Vajresh (IIIrd and Concluding Part – Shock of our Lives)

The editor of A Journalist Reveals, Yashaswini called my Mom with a strange request. She had been contacted by a friend regarding another friend’s dilemma. The girl has had 8 miscarriages and had prayed that if she would get a living child, she would name them Maheshwari, if a girl and Vajresh, if a boy. The girl’s MIL has a Vajresh-o-phobia. I was narrating the story of another Vajresh that gave us the Shock of our Lives!

Diwali came. The boy, I was talking about in the previous part, was on a stealing spree at night. We had arranged lights outside in the balcony. So, Mom had left the window open, just in case. This boy climbed to it from the outside and tried to steal something from the dining table, which was placed near the window. We had kept our new dresses and gifts for some boys, who would visit our home as our rakhi brothers.

Mom was awake in a minute and opened the door. She took a long bamboo and threatened the boy asking him what he wanted. The boy said, “I want a kiss from you!” Mom has the habit of kissing the forehead of all youngsters coming to take her blessings and he seemed to have seen it! She shouted, “Thief! Thief!” The boy ran away before other building residents came out. When Mom told them about what happened, they said, “Nobody can correct him because his parents, themselves, are not decent.”

Karma catches up with you. Vajresh’s father had a small business. Soon, it failed and they had to leave the place post selling the flat.

Shock of our Lives:

Mom has always been friendly with kids. Another boy called Vajresh lives next door to ours in the building we currently live. This boy has taken the video of our flat when we had locked it and gone out. The boy and his family had also stolen several heirlooms from our flat. We took a bigger flat here because my parents are senior citizens. Mom cannot lift her arms often to fetch things. That is why stuff has been placed at lower levels. This may appear to be clutter to people like our neighbors.

The family keeps threatening us. Every evening they discuss about our home standing in front of our door and laugh. They say, “You are an old couple living with a single daughter. We can do anything we want with you. Nobody will question us.”

We knew that our neighbor had taken a video of our home. But, we did not know that his name was Vajresh at school. The boy Vajresh has another name – Parth! Another example of a boy with the same name and criminal activities galore! This family describes the arrangement within our flat with cuss words. This is supposed to be their ‘pooja’ and they perform it religiously every evening, exactly when we do our traditional prayer at home. They say that their children perform well in exams and their work is accomplished when they do this ‘pooja’ after performing black magic on us.

This Vajresh has grouped boys from our locality together into a gang, which religiously continues the ‘pooja’. The hilarious thing is that the kid, who got 90% in prelims and worked hard and performed their ‘pooja’ bagged a meager 82% in the SSC finals. Another boy, who was expecting 85%, got 66. A differently-abled boy stole 2 elephant dolls from our flat and failed in his school exams. Several other kids from our building and elsewhere have stolen stuff from our home. Souvenirs from orphan children had given to Mom, with their love and gratitude, have been picked up by them without our permission in our absence. Despite setbacks, the ‘pooja’ is continuing due to the pressure from Vajresh and his family.

Conclusion:

This name – Vajresh – has some negativity attached to it. Or is it? No, 2 of Mom’s students – Vajresh – are highly educated and well-settled in good jobs in the US and Canada. Their parents sent the kids to Mom for tuitions and she even taught them hygiene, which was acceptable to their parents. It all depends on how the parents bring up their children and their peers.