Gurmeet Singh Bekraar
The train suddenly screeched to halt at some secluded station. I peeped out of the black tinted window glass of my AC coach to have a glimpse of the outer. At around 45 degree in the searing June, it seemed fireballs of intense heat blowing hot outside. It wasn’t few moments later when my eyes found a familiar face standing with a small kid. He repeatedly wiped clean his face of cascading sweat over-draining his forehead. I hardened my eyebrows to recall the well acquainted fellow. Well he turned out to be my class fellow at the college years ago. I was about to get up to meet him when the negativity in me revived my old rivalry days of college. He often used to tease me with racist remarks which on many occasions flared up into a scuffle between us. We stopped talking to each other and in this fashion we ended our college period “naraaz” and annoyed. The fellow, mellowed with age and time, stood before me with a beautiful child. My inner said : come on Gurmeet, forget the past go get him and renew your friendship but the past hounded my unpleasant memories.
It forbade me doing a good deed. Mutely, I kept watching his movements till the train chugged off. I had missed out a providence ordained opportunity to meet my college days friend. Till day, I was never to see him again.
I had a paternal aunt (Bua Ji) at Jammu whom I often went to see and had a night stay at theirs on week ends while I put up in a college hostel during my graduation. I had a gala time with my cousins who were of my age. Once we had a serious quarrel over some trivial issue that angered me to the extent that I stopped visiting them. Months later it became apparent to them that I was “naraaz” with them.
Once I came face to face with my paternal uncle (Fufa Ji) who was gentleman to the core of his heart, in the bazaar. He like a diplomat took me into a nearby restaurant and feasted me on a sumptuous evening snacks. While departing, he earnestly beckoned with his hands in the direction of his house and said: Dere par zaroor aana.
For few moments I spewed out my annoyance down the drain and promised to come on the coming week end. As ill luck would have it, I could not make it on that week and the following many week ends. Six months passed by only to receive a bad news one evening at the hostel that my uncle had passed away on a sudden cardiac arrest. Tears choked my emotions and alas I had no time to make repentance for not having made my promise. That way I lost an irreperable opportunity to meet my more than a nice uncle. The man and moments were gone forever. Imagine the gravity of occasion when knowing well that those moments which could have been at your command, have snatched away the most prized possession from you and you let it go off so worthlessly.
Decades later it still fills up my heart for having missed out on many diamond opportunities of having met my uncle may be on many occasions had I been not “naraaz” with them.
It is so foolhardy to not believe in : To err is human and forgive divine. We always tend to carry with our worries so many dispensable tribulations arisen out of our false egoism that in the process we miss out on our life like dead leaves-shriveled up, biodegraded:-We forget that in the pursuit of living we are dying to live instead of living to live. The events in my life has taught me a hard lesson that do not close the door for even your foes not to talk of friends, you never know when they may come back in your life .Here I am reminded of a beautiful quote: Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh , be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.
An another episode which shook my life to the extreme, happened in the course of my office routine. I have an inborn flair for seeking humor in the tit-bits of practical day to day life. Those who know me , well, laugh it off but others may think otherwise. A few new apprentices, more than half my age, joined service at my office a couple of years ago. Among them were two girls. As per my comic instincts once I made a remark, that the amount of time taken for make up to enhance their looks might well fetch an handsome business if otherwise devoted to organization by working beyond stipulated working hours. One of them read its opposite meaning and well the hell broke loose. I received the very next day a stern reprimand from her dad for being so explicit to the kid half my age. It took me half an hour on the phone to convince the gentleman that what I intended to say was altogether opposite. Any how the talk concluded with mutual agreement on the misunderstanding. Yet the fallout turned out to be upon me as the young girl stopped talking to me. It proved to be so embarrassing for me for the period we were together in the same office. Though I felt sorry on many occasions yet the little girl remained “naraaz” with me. An year later luckily she left the job to join an another company on officer cadre. On the day of her farewell party, all set up for a nice gift and feast, she did not turn up. We all kept waiting till the evening when her message on my cell phone popped up: Not from the hands who have such a bad mind.
Needless to say the humiliation felt by me was far many times more demeaning than what she might have felt at my words. The difference was of only intentional and unintentional. I wish I could never hear these words from my friends and well wishers any time in my life that: mein naraaz hoon aapse …. !
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