MOTIVATIONAL SHORT STORY
A very impressive and inspiring story .
A newspaper hawker used to come at about 5 in the morning to deliver the newspaper, and would find me walking in the gallery of my house. So, while crossing the main gate of my house, he would throw the newspaper in the balcony without stopping his bicycle, greet me with "Namaste Babuji" and then proceed with speed.
As the years went by and I got older, my time to awaken had also changed. Now I used to wake up at 7 a.m.
When he did not see me walking in the morning for several days, one Sunday at about 9 in the morning, he came to my residence to ask about my well-being. When he found out that all is well at home, and it was just that I had started getting up late, he said with folded hands, "Babuji! Can I say something?" I said, "Go ahead."
He said, "Why are you changing such a good habit of getting up early in the morning? It is for you that I pick up the newspapers from the Vidhan Sabha road early in the morning, and ride very fast to deliver my first newspaper to you. While coming, I just keep thinking that I shouldn't be late. You would be waiting for the newspaper."
I asked in surprise, "You bring the newspapers from Vidhan Sabha Road?" "Yes, that's where the first distribution starts from," he replied.
I asked him another question, "Then what time do you wake up?" "At half past two...so I reach there by half past three."
"Then?" I asked. "Then after distributing the newspapers, around seven o'clock I go back home and sleep.Then there's office at ten o'clock….to raise the kids, all this has to be done."
I kept looking at him for a few moments and then said, "Okay! I will keep your valuable suggestion in mind."
Almost fifteen years had passed since this incident. One morning, around nine o'clock in the morning, he came to my house and handed me an invitation card. He said, "Babuji! It's my daughter's wedding... I want you to come with your family."
When I looked at the invitation card with a cursory glance, it seemed like it was for the wedding of a doctor girl to a doctor boy. So, unintentionally I said, "Your daughter?"
And I don't know how he interpreted my question that he said with amazement, "What are you talking about, Babuji! Of course, it's my daughter!"
Correcting my stance and getting rid of my awkwardness, I said, "I meant, I'm delighted to see that you've made your daughter a doctor."
“Yes Babuji! Daughter has done MBBS from KGMC and her future husband is also an MD there…and Babuji! My son is also in his final year of engineering.”
Standing at the door, I was thinking whether I should invite him inside or not, when he said, "Okay Babuji! I'll leave now.....Still many more cards to be distributed.....please come with your family, my entire family will feel very happy to see you all."
Then I thought, I have never asked him to come inside till now, and suddenly today the invitation to sit inside would just be a sham. So with a formal _Namaste_ , I bid him farewell from outside.
After two years of that incident, when he once again came to my residence, it came out in conversation that his son was working somewhere in Germany.
Now, out of curiosity, I finally asked him the question : "How did you provide for the higher education of your children with your limited income?"
"Babuji! It's a very long story but I will try to tell you in brief. Apart from newspapers and my job, I used to do keep doing some work in my spare time. I also made my daily expenses very carefully. I used to go to the market only at night and buy only the cheap, seasonal vegetables like pumpkin, gourd, brinjal...because at night when it was time for the shops to close, the shopkeepers would give the vegetables for very less.
One day, my son went to play with the neighborhood kids to their house, and he came back with a long face and moist eyes. It seemed like he wanted to ask us a lot of questions. When we all sat down to eat in the evening, my son started crying on seeing the vegetable and _roti_ in the plate and said to his mother, "What is this... the same dull, tasteless vegetables like pumpkin, brinjal, gourd...this dry food… I am tired of eating all this. When I go to my friends' house, they have peas-paneer, koftas, dum aloo, what not! And here, just one vegetable and dry _roti_ ."
I looked at him lovingly and said, "First you stop crying, then we'll talk about it."
Then I said, "Son! Always look at your own plate. If we look into what others have, we will not even be able to enjoy what we actually have. Whatever we have in the present, we should accept it from the heart, thank God and always keep trying to improve our future. Always believe in yourself, that only you have the power to change your future and no one else. Keep trying to better yourself."
"My son wiped away his tears and then looked at me with a smile, as if trying to say, that I promise you that from today onwards I will not compare my life with anyone and do my best to make my future better. And since then, none of my children made any demands of any kind from me. With limited resources, they started to improve their life. Babuji! Wherever they are today, is the result of their own sacrifices."
I kept listening to his words silently and intently. I was able to feel the power of a father's love in the deepest core of my heart.
*"Our future, our destiny, and how well we build it depends on us."
