Position,
power, pasture surrounded dwelling, luxury car, fat bank balance, family and
friends give life a vacation from worries. A person often undergoes such
experience, most often while dreaming. Things are totally opposite in real
time. Life appears to be entirely different in real world. Goals are not easily
accomplished and target not effortlessly achieved. It happens that you are not
only required to take care of your own self but also of people around you in
the family and especially ageing and ailing parents.
It doesn't
end there, cut throat competition, soaring inflation and company closures
drains out the patience in you. You feel lonely and isolated not knowing what
to do and where to go. When you are in the midst of such a phase an unexpected
arrival of a friend, a relative or a well-wisher with an overseas job-offer
provides you a much needed solace; it happens to be a soothing for a moment,
till the time your eye fall on your aging parents meddling with something in
the backyard.
Caring of
parents and compulsions of life often never come to terms. They prefer to take
diagonally opposite directions. Zia too, had to take decision. His conscious
would not allow him to leave his parents but the pathetic condition his family
was going through couldn’t be neglected. He chose to fly to the desert land of
Saudi Arabia and landed in Al-Jubail.
I was
introduced to him by my friend Bipin. Zia used to run a laundry. He was an
embodiment of energy, whatever he did, he did it fast, I never saw slackness in
any of his act while working on the ironing machine or doing the delivery.
Frequent visit to his shop brought me closer to him. Sometimes he would get
emotional, would ask me to wait and rush to the shop next door and returns with
a can of soft drinks or Juice. I would often deny but he would not listen. I learned
that weekend for him was a day of pizza, pepsi and playing cricket; at times he
would insist me to join him.
Running the
laundry was not easy. Though working hard from morning 08.00 till 11.00 in the
night; handling man, money and machine was not easy. Meeting customer commitment
and a machine breakdown would send him crazy. At times he had to arrange money
and get the machines repaired. These was not all, he had to be simultaneously
caring on the home front. On the request of his relatives he got married though
a telephonic consent only to bring home a caretaker for his ageing parents. This
marriage didn't last long. His hope of doing something for his aging parent was
short lived.
One day on a visit to his shop I
found him cheerful. I asked him the reason. He told that he had won a lottery
of ten thousand Riyals. I inquired into the matter. I asked him: Did you buy a
lottery ticket. No, he said, I received a call; it said the telephone company
in a random selection picked up my cell number. It than asked me to buy six
hundred Riyals worth of recharge coupons, scratch the numbers and enter them in
to the system to pay for the administration charges for the delivery of the
prize. He continued: “but I sense something fishy”. In between his phone rang,
it was the same person on the line, asking for some more recharge coupons. Zia
showed no interest. The other person insisted not to deny the wish of God;
instead gracefully accept his mercy and blessing, and cooperate to complete the
formalities. Zia started feeling cheated. He demanded his money back. The person
on the other end demanded fifty riyal recharge coupon as administrative charges
to full the money out of the system.
No explanation was required. Zia
understood the intention of the person on the other end. With heavy heart he
cut the line and got back to work. Few customers entered the shop. I too left
the shop assuring him to come back the next day. As I walked back to my room I was
trying to guess the turmoil Zia was going through. He had borrowed few bucks to
buy the recharge coupons and had promised the lender to payback tomorrow.
In cheating even God is not spared.
