Every penny counts

Surrendering to God’s will and adapt according to it was a lesson that I learnt at a very young age. It was my third birthday when I lost my father. My elder brother was only six years old. We both did not have any clue about what had actually happened and kept on asking our mother to tell us about it. Being the strong woman she was, my mom took a decision to bring up us both in a way that my father dreamt of. She also knew the fact that it would not be so easy for her. Whether you consider it patriarchal or not, a father is the head of the house. Everyone in the family feels secure under his leadership, although it’s circumstantial.

We moved out of our native and made our way towards the northern part of the country. Through this journey, we kept on changing domiciles and found us well-versed with a fact that money rules one’s living. My mom used her passion that is music, to earn money to bring us up. She made us both study in English medium schools which helped us in keeping up with the others. One anonymous fact that we both came across was that life was our teacher rather than the studies.

I came across the most important lesson of my life in the beautiful state of Himachal Pradesh. Me and mom used to stay there whereas my brother was studying in a boarding school in Mussorie. My mom took a huge debt to meet the expenses of making him study there. She used to work in a school there and I was studying in the third grade of the same school and staying with her. Due to the huge debt and less income, we had to go through various difficult times in terms of bad financial condition at home. The last week of any month would always prove miserable and difficult for us as there was always a shortage of money at home.

It was another day of the last week of a month. We were eagerly waiting for Mom’s salary to arrive along with my father’s EPF pension. It was almost like waiting for Christmas so that Santa comes and delivers Christmas gifts. The day went on quietly with a tense situation wherein my mom told me that there was nothing left in the kitchen to eat and probably we both have to sleep with an empty stomach. I felt helpless as I could not do anything for my mom and probably she felt the same way too.

Eventually, the night dawned upon the blue sky and it was the time for dinner. Mom came up to me and told me to complete my homework. I was a bit hungry but didn’t feel like telling mom as she would be worried. Finally we both sat together to arrange something to eat. My mom had a small pouch wherein she used to keep some money mostly some left over coins. She got the pouch and started searching it for some money. I saw only five or six coins in it which made me even sadder. Mom took out the coins and counted them; it was five rupees. I understood that this was the budget for the dinner. I got the money from her and went down to a bakery shop which was about to be closed down. I bought a piece of small bread as it was the only thing I could get for five rupees.

I came to my house upstairs, sat with mom and shared the bread with a glass of water. I didn’t know how to react to such a situation. Either to blame God for this joke or accept it as God’s will. But certainly I noted a fact in my memories that every penny in this world counts. After having the dinner, we both slept off without talking to each other as if we were two strangers with nothing to talk. Day in and day out, several memories cross my mind and even some of them shade away with the tide of time, but this memory is stuck in the deepest of roots of my mind. Now when I lead a reasonably happy life, I still breathe with a fear that a similar kind of night may be across the corner.

The Diwali of drastic contrast

As soon as one hears the word Diwali his face glows up with happiness and expectations of some gifts coming his way. As the festival is called the festival of lights, the first thing one tends to imagine about Diwali is glowing lights all over the places whether it’s a home or a shop. Many houses and shops are studded with decorations worth of thousands of rupees. As the dusk calls upon, people of all ages come out to burn crackers, to hog sweets and to see other people relishing joy and happiness. People get ready for the new year and conduct poojas to satisfy their gods to bring them prosperity and happiness. Walking down any given street on a Diwali, would screen these images in front of you.

On a second thought, is Diwali really a festival of lights for everyone and for every family? Well, one might know the answer which is, it is not. On one hand, where you see houses studded with lights, filled with children’s howling and screaming and crackers bursting to the highest of the noises, on another hand one would find some houses dark and sad as if they have been discriminated from the festivities. These are the houses where the glowing of a single bulb so that the family gets some light in the night is far more important than a cluster of decorative lights running through the whole house. The residents of such houses only pray to God so that the darkness does not cloud upon their house. The families in these houses wait for their bread winners to bring some money in by night so that they could feed their bellies. These are not the houses who through their exemplary and expensive decorations try to flaunt their wealth on the festival of lights.

According to Hindu mythology, it is a day for Lakshmi Pooja where in the members of the house worship the goddess Lakshmi so that she brings wealth and prosperity to the family in the coming new year. People in their quest to satisfy the goddess offer numerous eatables and decorative materials worth a lot of money. Somewhere in this world, lie those families who can't even afford their god and goddess’ idols to be kept at home- forget about carrying out the rituals. They don’t even have anything to offer to their own appetites  so what would they offer to the goddess. Instead of praying for the coming year, they pray that God gives them the strength to somehow survive the remaining year. Should not the goddess bless their family with wealth and prosperity? What matters the most- the grandeur of the worship or the real faith in the worship?

