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.
