Addicted to the world of ↵

Happy Cheti Chand to all of you.

How was your day? Mine was very hectic but highly satisfying. Today was our new year, I was away from my family and home, but yet Happy. Also was the first day of Navratri fasting, so I was feeling very positive about coming nine days.

While I was rushing through my morning routines to the office and went ahead with today’s targets, I decided that holiday or not, will try to celebrate the New Year in true Sindhi style.  I found out that in Baroda also, Cheti Chand processions are organized, though not grand like Ahmedabad, but sure it was worth the watch to get a feeling of homeliness...

Hence I made the plan with a relative of mine in Baroda. As decided I had to reach at his place, which was about 4 KM from my apartment. I rushed from office, had my tea, changed and found myself late again. In midst of hurry and catching the auto I realized that my one of my sandals had started tearing up and needed mending immediately. Cursing myself I reached at his place in auto, only to find a cobbler outside his gate.

It was like Yahoo! I was on cloud 9, when saw him. I rushed to him and told, “Bhaiya,  please sandal pe ek nail laga do” and then my world shattered or  actually I came back to this world.

The man looked up, didn't replied or gave any expression back, just bowed his head and started working again. Then I saw, what he was doing, he was mending sandals of some unfortunate pedestrian like me. I cursed the delay, and started counting till 100, hoping that by the time I reach the mark, he will complete his job. He finished mending the sandal, sealed it with knot, cut the thread, and before that I had mine in my hand, with the repeated request, “Bhaiya, please sandal pe ek nail laga do”. He didn’t even look up, and started working on another sandal of the same person. I got irritated so much that I decided to leave the mending work, go to the person’s place and borrow a pair from somebody there. I was about to turn then something hit me,

What was I angry at? The cobbler did nothing wrong. He was just attending the customer who came first. What if, that person needed mending on each of the pair? His condition was much worse than me. Can’t I wait for the few minutes?

Then the realization struck me, I can’t wait for the minutes, as I am addicted to get my job done in nano seconds, living a ↵ life. Yes, I am addicted to the computer world, Where if I need anything I just Google it.  If anything needs repairing I have the back up or clean up option. If I am getting delayed, I scan the system, restart it, enhance the RAM or just change my system. Is your story same too?

We spent so much time in the virtual world that our realities have blurred. Whatever we do on computer, we feed a ↵ enter command, for the result. In the process, we have forgotten about how the universe works out there. Everything cannot be goggled in real world; universe runs on its own sets of rules and doesn’t recognize this ↵ command. But we don’t accept it anymore. What we accept is by today’s example like this,

<Try to get rid of loneliness>  <enter>

<result= lets go for the procession>  <my reaction = happy>

<Try to find a company, ask the relative>  <enter>

<result= he agrees>  <my reaction = happy>

<Getting delayed>  <enter>

<result= no performance enhancer for me>  <my reaction = Irritated>

<Error error error, the sandal’s broken>

<The sandals broken what to do ?>  <enter>

<result= saw the cobbler on reaching the place>  <my reaction = Super happy>

<Cobbler, mend the sandal>  <enter>

<result= no result, waiting>  <my reaction = astonished, annoyed, irritated>

<Waiting about to end, level 1 complete>

< Cobbler mend the sandal>  <enter>

<result= no result, waiting, level 2 starts>  <my reaction = super annoyed, irritated, lost>

What I really wanted was to speed up my work. In my mechanism, I didn't saw his other customer or his present assignment; I forgot that the man is not my computer system, who will work on my commands. Rather I have ignored so far that how universe has helped me throughout the day, without any virus cleaning from my side. When I decided to go out, it was because of my willingness; when I got delayed, it was my tiredness that delayed me; when that relative agreed, it was his friendliness & helpful nature; when my shoe got torn, it was just the end of its shelf life; when I saw the cobbler, it was just a sheer coincidence, luck or a miracle for me & not any goggled or GPS query result. When the cobbler didn't accept my command, it was his work ethics, not low performance. The realization came when the man, worked like a human & not machine, he worked on the principle of “Ethics” & not “Priority”. He observed “First came, first served” but my mind not used to wait for the delays, wanted to clean up his system, and accelerate the process to the Nano seconds. His mere cool just woke me up from my trance, Am I really a human? Or just a robot designed to feed commands.

After spending so much time on the computers, we have distanced ourselves away from the human emotions. We have forgotten about little joys of luck, miracles, help, favors, morals, grief and love.  I felt sorry for myself, resolving never to lose myself again. Trying to find the human in me again, on this New Year, I am very happy that the God send that cobbler in my life, to make me realize what I was missing and it’s about the time to break the addiction of ↵ life.