Ba’s Pension, a short story
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| Image: ChatGPT/Concept: LB Thapa |
Ba’s Pension, a short story
This story takes us back to a time when the world seemed to stop without warning. The relentless coronavirus continued its rampage, casting a shadow of fear across the globe. No one felt beyond its reach, and people everywhere were forced to live in constant anxiety, doubt, and uncertainty.
Bhim Bahadur’s family lives in downtown Pokhara, and they too are not spared from the looming threat. Under government orders, they remain confined by lockdown, and with each passing day, life grows harder.
Bhim Bahadur, a retired Indian Army pensioner, had turned seventy just two months earlier. Yet no one in the family cared enough to celebrate his birthday—or even to wish him well.
Bhim Bahadur lives with his son. About five years ago, his wife, Kanchhi Maya, fell gravely ill and passed away. Her death shattered him, leaving him broken and adrift in grief. After she was gone, there was no one in the family with whom he could share his sorrow, and as time went on, he grew lonelier within his own home.
Balaram, Bhim Bahadur’s only son, had tried to enlist in both the British and Indian armies but was turned away each time. Undeterred, he went to Malaysia in search of work. However, misfortune followed him there—the company he worked for was blacklisted, forcing him to return home.
After a long spell of unemployment, Balaram began working as a land broker, but his earnings were irregular and not enough to support his family. During this time, he married a woman without his father’s consent. He brought her home while returning from Chitwan, where he had gone to negotiate a land deal. She appeared to be considerably older than him. Balaram never revealed her caste or spoke of her past—let alone anything about her family.
From the very beginning, Bhim Bahadur did not like the woman and avoided speaking to her directly. He had hoped to arrange a marriage between his son and a young woman he knew, but when his son brought home a woman who looked like the mother of two children, his dreams were shattered.
After his wife’s death, Bhim Bahadur felt increasingly lonely and alienated in his own home. He felt like a burden to his family rather than an asset—as if no one even cared whether he existed. The only one who loved him was a small dog he had brought from the street—starved and abandoned.
The little puppy that Bhim Bahadur had rescued grew into an adult dog, and he lovingly named him Kalu. Kalu was his only close companion. He would sit beside him and play with him.
Not a day passed without Bhim Bahadur remembering his wife. She had cared for him with unwavering devotion and love. In her absence, he lost all joy and interest in life. Yet his son showed little concern for him. As dusk settled in, Balaram would lose himself in locally brewed liquor, returning home long after night had fallen.
Bhim Bahadur asked his son not to drink so much every evening, but Balaram never paid any heed. Instead, he blamed his father for ruining his life by not spending enough money on his career.
“What did I not do for you?” Bhim Bahadur said angrily. “I put you in a good boarding school and gave you every facility. But you had no interest in studying. You even failed the SEE exam twice.”
Then one day, while the lockdown was still on, Bhim Bahadur developed a high fever. Everyone in the family grew alert, suspecting he might have caught the coronavirus.
“Father, your symptoms are those of corona,” Balaram said. “We think you should go to the hospital. I cannot put the whole family’s lives at risk.”
“But I’m sure I haven’t caught the virus,” Bhim Bahadur replied confidently. “It’s just a seasonal cold and a mild fever. I always get this around this time of year.”
“But what’s wrong with going to the hospital and staying there instead of staying here and infecting us?” asked Chandika, Balaram’s wife, rather tersely.
“I don’t want to go to the hospital because I don’t want to share a room with corona patients,” Bhim Bahadur tried to assure them. “I know I’ll be fine on my own within a week or so.”
“If you think you haven’t caught corona, then fine,” Chandika said. “But I don’t want to take any chances. You’d better go to the abandoned cowshed and live there. We’ll drop off food and medicine.”
Balaram had no choice but to agree with his wife. Balaram’s clothes and bedding were put in a corner of the cowshed.
The cowshed was damp and had no ventilation. As his fever rose, Bhim Bahadur grew weak and lost his appetite. Chandika put a mask on her face and plastic gloves on her hands, protecting herself thoroughly before going near the cowshed. She was so afraid of the virus that she literally threw a bottle of water and some paracetamol pills from a distance, without even trying to see how her father-in-law was doing.
His fever kept climbing, and soon Bhim Bahadur lost consciousness. When he opened his eyes, it was already eight in the morning. He felt extremely weak, having eaten nothing since the previous evening. Then he realized he was not alone. His beloved dog Kalu was with him. While everyone else treated him as if he were corona positive, his faithful dog stayed by his side.
Sensing that something terrible might happen, Chandika advised her husband to send his father to a government hospital for treatment.
“I don’t want your father staying near us anymore,” Chandika said doubtfully. “The virus has spread all over the world—it would take no time to reach us from the cowshed.”
“Then what do you suggest?” asked Balaram, still looking at his wife. She told him to call the police, and they would handle the rest. Balaram did as his wife advised.
When the police arrived, Bhim Bahadur’s condition had worsened considerably. He could not stand on his own. The police called an ambulance, and Bhim Bahadur was immediately taken to a nearby government hospital.
Balaram and his wife watched from a safe distance as his father was taken away. Bhim Bahadur could see satisfaction on the faces of his son and daughter-in-law, not a trace of sadness.
At that moment, Bhim Bahadur remembered his wife, and his eyes welled up with tears. Yet his dog Kalu was still beside him. The medical staff had to struggle to keep Kalu away from Bhim Bahadur. Even Bhim Bahadur asked Kalu several times to leave him, but Kalu remained stubborn. He wanted to go with Bhim Bahadur in the ambulance. As the ambulance drove away, Kalu ran after it until it disappeared from sight.
Understanding the seriousness of the situation, the doctors immediately took blood samples from Bhim Bahadur and sent them for testing. In the meantime, they gave him routine drugs, and he was kept under close observation.
When the test results came back, the doctors found that Bhim Bahadur did not have the coronavirus. The test was negative. He was given IV fluids and other medications for three days, after which he was discharged from the hospital.
Bhim Bahadur walked slowly toward the hospital’s main gate. He stood there for a while, lost in thought. Feeling weak, his legs barely holding him, he sat down on a nearby bench.
His surprise knew no bounds when his beloved dog Kalu appeared from nowhere—wagging his tail, overjoyed. Bhim Bahadur could no longer hold back his tears. He held Kalu close to his chest, and together they walked in the opposite direction from home.
A few days later, Balaram called the hospital to ask about his father. He was surprised to learn that his father had not contracted the coronavirus—his test results were negative.
“We discharged Mr. Bhim Bahadur about three days ago,” the doctor in the emergency department said.
Balaram did not know what to do or where to search for his father. He contacted his father’s friends and all his relatives, but no one had any information about his whereabouts.
Finally, he decided to place an ad in a national daily newspaper. In the ad, he offered a reward of forty-five thousand rupees to anyone who helped bring his father home or provided a tip that led to finding him.
When Chandika learned about the reward, she was not happy.
“Have you gone mad?” she asked angrily. “Why did you offer such a huge amount? Don’t you think that’s unnecessarily too much?”
Balaram replied, “Don’t be silly. That amount is not too much. It’s exactly equal to my father’s one month’s pension.”
An enigmatic smile appeared on Chandika’s face. She went to clean her father-in-law’s room and neatly arranged all his clothes.
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