While gazing at the children bursting crackers and eating sweets given by their parents, you almost sense their happiness. But there lies a section of children who don’t have either a single sweet to eat or a single cracker to burst. Are these children happy? They go to various houses and shops to ask for something to eat and share with their friends. Is this a festival for them? They might not even know about the festival but they only strive for and ask from their parents the same happiness that other children feel on this same day.

Coming to the so-called normal sections of the society, even for them the festival often turns out to be a nightmare more than a sweet dream. People come out of their houses to burst crackers which they have bought from the market worth of thousands of rupees. They love to hear the noise of the bursting crackers as they feel that they have justified their act of spending a lot of money on something that vanishes off as soon as its been put to test by a flame of fire. For people who burst the crackers, the noise is selfishly very pleasing but same is not the case with others such as the elderly people and the people who don’t support the noise. Does the grand festival give you an excuse to trouble other’s privacy or health?

There is a famous saying related to the flame of a candle that beneath the flame always lies darkness. The darkness right below the candle flame shows a deep contrast between the good and the bad. Probably, the above phenomena are a part of the darkness beneath the candle of the grandeur festival of light. The attempts to make the flame bigger and brighter, increases the darkness and hence, the contrast even more. The real act of humanity would be not to increase the flame but to decrease the darkness beneath it. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating the festival but what one needs to know is that spreading lights in others’ lives in the end increases the lights of his own happiness.

  

This idea might seem a bit vague and ambitious but it’s a fact that it is possible. If one succeeds to even bring light to one life, this would add to the brightness of his celebration of the festival of light and the coming New Year.

The day I felt the importance of a shelter

It was a time in my life, when I knew absolutely nothing about my near future. I was just a young boy walking down various streets and knocking up various doors just to seek the light that would shade away the darkness in my life. I had just completed my PUC and had to drop one year from studies in order to work as my elder brother was still pursuing his graduation. I was standing on the verge of a year that would well turn out to be the worst year of my life.

This was a time when I used to travel 45 kms from my home town to Chandigarh almost every day to get an opportunity to earn. Tumbling down various streets of Chandigarh, I was searching for a job to meet my family’s domestic expenses. And then finally one day, I got a job in a U.S. call center in Panchkula (a city right next to Chandigarh). It was a night shift job and I was asked to come for the training for the initial week.

I was glad to have found an opportunity that would solve my and my family’s problems to some extent. But I never knew that I was about to encounter various truths of life during this year. One such day arrived; I travelled for two hours in the bus right to my new office for another day of training. It was dusk when I reached my office. Eagerly waiting for the training to start, thousands of thoughts went through my mind- whether I will be able to do it or not.

Suddenly my Training Manager comes up and tells me that the training for the day has been cancelled as most of the trainees have not turned up for the day. I was initially relieved but soon worried as I knew I might not get a bus back to my town, it was already 8:30 p.m. Looking at the clock, I said to myself either I sleep off in the office or sleep at Chandigarh Bus Stand. I got tensed for a moment, and then suddenly one of the new trainees asked me to stay over at his place. I felt awkward but then agreed.

As we both made our way to the bus stop next to our office, I thought of going to the bus stand and try getting back home. The other guy agreed and I caught a bus and reached the bus stand. It was half-covered with darkness with people waiting for their late night buses and platform vendors making their way back to their homes.

I came down to the platform from where I could catch a bus to my town, but only got my hopes slammed after hearing that the latest bus was at 6:00 a.m. in the morning. Deep in my thoughts, I knew that I had to survive the whole night at the same platform. I took the notebook which I had in my hand and placed it below my head to let myself doze off.

I tried very hard to sleep but the noises around me kept on digging my head. I could easily hear people talking while boarding their buses and conductors whistling and howling as they prepared to make their move. As the night grew older, it started becoming chilly. I had to nothing to cover myself with. Same was the case with the dogs sleeping at a distance from me and people sleeping as they had to board their buses early morning. This was the time I came to know the importance of my home and shelter. I felt very lucky that every day I went back home, I used to get food from my mom and sleep under a proper shelter. Every night I felt secured and relaxed. But this night was not the same.

I was literally shivering due to the cold winds blowing around me. I felt disgusted but in a way also lucky that it was just a single night for me to go through. I realised the reality of the famous saying that when you go through some pain, then only you come across the pain felt by others. I somehow managed to spend the night gazing at the lights in the bus stand and taking small naps out of sheer fatigue. Then, finally I got the first bus in the morning and thanked my fate for being a bit supportive. I kept on fighting the various thoughts that came to my mind while making my way back to my town. As soon as I reached our home, I shared the experience with mom and slept off to get ready for another day.