छाया

Summary

The story follows a man who returns home after a year and a half away, prompted by a sense of obligation rather than genuine desire. He arrives without informing his family, experiencing a mix of romanticism and detachment. At home, he finds his mother, whom he had imagined bedridden from his father's letters, sitting and cutting vegetables. This sight relieves his anxiety, but he soon realizes his father's descriptions were not exaggerated; his mother's health is indeed fragile. He observes her habits, like falling asleep mid-conversation, which he and his sisters had always dismissed as uncouth. He recalls his childhood judgments of his mother, such as his irritation at her inability to offer hospitality to guests or her strictness with a refugee maid who could not make bread properly. He remembers praying for his mother to be kinder to the maid, a memory he had used to justify his own moral superiority. Now, seeing his mother's aged face and new wrinkles, he realizes that in childhood, one only sees others' faults, not one's own. He reflects on his own snobbery, like considering his mother's poor family as "uncouth" and refusing to call his maternal uncles by their proper title. He feels ashamed, recognizing that if his mother's family had been wealthy, he would not have thought of her that way. He also realizes that his own supposed goodness is hollow; he is a "silent rogue" who thinks bad thoughts but does not act on them. His sister's comment that their parents are now seventy and that it is frightening to think of their mortality unsettles him. As his departure nears, his mother's health worsens. He spends his last days in a state of heightened awareness, lying awake at night listening to her mutter in her sleep, recalling her past wisdom, such as advising a beautiful bride to have no more than two children, a remark his father had praised as progressive. He realizes that despite her illiteracy, his mother is ahead of many who pretend to be modern.