PENANCE

'PENANCE' is a psychological fiction about a man's remorse for being miserly to his old ailing mother's medical treatment because he thought his other siblings should take care of his mother's treatment because his father trusted them more and spent more on their careers and situations. The man's name is Abhirup Mallick. The reason for his miserliness was that he was unemployed and lived on his little money he had earned before,he did not do any other work because he wanted to become a big actor for which he used to go to auditions in different places.One day, while going out to audition at one place, he slipped and broke his left arm and his right hand was severely cut by a glass shard. Since he lived alone and was not married and his family members were all far away, he had to go to the hospital with difficulty and see a doctor. He started wondering if he was responsible for this terrible pain and total helplessness, had he caused anybody any pain in his life that resulted in this inhuman pain and helplessness? He remembered the tragic death of his old mother, but what surprised him the most was the time of her death. Once, while shooting, he fell into a dry gutter and screamed and cried out for his mother.However, he was admitted to the hospital for operation on his hand and seeing the suffering of the patients injured in accident, he was shocked. Mr. Mallick saw a very sick old man lying on the bed next to his hospital bed for a long time. He had a metal rod inserted into his tibia because his foot had slipped and his leg was turned upside down. He could not get out of bed to the toilet and urinate. He did not have anyone to help him to urinate. Although the hospital could provide these services if he paid, but who would pay for it? The old man's son had no relationship with the old man. Seeing the old man, Mr. Mallick felt very sad. One day, the old man told him that he was very thirsty but could not drink water because if he drank water, he would have to urinate and defecate. Mr. Mallick felt very sad when he heard this and put the urinate pot under the old man's ass and made the old man urinate and defecate. He continued to do this every day. A few days later, Mr. Mallick underwent an operation on his hand and had to have blood given to him for excessive bleeding. As soon as the effect of the anesthesia wore off, he started to suffer severely. He kept on writhing in pain for four or five hours like a chicken whose throat had just been cut. The nurse did not give him any sleeping injections because the blood was still flowing. When the blood ran out, the nurse came and gave him a sleeping injection. By then, it was dawn. He was woken up by the sound of his mobile phone ringing repeatedly around 10 am. He was being called from several places to play major roles in big movies, the opportunity for which he auditioned for years in various places, but his physical condition was such that he was not in a condition to do those things. The old man's daughter who used to come sometimes was no longer coming there, the doctors were not willing to operate on the old man, he was now over eighty and his condition was not good. After Mr. Mallick was discharged from the hospital, he had the old man operated on at a private nursing home he knew at his own expense and the operation was successful. Mr. Mallick was relieved of the mental anguish that was eating away at his inability to do anything for his mother's treatment who died a few years ago due to their inability to afford treatment. He saw in his dream his mother sitting by his head, singing the lullaby she used to sing to him when he was little, and giving him her blessings.