Positive and / or Negative

After a 10-day struggle, Manan was standing at the reception of the hospital with his corona negative report in the hand. Some people were applauding him for winning the war.

But there was a deep shadow of uneasiness on Manan’s face, as he kept remembering the torturous and unbearable phase called “isolation” while returning home from the hospital.

A small room with minimal facilities, insufficient light, with no means of entertainment, no one spoke nor did anyone came close to him. Food was also simply stuffed in a plate and moved to him.

He was drawing a parallel between his isolation and the life in a jail, where a prisoner is kept isolated from the society due to crime committed by him. Isolation in itself is a punishment.

When he was in school, one of the usual punishments inflicted by teachers was to stand in isolation facing a corner. He kept pondering what crime he or his mother had committed.

On reaching home, Manan without exchanging any word with the enthusiastic wife and children standing at the door went straight to a dingy room in the neglected corner of the house, where his mother had been kept confined for the last five years, after his father’s demise.

He fell at his mother’s feet, and cried a lot. He came out with her frail mother telling her that all of them would now live together.

Mother was surprised, but his son had realized how painful the solitude is. The purpose of imprisonment is to reform. Manan’s isolation had served the same purpose. He was now a reformed person. His negative report became positive for him and his family.



–Kaushal Kishore