For the first time in Hasan’s ten years of life, he was going to be on his own. His mother was going out of the country for two weeks for personal work, and from being the baby of the family who would snuggle with his mother every night before falling asleep, Hasan was going to be home alone.

Though his father and his brother, grandmothers, uncles, aunts and cousins were all going to be there, it would be the first time that Hasan, a thoroughly pampered child, would be without the constant mothering of his helicopter mum.

At first Hasan tried to emotionally blackmail his mother into not going, but after she promised to bring back his favourite toys and candies from the trip, he grudgingly let her go.

When he went to drop off his mother at the airport, he had a huge thorny lump in his throat and teary eyes as he wondered how he was going to survive without her for the next two weeks. He started missing her before she had even left, and although he felt like bawling like a baby, he was too embarrassed to cry out loud. But when his father hugged him, Hasan couldn’t stop crying in his arms.

When they returned home, Hasan, who had always been told by his mother what to do, now had no one to tell him to wash his hands or finish his dinner. Though he was very upset about his mother leaving, suddenly he also realised the potential for partying, away from his mother’s discipline. There would be no checks or balances. He could stay up late, eat junk food and use the internet to his heart’s content.

So now when his father would get back home tired after work, and after they had had their dinner and some family time, his father would remind Hasan that it was his bedtime. Hasan would agree surprisingly easily. But after his father would switch off the lights and shut the door, Hasan would fake sleeping, wait for some time to make sure the coast was clear and then sneakily stay up till as late as he could stay up, with none the wiser.

Back from school, he would think, “Homework? Naah, I’ll make the most of my freedom and have some fun instead!”

So he would watch movies and play video games non-stop, till his father would get back home. He would call in sick for tuitions, pretending he had a fever or sore throat. Instead of eating the food made at home, he would raid the junk food in the pantry. Though the cleaning lady would keep asking him to give his uniform for laundry, he would lounge in it the whole day and change only in the evening. In short, he was having so much of a ball that he started enjoying his mother being away.

Hasan thought he was on top of his game and started doing this daily — sleeping till he could no longer stay awake and then waking up with a lot of difficulty at seven in the morning and barely making it to school on time. But after a few days, his partying started catching up with him. In school, he was barely managing to stay awake. In a class when he dozed off the third time, his teacher threatened to douse him with water.

Things started getting out of his control. His homework remained undone. He failed his tests. He wasn’t able to find his uniforms to wear to school. His clean and dirty clothes were all mixed up. He felt weak and lethargic from eating only junk food.

One day in school when Hasan turned up in a dirty, wrinkled uniform and an almost empty school bag with most of his books and stationery missing, his teacher finally demanded to know what was going on with Hasan.

When Hasan told her things were not in order because his mother was not in town, he was expecting a kind smile and sympathetic words. Instead, he got a wake-up talk from the teacher.

“You are old and capable enough to take care of yourself. It’s not your mother’s job to handle your school work. You have to be responsible for your own attendance, homework, tests preparation, uniform, bag, books and stationery. Is she the student or are you the student?”

The teacher’s talk struck a chord with Hasan; the words sank into his brain and made sense to him. His life and school, class were his own. He had to own these and manage them on his own.

For the first time, when Hasan went home, he thought about doing his homework without anyone scolding him about it. After eating a proper homemade lunch, he rested for a while and then dug out his diary, in which he had noted his homework responsibly for the first time.

He cleared his writing desk of all the junk that had piled up on it. Then he did his homework, all of the homework he had got for the day. He felt a sense of accomplishment.

After this he packed his bag for the next day, kept his uniform in the laundry basket, sat through an hour of tuition, and then he was free to eat, drink, play, sleep and surf the net as he pleased. By evening, he had had all his fun and by ten he was so tired that he fell asleep.

The next morning he woke up fresh and early, got dressed and reached school on time, where the teacher gave him a big smile and a thumbs-up.

With his life back on track, Hasan realised that whatever his mother had been doing (which he used to think was bossing him around, being strict and ruining his life), she had been doing for his good.

“My mother would tell me to do all these things because they were good for me. I should be doing them by myself for my own good.”

Hasan decided that when his mother would return, he was going to give her the best surprise by showing her he had grown up into a responsible boy.

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 16th, 2017