When Rahul goes missing...

This is a true story and whatever is described here took place in the year 1999 in a small town in UP, Shahjahanpur, where I lived for 8 years before moving to Lucknow.
I was in class 7th at that time.
....................................................

It was Saturday morning ,I was getting late for school. Half yearly exams were going on. I grabbed my toast from mom and took my bicycle out.
"Rahul...Rahul" I shouted twice . No one answered.
So I put my bicycle on stand and rang the doorbell of Rahul's home.He lived next door to me.
His landlord came out and told me that Rahul was missing since the day before.
"what...!!" i was shocked .Only yesterday morning I had accompanied him from school to home after exam.
I informed my mother about what had happened before hurrying away for my exam, as
it was already 8:15 and exam was to begin at 8:30.

Rahul and I studied in same school and same class but different sections.
He used to be very shy and introvert kind of person.
I won't call him as my friend , we shared a very formal kind of relationship restricted to just borrowing notes and at times playing cricket.

After giving my exam when I returned back, still there was no sign of Rahul.His mother was very upset and had broken down.
Rahul's younger sister was consoling her.
(A quality which I admire most about girls. Even in the toughest of times how easily they seem to have come over with difficulty and take care of others. For her age the maturity with which she dealt with the situation was simply amazing.)
Anyways that was my last exam. There was rumor that Rahul had been kidnapped and thus I was not allowed to go anywhere.That entire day I stayed in my house itself.

His mother told us that previous evening he went to buy some stuff from the nearby market. Strangely he had refused take his bicycle with him.
Everyone one was wondering on what could be possible reason for his disappearance.
And mostly people agreed that he must have been kidnapped but again there was no call from kidnapper yet.
His family had no enemies as such so chance of a revenge due to rivalry was also ruled out.

Two days passed by ,but there was no sign of Rahul. There were no phone calls either.
His father finally informed police.

On Monday night , Rahul's father got a call from somewhere and was stunned to hear his son's voice on phone. He was sobbing and told his father that he was kidnapped and that kidnappers took him to some other city. He had somehow managed to run away and that now he was hiding at that city's railway station.Everyone was relieved to know that atleast he was alive.

But still we didn't know where he was.
This was when police came in picture again. The call was traced to a city Moradabad. The call was made from the phone booth of city railway station.
His father accompanied with Police went to the city , and by the next day Rahul was back in home.

But the actual thing was still unresolved.
Who kidnapped him? Why?
Why kidnappers never called?
How did Rahul manage to get away from them?
But I was wondering on completely different question
"Was Rahul actually kidnapped?"

His statement was recorded by police. The police found lot of discrepancies between what he had told to his father on phone and to what he was telling now to police.
Slowly the mystery unwinded. Rahul was never kidnapped.
He had run away from his home !

Again there was million dollar question ; still waiting to be answered....
Why did he run away from his home?
What had forced a 14 year old kid to take such a strong step?

I think I always knew the answer.
You will be surprised to know the actual reason, as was I.

I knew how much his parents wanted him to excel in studies actually who's parents don't want their child to be a topper.
In fact he was good in studies but not probably the best. He had managed to get a class rank of 6th and 7th on various occasions but had not been able to improve further.
He had told me the previous day (before he disappeared); that he had screwed his science paper very badly and that there was hardly any chance of him being in even top 10 of class.
At that time I thought that it was not that big a deal and these were still only half yearly exams.
But eventually it turned out that it was indeed a big deal for him.
He just could not bear the depression of performing badly in exams and ran away from home. He probably thought that he won't be able to bear the embarrassment when the result comes out.


I have seen it many times that parents put too much expectations on their child and at times it actually becomes so difficult for the child to live up to that. Every parents want their child to be a topper. And the worst thing which parents do is to compare their child with others.
"When Sumit can get 90% why can't u"
"Akash won the essay competition why did not you?"
"Rakesh has got the scholarship what were you doing?"
"Nikhil studies for 6 hrs a day why don't you?"

and there are many more questions like that.

Thankfully in my case, Parents were very supportive atleast in later half of my education and specially during my engineering entrance examinations.


I really don't know who was to be blamed for entire Rahul incident ;
The parents who expected too much from their child
or
The child who misinterpreted his parents expectations.