a goal in your life. But that happiness didn’t remain for long. After 5 years, your father  passed away due to heartache. It was a sad day of my life but the thing that gave me the most pain was you were not there at your own father’s funeral.

You totally neglected us. I feel like you have totally erased us from your memories. After your father’s death, I started to feel lonelier. An emptiness started to arise in my heart which was impossible to fill up ever again. There was no one for me to express my pain and sorrow except for one person. That person was myself. But whenever I start to talk to myself, many questions crop up in my mind:

“Did all my dreams never mean one thing?”
“Does happiness lie in a diamond ring?”

Every time I start to write a letter to you, my HEART starts  to tell

“KE KORNU CHITTI YEDI TIMI NA PADHNE BHAE?”
“KE SUNAUNU MAN KO KURA YEDI TIMI NASUNNE BHAE?”

Loneliness, sure, is painful.  Now I could imagine how caged birds and animals feel when they are behind the bars left alone without proper care and love. Up to these days, I have lived my life with loneliness as my friend. But I am still hoping that the day will sure come when you will come to visit me and will look after me until I sleep down with the evening sundown.

I hope that day will come while I am still alive.

Your MOM

[Lakkim Bayung Rai is a student of Grade XI at Koshi Saint James Secondary School, Ithari)