Take Care

An evening news which shook me and my friends recently was about an abandoned man who used to be our classmate in school. This man as a child was not active, a slow learner. He had problems with orientations while walking and was not able to speak very clearly. When we were at school and not aware of physiological problems, we behaved with him normally. He was elder than us but was not shameful about that, a quiet, stupid boy he was. Time passed, we passed out from school and everyone was busy in building their career. I forgot about him as I took a completely different path to become a teacher.

Then eventually everyone fell in their place, that is the family and the job to keep themselves alive. No one knew about the internet, slowly getting accustomed to the computer, windows, mobile phones and many other modern electronic gadgets. Slowly the era of internet knocked down all, the world got crazy, a rapid change grasped all minds. I remember the things were changing so fast, a telephone connection and a modem attached to the computer and there, the world is in your room! Orkut- made all of us so excited! But before we knew Orkut, Facebook won our hearts. Winsome situation! Soon we could locate all our lost friends, childhood friends, uncles, aunts, relatives and whoa!! so many new friends too came into our lives. For my generation, I guess, it was a big door opened- as if the door of the Buckingham Palace is opened and you take a round of the palace to see all the Royals standing in front of your eyes. Winsome indeed!

I got all my friends and my classmates back into my life. I tried hard to get each one of them and joined all in a group. I knew about this boy too and was speaking to him, his sister and mom. I was delighted when I came to know that he finished his diploma engineering course and teaching computer in an institute. He was very good in operating computer and was managing a pharmaceutical store owned by his uncle. Life was good for him and his mom as his younger brother was settled abroad. We were all happy for him, only we wished he gets his soulmate.

But, that was not the wish of the Almighty. The boy met with an accident and fell from the bike he was driving. It did some damage to his movement and slowly he became idle. Dejected completely with what fate brought to him, he started depending on his mom and brother for all his comfort, he suddenly discovered all comforts of life and started disturbing every one of his family. We could not understand whether this was a forlorn attempt at escaping the frustration or it was due to the prolonged medication for his neurological problems. Slowly, the things went out of control and he was abandoned by his family members to a home for old aged people. And the story did not stop there- he ran away from the home after creating the nuisance. Traveled by train reached to his maternal uncle’s place and kept on changing his addresses from place to place until before his second abandonment to another home by his own uncle. By this time his mom fell terribly sick, maybe she was terrified of the agony of his elder son. We were spectators as we were not knowing how to tackle him.

All the happenings with this family taught us about the bitter truths of life. Maybe, now you all readers realise our lessons. Try to realise that why keeping a goal of life is necessary, why searching life’s purpose from a very young age is necessary, why financial independence is necessary? How important is it to take care of each of your children equally? As a parent knowing a child’s potential and grooming them accordingly is so important. What if the child can not take care of himself? He will become a social liability. How we tackle the persons who are downhearted or broken-hearted, dejected by his own family members? We, friends, learnt lessons.

Then came that fateful evening when we came to know that the dejected man attempted suicide in the old age home. He was seriously ill and was admitted to hospital. I tried again to get the good hearts who can help him as he did not have anyone to look after him. I find a couple of friends of mine who went to see him in the hospital. Here I should mention that I stay in a different city, hundreds of miles away from the spot, my two friends were in the same city but far from the hospital. We coordinated, arranged for a better hospital, shifted him and arranged more friends to volunteer for the cause. Slowly he recovered, discharged from the hospital and we could found a new home for him. How we brought the positive ending of the story is another long story. The lessons learnt are tremendous- they say, you know your true friends when you are in trouble. The masks are fallen off but that is the true story of life. Hardly one month is over now, we are still not sure how long he will be fine, but the challenge is accepted hoping the best result. Life teaches a lot!

Forlorn
Winsome