It had been almost a year since I had visited my city, RAIGARH, the cultural capital of Chhattisgarh. The CHAKRADHAR SAMAROH and the grand JANMASHTMI Celebrations is the reason that makes this city distinguishable from others.
During my endeavour of clearing engineering entrance exam, just to encounter with another failure in already messed up life, by clearing the cut offs with low margin in the second most toughest exam in the nation i.e IIT JEE, posters on the walls of my street had changed from Fast and Furious 7 to Ghayal once again.
It was always a tough job for the likes of me, who has his own smug world to live, dreams of seventh heaven always worked as a layer between the eyes and books waiting for deep concentration and perseverance.
One hour of my study had thirty minutes of dreams. The day I saw harry potter the condition was even worse, the dreams seized more five minutes. Whatever, I saw previously, now winged their way, and every critical situation, which would bring me back to the verity, had a wing-gar-dium levi-O-sa end.
How mighty it would have been if problems can be resolved like that, the violence, corruption, crimes against the females, envy, hate; the concern of which hacks a valuable part of mind, leaving behind a very minor space to concentrate for success.
I often use to think 'Can we call those a success for which all the morals of human gets defeated?'
When a year had already passed, suggestions came from all directions including the teachers, only those should drop, who had missed the previous cut-off by few numbers.
Why the suggestion was not there when I entered their gates for the first time?
Of course, they were not fools! And nobody in this world has born to make their own loss, when profit is spreading its arms for you.
But even if they were honest enough to tell the actual fact, I would have been here for sure, the reason was; my father believed in exceptions more than what anyone should. My father who is an average heighted bespectacled person, with an extended gut, showing his extreme love towards oily foods especially pakodas.
He had grown up to a very efficient and successful person rising from a family that struggled even for the basic requirements of life after losing its head of family, when my father was only 15. He had seen impossible turning into possible, struggles in success, the nightmares in mighty dreams, and curse into boons. In short he had all the valid reasons for believing in exceptions.
I wondered if this could be also inherited from birth!
I had given the half-yearly exams of 10th standard, when the discussions of sending me to a coaching institute after the board exams started. My father wanted me to be in best possible institute.
I remember the day sharply when all those discussion became scruff of the bin.
It was a cheerful Tuesday morning. Fifteen minutes were left to seven when I woke up thanking god for blessing another beautiful morning. The instant I noticed the time, I hurried to the bathroom and got myself ready at sharp seven. My bus stop was five minutes away from my home, and the timing for bus to arrive was 7:05. While moving to the stop, I was feeling proud of myself for being so punctual, anyone around me could have been able to read that by broad grin on my face.
When I reached the stop, all what I was able to witness was the numbers on number plate on the back of bus getting smaller with every passing second. I reminded the scolding of my father whenever we used to go to our native place.
'It's better waiting for an hour on platform than missing the train. Be fast'
As I grew up I thought how after being an employee at railways he was able to have that point of view on punctuality, probably because he is a loyal serviceman.
I decided against going back home, I ran across the street that was able to get me to a stop where there was a chance of getting another bus. A cute boy of standard three, whom I had been introduced by one of the juniors as his younger brother just a week ago, gave me hope that I required. He smiled back in reply of my smile and said, 'Bhaiya, what made you come here?' Putting one hand on his shoulder I replied, 'Bus came early at my stoppage and I missed it.' 'What's the timing here' I asked for confirmation as five minute had passed and bus had not arrived till now. Before he could have replied anything the horn of school bus interrupted our conversation. As I stepped up on the bus a loud cheer by my friends, as a reaction of surprise, welcomed me. It took 15 minutes before I could see two yellow three stored buildings structured as temple having large grounds if front of each building and top of each building the alphabets in blue paint reading 'Maharishi Vidya Mandir'. After reaching school I kept my bag in classroom, passed a genuine smile randomly to few, and along with mine friends moved to meditation hall, where meditation was conducted daily after the prayers and the national anthem.
I had a reputation in school of not saying no to any challenge, this rare quality forced the head of my house rush towards me and say, 'The boy whom I had given the job to read news headlines in the assembly is absent. Would you manage to do that?' I had done that previously in many instants, sometimes even if I had no news I made it from my side. The news consisted of a bomb blast in some far off place in the world, a major accident somewhere, the ups and downs of share market as per my wish and finally the sports news which used to be the only true one in the whole. The completion of all the notebooks and timely signature on them assured that nothing unwelcoming is going to happen on that day.
Returning back from the school used to be one of the most exciting times in the whole day. Whole world would be our target and we brought out funny part of every relevant thing happening around this world and laughed till out stomach can't bore it more. The thumb wrestling in time left after laughing was another matter of attraction for few. Doing all these activities I was back home, I entered the compound of the large building where we have been living on rent since 7 years and went up the round iron stairs to reach the 2nd floor of the building. As I moved forward suddenly a voice froze my steps 'wait SARVESH, there is no one in your home, your mom has given me the keys.'
'Come inside and have some food, she has gone outside early in the morning and it would take some time in returning.' Aunt gave a glass of fruit juice and brought some food to eat. I was delighted with the care.
Her husband was a tall, wide, heavy person and had almost every quality that is expected from Punjabi man, came inside the room where I was seated. He was looking tense; the lines on his forehead were alarming.
He came in and said, 'go to your room and change your uniform, we have to leave for hospital'. All of a sudden my mind thought all the possibilities and mouth spoke up, 'But why?'
