Arjun no longer woke up with the sun.
The mornings that once began with schoolbooks and hurried meals now passed in lazy silence. By the time Raman returned from the sea, tired and sunburnt, Arjun would just be stepping out—hair uncombed, shirt half-buttoned, a careless confidence in his walk.
“Where are you going?” Raman asked one afternoon.
“Out,” Arjun replied, not stopping.
“School?”
“I’ll go later.”
But later never came.
It started small.
A missed class here.
A careless lie there.
New friends—boys who had nothing to do and all day to waste. They gathered near tea stalls, roadside benches, laughing loudly at nothing, mocking everything.
Time passed easily with them.
Responsibility did not.
“Your son wasn’t in school today,” a teacher told Raman one evening.
Raman’s heart sank.
He nodded quietly, thanked the teacher, and walked home slower than usual.
Each step felt heavier.
Not because he was tired—
But because he knew something was slipping away.
“Arjun,” he called that night.
No response.
When the boy finally walked in, it was late. Too late.
“Sit,” Raman said.
For once, his voice carried weight.
Arjun hesitated, then sat reluctantly.
“Your teacher came today,” Raman continued. “You’re not going to school.”
Arjun looked away.
“I go sometimes.”
“Sometimes is not enough.”
A pause.
“I don’t like it,” Arjun said bluntly.
The words hung in the air.
Raman blinked slowly. “Not liking something doesn’t mean you stop. I go to the sea every day. Do you think I like it when storms come?”
“That’s different,” Arjun shot back. “You don’t have a choice.”
“And you do?” Raman asked, his voice tightening for the first time. “Education is your choice. Your future is your choice.”
Arjun stood up suddenly.
“I don’t want your kind of future!” he snapped.
Silence fell.
Heavy. Crushing.
Raman didn’t speak again that night.
Not because he had nothing to say—
But because he didn’t know how to say it anymore.
Days turned into weeks.
Arjun stopped pretending.
School became a thing of the past.
Home became a place to eat and sleep—nothing more.
Raman watched.
Every day.
Every moment.
He watched his son drift further away, like a boat that had cut its anchor.
“Talk to him,” a neighbor suggested.
“Be strict,” another said.
“Boys are like that,” someone shrugged.
Advice came easily to others.
But no one knew how hard it was to stand in front of your own child—
And feel like a stranger.
One evening, Raman followed him.
At a distance.
He saw the group. Loud laughter. Careless words. Idle hands. No direction.
Arjun was in the middle of it.
Laughing.
Free.
As if nothing in the world mattered.
As if his father’s struggles didn’t exist.
Raman turned away.
Not out of anger.
But out of helplessness.
That night, he sat outside longer than usual.
The sea was calm.
Ironically calm.
“Where did I go wrong?” he whispered into the darkness.
There was no answer.
Only the sound of waves—coming and going, just like everything else in his life.
Inside the house, Arjun slept peacefully.
Without guilt.
Without worry.
Because youth often feels invincible.
Until life proves otherwise.
Raman looked at his son one last time before lying down.
His eyes didn’t show anger.
Only pain.
And a silent fear—
That one day, life would teach Arjun a lesson he could not protect him from.
Because not all storms come from the sea.
Some grow within us.
And by the time we realize it—
We are already lost.