The Smile that leads

He pressed his face hard on the ambulance in front of the casuality,tears kept rolling through his cheeks,he dint want to move a bit,his mind was totally blank,dint want to see anyone, rather did not find anyone near, whom he knew.Half an hour before, he was so happy,it was his summer vacation after 9th std, playing with his freinds ,in the big playground,surrounded by different blocks of the residential building where he lived.Phone call... ,His freind called out to him,He ran to attend it,a male voice at the other end,No.. the call was not for him ,but for his mother,he ran back to his shop nearby to the flat,sent his mother to check the phonecall, he was always happy to spend a few minutes in the shop,as this time he would taste the chocolates one by one,time passed on,testing his patience, as it was playtime & he is back from the middle of a game , but his mother, she dint come back....After a while his freind who was playing with him came along with freinds mother,asked him to close the shop.He stood there blinking ,why ? why close the shop,Your mother is hospitalised, he said, usual thing, he thought ,As his mother had asthma and it was he who always went to call the auto to take her to the hospital(there were some instances when the auto drivers refuse to come,as it is a short trip & especially if its late & in a still younger age he remembered crying standing on the road not getting an auto,his mind would be full of anger to all auto drivers as he will have the pic of his mother gasping for breadth at home,at those times his ambition was to be an auto driver who attends all calls)why dint she tell me to call an auto?(He thought..)He closed the shop & took his cycle,he said no to his freind who offered to come along, he rode his cycle to the hospital nearby.As usual went directly to the casuality,thats when he heard someone say ,that the lady brought to the casuality few minutes back is no more, what? she is no more in this world! , No! it cannot be his mother no she cannot leave him alone,but ,he had a glimpse of the colour of the sari of the body taken into the ambulance,It was her, he dint go for a second look ,someone asked him to step in,No..he dint,he dint step in, he stood there,frozen,heart beating heavily as never before, he pressed his face hard & hard against the ambulance ,tears soaking his entire face,slowly the ambulance moved,he moved back,looked around,could not see anything,his eyes were filled in tears,searching for a face he knew,but no he couldnt find anyone.Somehow he reached his cycle ,sat on it and rode off,where to head,He thought,no not to his home,he dint want to go back,he rode through the mainroads,he was not seeing anything but he rode,all way,along the roads without any aim, he was riding on ..& on.He has reached marine drive,how come he thought,yes he had come to his brother,who was in a stall inside the exhibition going on there.Unknowingly he had reached there,but someone has already informed him & his brother had already left home,so again he was alone ,dint still want to go home,dint want to live there without his mother,so again rode off..,finally to reach back to the big ground in which he was playing an hour before,People stared at him,no one asked him anything, he wanted to run away from those stares, he wanted to hide ,hide behind someone who would be a relief to him,searched around for such a face,no no one around,where are my freinds who have been very near to me all these years,he thought,for, apart from his freinds ,he dint remember having much relatives around, due to some problem with his parents & relatives,so his world was always his mother & his freinds.He still dint go to his house,he went up to the terrace, there was a place where he used to spend with his freind,a space between two tanks,there he sat alone,no he was not alone,his freinds came by,sat with him,but again it was the heavy silence,that he couldnt bear,he wanted to shout,to cry aloud,but he sat there.like a stone,with no feelings within.next day morning, many came to him asking to make a last look at his mother,..No he dint go,he dint want to see his mother laying still on stacked firewood,he had his mother in his soul,smiling the most beautiful smile in the world,giving him the strength,to face this world, with the smile as beautiful as hers.After that day he has not cried , in the sense not cried in front of anyone, his memories of his mother would always pour out when he was alone, all alone he would cry, cry out his heart .But this was also once broke as he did not have control on that occassion & tears burst out in front of everyone,that was 15 yrs later, when his uncle died,he did have a respect for his uncle,but when , for the rituals, he was asked to be a part , everyone called him to be a part of it ,to perform all rituals,He did that for the sake of them, beliefs apart,later as all those rituals passed through his mind & days of his mothers death also came to him ,he could not control as all these people who had included him to do all this ritual for his uncle had never,even for a single time have asked him to do these rituals for his mother,with all due respect to his uncle he asked them why? why? when they have asked him to do it for his uncle, why not for his mother, this finally burst to tears and that was the only time he cried ,cried aloud in front of those relatives (or strangers? dont know).Moreover he neither believed in those rituals too much, as he knows that even if he does those rituals or not,it is his deeds ,that is going to make his mother happy,so let him go on..... on the right path doing good deeds.........for his mothers smile that leads.......