Aunt interrupted and said 'Nothing son, your father just fell off the bike and has some minor injuries. There is no matter of worry.' I went up and came back as fast I could. While I was standing in-front of aunt's door, I saw my sister entering the main gate. My sister, who is 3 years younger than me, is a very short tempered, stubborn girl. This description of her may be just a point of view that I have about her, the quarrels of us which often captured all the peace in home contributes the most to this point of view.
Three of us, I, my sister, and Punjabi uncle rode over uncle's Hero Honda to the hospital. As we reached the hospital, I found all the words of aunt as description of hulk in the size of banner.
My mother, who is probably the most religious lady I have seen in my life till yet, was sitting there in a big hall near operation theatre. My eyes shifted towards a transparent polyethene bag on the floor beside my mother. The bag contained white uniform of my father with blood stains on it. I was sure something more than what aunt has said is going on here, but I saw a sign of relief on my mother's face. My father was still inside the operation theatre and Doctor had said, 'If they had made any kind of delay, there could be all sorts of hopelessness'.
Probably just bad instead of something very bad relieved my mother. Father in an attempt to avoid from getting clashed had somehow put the ankle of the feet into the wheel of running motorcycle and a part of flesh parted away from his feet resulting is excessive blood flow .The doctors were trying their best to stitch the part, so that walking normally may become a possibility in the future.
I never thought, the news I used to fake in morning assembly could ever be related to my family too. I had heard it in some movie 'speak words carefully; you don't know when one of yours would be accepted and becomes reality'.
Am I the person responsible for it? The magic believer mind questioned?
My father was posted in a railway station of a very remote area which lacked education facilities, efficient market and where even quarters were not managed as per living standards. So our family decided to live in a nearby city where we could get quality education and other facilities. He used to go to his working station by any train which came nearly in timings of his duty, if no such trains were in those timing, He used to go by the last train any time before that timing. For the duty at 8am he got the train at 6:30am, at 3:00pm for duty at 4pm, but the real issue was the duty from mid night for which he had to go at 8:00pm.There were trains after that time too, but they had no stoppage at that station, and pulling of the chains was surely not a good idea. It's already a tough job to do duty in nights and even harder when someone has not got his nap properly before duty. He was obligated to complete his necessary sleep on the bench available in the office.
This situation continued till my father brought a motorcycle two years back, now for the duty at midnight he left home at 10:30 pm it took nearly half an hour to reach his working station.
That morning he was coming back from his mid night shift and the accident took place, that road always remained full with heavy vehicles one of such vehicles came in-front of him with a bit faster speed, the man sitting on the back seat, with usually whom mine father went to duty thought of a possible clash. He was filled with fear and his bewildered mind directed him to jump off the motorcycle. In this process my father lost balance of the motorcycle and somehow he got ankle of his foot inside the spinning wheel of motorcycle while falling badly on road.
The large part of backside of foot was cut by the wheel, it started bleeding excessively. The man who idiotically jumped off the bike to create this situation took out a towel from his bag and tried to bind the cut part, the flowing blood was still unstoppable. One from the crowd gathered around him, stopped an auto rickshaw coming towards them and with the help of the other people he was taken to the hospital. He was fortunate enough that the accident took place just five minutes away from one of the finest hospitals in the city, if the accident had been in more distant areas the unstoppable blood would have done all the damage.
I had grown up with lot of moral stories, one of those stories said, if you have done enough good work and still you are facing problems it means something worse was there in your destiny and due the effect of your fine deeds you escaped out it by facing minor difficulties, I thought this incident may be the same case with my father.
Doctor came out of the operation theatre and said, "We tried to stitch the part, but we are afraid whether it's enough". We will suggest you take appointment of a doctor, a specialist in this case in another city.
We took him to that doctor. He remained admit in hospital for another 2 month, my only work at that time was to help father for whatever he required. After those works a bulk of time passed on by sitting in the hospital garden with a constant, thoughtless mind, which knew the fact that it will take time to recover and till then waiting is the only option. It felt like everything has stopped and mind was thinking nothing other than getting signals from eyes to see the person passing in-front of me. How much damage did that constant state of mind had on exuberant nature of it, till yet I am unable to recognize.
He was discharged from the hospital when he was able to walk with some support; it took one year till he was able to walk on his own. During all this time economic depression was on and everything was the second priority than my father's treatment, his dream of sending me to one of the most expensive and famous coaching institutes for engineering entrance exam was also postponed.
The whole episode provoked a huge fear of uncertainty in my mind, every second which lacked physical labour my mind found itself busy in praying for avoiding the uncertainty. These qualms of uncertainty and prayers to avoid it captured a huge part of my mind; these replaced the dreams which were integral part before this incident.
A human is nothing before nature, and prayers were the only option left for an obligated person. I realised how difficult it was to follow the words that lord Krishna said about karma in Bhagavad Geeta, "Do the karma and leave behind the worries about fate." If it would have been so easy to apply that concept, God had not bothered himself for making people understand about it. This was not the first time when my father faced problems even after doing almost everything in limitation of humanity, earlier his dream of being I.A.S officer was shattered by timely tuberculosis.
Good deeds protect you from something very destructive in your destiny by giving you just giving small pains. Just think of a situation where it could have happened at night instead of morning, think if the accident would have been in a place somewhere far from the hospital, think if the cut would have been on sensitive nerves affecting life. But nothing wrong like that happened, it was probably the effect of the humanistic works he used to do, due to which his savings were always very less than what he could have afforded. We could say it negligible as per today's expenses and what could be required at the time of some uncertainty.