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| Image Courtsy: www.dabur.com |
Radha took the temperature of her 10 years old son Raghav.
The mercury pointed to ninety-nine. She heaved a sigh of relief as it had come
down to this level for the first time in last 3 days.
The heavy blows of the wind mixed with the force of monsoon
rains were making the window panes flutter. Radha shut the windows in.
“Will I be alright before the competition maa?” asked Raghav as she came after shutting
windows.
“Yes darling!” said Radha kissing her son on his mildly warm
forehead.
After that she reclined on a chair beside the bed of her son
who was sleeping without murmuring after days.
She had a file in her hands that she was poring over. The file contained
the documents as regards legal battle pertaining to the custody of her
son. After the divorce, her husband was
hell-bent on having the custody of their son. His argument was that because of
her careless attitude Raghav fell sick often and that with her there was no
future of his son.
Radha was a copywriter with a mid-sized ad agency while her
husband Suresh was an art director with a big advertising agency. And this was
where her husband tried to gain upper hand. He thought that with his upscale
status he could give a far better future to his son.
She still remembered when her husband was in love with her
during his struggling days in the ad world. Those were very sweet days. They
had very middle class dreams. But as Suresh saw a meteoric rise in his career,
his love for Radha started plummeting. He started dating a girl in his office
behind her back. She was heartbroken when he first time put the divorce paper
in front of her. She had thought it to be a joke at first, as they had a small
scuffle a night before on trivial issues. She couldn’t stand the shameless
confession of Suresh that now he didn’t love her anymore. She had cried
inconsolably before Suresh but he did not budge from his decision. His argument
was that now middle class Radha didn’t fit in his highbrow ambitions. He had
only used Radha to break into the ad world. She had felt devastated and wanted
to commit suicide but the innocence on the face of her son had stopped her from
doing so.
Her son caught fever as soon as he was exposed to change in
weather. And this always put hindrances in his swimming practice. He was very
good at swimming but due to weak immunity, he fell sick and his practice became
irregular. In next twenty days he had an inter-school swimming completion.
Next morning, Radha left for her job after putting Raghav in
care of her parents.
“So much of traffic is today,” said Radha sitting in a taxi
alongside her friend.
“Yes, the roads know that madam Radha is travelling today,
so they have conspired against you,” said her friend jokingly.
“You won’t change Sumati.”
“I hate change… oh talking of change and here it is… see our
ad-copy is gone from that big hoarding, now it is displaying the Dabur Chyawanprash
Ad.”
“3 times more immunity… huh,” reacted Radha to the tagline
of Dabur Chyawanprash.
“What huh… they are right!”
“You are reacting as if you don’t know the reality behind
the slogans of ad-world, we ourselves whole day toil hard to think about some
imaginary USPs to include in the slogan of a product.”
“No no it is not like that…
I have used it, see my son used to fall sick often irrespective of
sunshine or monsoon, but for last 1 year that I have been giving him DaburChyawanprash, he hardly falls sick. And you know what even if he comes drenched
in the rain, I don’t fear that he will fall sick… here comes the green light.”
The conversation with her colleague kept doing rounds in the
head of Radha. In the evening she bought one pack of Dabur Chyawanprash. She
started giving heap-full spoons of Dabur Chyawanprash to her son from that very day.
Gradually, her son recuperated. But doctor had strictly
prohibited water splashing for Raghav.
But as days of competition inched closer, Raghav started to urge his
mother to take him to his swimming classes. After initial resistance, she
finally relented.
Raghav enjoyed his stay at his swimming class like a kid of
fish. Radha was still skeptical about over exposure of water to Raghav’s
body. Days passed but Raghav didn’t fall
sick.
Finally, the day of the competition arrived. Radha was
keeping her fingers crossed. Radha’s husband and Raghav’s father Suresh also
made his presence at the competition but not to show any solidarity with Raghav
&Radha. He wanted to witness an event that could cause his son to fall sick
and in turn it would make his argument stronger that Radha couldn’t take care
well of his son. Furthermore, he knew it very well that just 20 days ago his
son was severely sick and by no means could he win any prize in this
competition. He wanted to enjoy the adversity of failure on the face of Radha.
He had become a real demon!
Anyways, the competition started, and as all contenders
plunged into the pool ,Radha closed her eyes and started praying… no she didn’t
want her son to come first ,what she only wanted was that her son enjoyed his swim and didn’t
fall sick.
“And the second prize goes to Raghav!” the announcer
declared after sometime.
The happiness of Radha knew no bounds, she looked at Suresh
with a sense of win in her eyes and ran to clutch her son in her arms. Suresh
left the place in a huff.
When Raghav was presented with his runner-up medal, Radha
thanked the ‘3 Times More Immunity’ aspect of Dabur Chyawanprash. Because had
it not been for Dabur Chyawanprash, this
proud moment could never have been achieved.
Next day Raghav’s picture was in newspaper with winner and
the third position holder.
By and by ,two months passed by and Raghav was still to fall sick. The
court declared the parentage of Radha the best for Raghav and now eyes of Radha
could draw a glorious future for her son without worrying about immunity of her
child. On the night of court verdict, Radha had thanked profusely God and DaburChyawanprash for the happiness in her life.
P.S: This fictional account is an entry to a contest being
held at indiblogger.in
