When "It rained that day hence Pappu passed!" made sense

Pappu makes me wonder if an eight year old child can be so internally confined. Having spent the last two years being incessantly tormented , his frustration had snowballed into an anger fireball , to quench which it would have taken more than just a bucket of water. In the town of Timbuctoo, Pappu had already been a living legend, for he was the only child to have failed standard two , not once but twice. When the school master's only son fails in the very school where his father taught , it leaves a scar right on the forehead of the family tree. Since his first stint at failing Pappu's father , Pappu senior had never been the same. There had been a time when a bright student would spur the enthusiasm of Pappu senior, giving him this internal confidence of being able to create one more scholar for the benefit of the country, one more Kohinoor , so to say , of his very own village. Pappu had changed it all for him, every good student reminded him of his own inability to deliver a son who make him proud, leave aside the school, village, he had lost his enthusiasm to teach , his presence in class was a mere formality. Pappu knew all this, he had lost count of the number of hours he spent cursing himself , he thaught it to be some kind of self torture, a self punishment so to say. Pappu senior had vowed his wife never to lay a hand on his son , no matter what be his fallacy and he never broke it. It was not uncommon for Pappu to curse the moment when his mother entangled the vow over Pappu snr. The only thing Pappy could offer his father today was his cheek and every time he asked to be punished , he father smiled subtly , took him into his arms and said " You're my mistake , you gave me the happiness when you were born and now that you bring me shame I shall bear that too, it's my dharma to look after you, to care for you and after all your birth was'nt that bad an incident after all, it took me and your mother 12 years to have you. The very people who would throw me a " salaam master ji! " at the front me would mock me as an " impotent" behind my back, it was your birth that rid me of that epithet and it was a stone in the eye for those who had so easily disgraced my manhood . Back then you seemed the carrot from God , right now you seem to be the stick." Pappu held the fountain raging to leak within him, went to the balcony and poured his heart out to the Tulsi , a plant that he considered next to his mother ( Hindu mythology) , his tears had watered the plant and when he was all dry he went inside put his head down and slept. The village had been a dry place , it hadn't rained for the last five years, the only source of water for the entire village had been a single water pipe from the xyz dam which would run as if a drunkard were controlling its operation, flowing as fast as the Shatabdi at times and majoritarily as still as the platform itself. The people had found worshipping the diety more convenient than to complain to the administration , Pappu Senior had done enough on his part to reincarnate fellow villagers from the entrenched demons of priest hood or illogical animal sacrifices, but obviously to no redemption, for the practices never cease.

Pappu had been thwarted by his father's reply, his mother , on the other hand ,had always been indifferent towards Pappu's academic performance for she like others believed that Pappu could rather climb Mount Everest than pass his examination. It was ordinary practice for Pappu to get associated with names like duffer, fool , good for nothing , Pappu Snr's illegimate son, stolen from the orphanage et all. Pappu snr could see his son being mocked, he knew he could do nothing, it took him back to his pre Pappu birth days when he used to be mocked at his for inability to give a hier.

It was two weeks before the examination, the sight of a rennaissance when Pappu opened his book and then there was no stopping him. Pappu had vowed in front of mother Tulsi to leave everything and bring back to his father his lost prestige, to remove the blot on his family name. He lost count of time, watching the very clock staring which he would earlier pass his unbearable study time , was now a waste of precious seconds. Lost as he was , he could not remember coming out of the room more than once a day, his parents were happy in their much practiced ignorance to their only son. The final day arrived, Pappu embraced himself with the uniform with a smile of a martyr going into the battle field, he knew the pipe had only two ends now, either he would return with passing marks or he wouldn't return at all. A minute before the question paper was going to be distributed he asked himself if he had worked hard enough, a practice taught to him by his father, this practice had appeared to him rather silly earlier for he never got back an answer , but this time he got one and he kept it a secret even to himself, for ahead of him lay a task too detrimental to get distracted. He was lost in those three hours, his eyes went dry, for it was only seldom that he blinked , blinking would break his concentration,he said to himself. But there was moment when not only he but all others around him were left flabbergasted, the window broke open and came with droplets of life, rain. It was like christmas in the classroom , students had left their sheets for now they were dancing as if they were in a marriage procession , the invigilator couldn't but less complain for he threw a few legs himself. But there was one student who was like a statue with a moving right hand, it was Pappu, the rain for him was a trivial phenomenon , he knew he could not afford to waste those irrevocable three hours and then they ended , just when he was done with the last question. The result had to be announced in two hours, Pappu enjoyed the two hours flushing himself in the rain , a phenomenon which to faint to remember for it had been five years when it last occured. Pappu knew the importance of this rain , it could have been his last rain ever witnessed , his fate was going to be stuck on the notice board in two hours and he knew that it was beyond him now.

It came like a truck of complementary biryani, students flocked to see their result. Pappu approached the notice board as if it were the longest yard of his life. He started from the bottom but couldn't find his name, he was left heartbroken , continuing to skim through the names from bottom to top, somewhere in the middle of the list he lost courage, he sat down considering the efficacy of one type of suicide to the other when his drooping ears intercepted this unanimous noise " Arre! Pappu pass ho gaya" , apparently Pappu had checked the wrong list , he had passed and that too with a good margin. It was hard to decipher the tears from the raindrops on his face, his face gave the expression as if he was going to cry his throat out . With the news on his lips he went to his father, Pappu snr, who sat in his house anticipating that Pappu would fail yet again. Pappu reached the front door and shouted " Papa , I passed! " ,his father came outside with cautious steps for he thought that this happiness would make him fly off the ground like superman . He tucked Pappu so hard in his arms, that Pappu could smell that his father hadn't taken a bath today. There was a unanimous awe and apprehension over Pappu passing the exam , only when it was being discussed among a collegium of hippocrates who were enjoying the rain with jalebis , one of them said " it has rained after five god damn years, but it rained today, it's an auspicious day, perhaps that's why Pappu could pass his exam " and the others agreed and the word spread like fire : " It is raining today so Pappu passed his exam !". Pappu heard it and tried to remember what answer he got when he asked himself if he had worked hard enough, the answer was : " yes , I've worked hard but just not hard enough, could have done more" and then he said to himself that maybe it was the rain and thereby continued the legendary slogan " it rained that day hence Pappu passed the examination". For Pappu his fireball of anger and frustration had finally been quenched by the rain and that was just what he needed.