All pain, no gain

It was 5:30 a.m., and Arumugam felt a sudden shiver as the winter wind intensified in the suburban train he was on. That week, he had to travel all the way from his home to the main bus depot to drive the point-to-point bus from Chennai to Pondicherry.

He glanced at a young teenager sitting next to him, glued to his fancy smartphone with earphones plugged in. Arumugam wished he too had a smartphone so he could stream songs to drown out the noise of the crowd and, more importantly, silence the thoughts running through his head. He held his old button phone in his hand and noticed that the ‘0’ button was nearly worn off. He thought about how faithful that phone had been to him over the past five years.

After getting off the train, Arumugam walked to the depot, boarded his bus, and applied pain balm to his head and a copious amount to his back, which was practically numb and on the verge of giving up. He took a deep breath and started his shift. He was exhausted but he reminded himself that he had to push through for the sake of his wife and three daughters at home. With that thought, he pulled the gear, started driving and thanked the conductor for playing the town bus playlist.

After his long shift, Arumugam reached home to find his second daughter elated with good news. She had landed a job at an IT company with a generous package. The youngest was thrilled to hear this and began dreaming of securing a job like her sister’s soon, hoping for the financial freedom she had always wished for.

The eldest daughter was also happy for her sister but felt a sudden pang of regret for choosing a more difficult path. She had been preparing for the UPSC exams, working tirelessly day and night to crack them. She was determined and confident, but for a moment, she wondered how her sister’s journey had unfolded so easily. Despite graduating with average scores, her sister’s strong communication skills had helped her clear her first interview and land a job effortlessly.

When Arumugam entered the house, the second daughter ran to him and exclaimed, “Appa, velai kedachurchu!” Arumugam congratulated her warmly and told her how proud he was.

Later that night, during dinner, she shared the details of her salary package. Her mother was shocked to hear how much people earned in their first job. The second daughter playfully teased her father, saying, “Appa has to work for five months to earn what I’ll make in a month,” and giggled. Her mother quickly rebuked her for the insensitive remark, but Arumugam took it lightly and asked his wife not to scold their daughter. The eldest, however, noticed the change in her father’s expression, and gave him a concerned look. Of all the three girls, she understood how much her father had sacrificed for the family. Most of all, she understood the pain of fruitless labor.

But the second daughter didn’t stop there. She added, “Appa, you’ve worked so much and yet you’ve gotten nowhere in your career. You keep going on and on about how important it is to work hard to achieve things in life, but you’ve achieved almost nothing. Hard work isn’t important anymore, smart work is all that matters these days!”

This time, Arumugam couldn’t take it. Her words were harsh, but they were true. He had worked hard, day and night, for 25 years, and for what?, he thought to himself.

Heartbroken by this realization, he went to bed after his wife had scolded their daughter for her harsh and disrespectful words.

The next morning, the eldest daughter woke up to check if her father had left for work, but noticed he was still in bed. As she walked toward him, she bumped into the table, knocking his button phone to the floor. The ‘0’ button popped off from the impact. She picked it up and tried to wake her father.

He wouldn’t wake up.

The eldest daughter stood frozen. She called out again, louder this time. “Appa!”, but there was no response. Her mother rushed in, panic rising as she saw her husband lying still.

They called for help, but it was too late.

Arumugam had passed away in his sleep, quietly, after a lifetime of silent endurance. The family was shattered. The second daughter, overwhelmed with guilt, couldn’t stop crying. Her words from the previous night echoed in her mind.

In the days that followed, the eldest daughter found Arumugam’s old diary tucked beneath his pillow. It was filled with bus routes, bills, and entries of every single monthly expense including chit funds for each of the three daughters, gold chits to secure their future, monthly personal allowance for her mother and so on. She kept going through the expense list looking for a single entry for her father’s expense but all she could find was an entry for his medicines.

She closed the diary, tears streaming down her face, and held it close to her chest. She thought how this world and the gods have always failed hardworking people like her father. And most importantly, she failed him too by not taking care of him. 

From that day on, the three daughters honoured their father, not just in memory, but in the way they lived. The second daughter learned humility. The youngest learned gratitude. And the eldest, who had always understood, found strength in her father’s endurance.

And somewhere in the corner of their home, the old button phone still lay on the table, missing its ‘0’, but still intact, refusing to give up.