Pride Goes Before Fall-By-Kamlesh Bahukhandi as flashed by me on the f.b. on Nov.21,2010

Pride Goes Before Fall-By-Kamlesh Bahukhandi l


.by Kamalesh Bahukhandi on Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 4:35pm.

Bloated ego and arrogance has been the root cause of many people falling from grace and pride .Long ago ,when I was small living in an old fashioned bungalow in Chhattisgarh ,a marwadi businessman ,who sold exclusively woven saris ,at a reasonable price visited us . The man was well built, tall and possessed a heavy chest .Dressed immaculately in spotless white dhoti.He use to impose himself upon his customers to buy or else get lost .He had an assistant who carried the load of the packed saris and who was his favourite punching bag..One day ,he came as usual to sell his product and for some reason unknown ,got into an argument with my mom .The argument grew into a verbal duel,with this man throwing veiled threats and raising his voice .My father who was watching on the sidelines ,tried to intervene ,but this bully of a man snubbed him too .Enough was enough and finally we have to tell this bully of a man to leave the house with his load of saris .Before leaving the arrogant man ,with drooling pan on his lips ,and villainish look cursed us and swore of not stepping into the premises again.He marched out ,fuming in anger .However on the person’s repeated plea.I went to see who it was and to my utter surprise and horror it was the same Sariwala ..His entire gait, robust appearance ,that autocratic look and arrogance had vanished .In his place stood a mentally fatigued ,weak and physical wreck, with his drooping posture ,indicating that all was not well .It was quite shocking for us to see the man brought down to his knees by fate ,having lost his sting in life .He appeared to be brutally mauled by destiny .He asked me for a glass of water and something to eat .I made him sit ,brought in water and my mother ,who bore the burn of his unmannerly behaviour on his previous visit , laid a complete meal in a ‘thali’ which I brought and placed it before him .He ate in utter silence .His focus of attention being the food. He did not have courage to look into our faces .After washing his hands he looked up and we saw in him a completely defeated man, who had been reduced to penury .He was in tears and for a moment ,had no words to express .He tried to speak , but the words were garbled .However ,taking courage ,he begged to us to buy atleast one sari .He was alone now ,minus his assistant ,carrying a few saris in a bundle slung on his tired shoulder .My mother bought all the five saris he was carrying as she was fond of the material he used and his designs were also simple and good. .She paid him off .The man got up ,thanked all of us and apologized for his shameless behaviour he had exhibited the last time he had visited us and confided that he had made a grave mistake in not being able to understand my mother. Without looking back , he walked out .But this time his gait appeared light and hurried ,probably lightened by the complete shedding of his burden of guilt that he has been carrying all along .Probably destiny had forced him to come to our house and ask forgiveness, without which he would never have rested in peace .He was never seen again …

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 Share;  Shalmali Gokhale and 6 others like this..

Mini Saxena hmmmm........thts life.....:)

Rashmi Sharma Really nice,,,,,:-))

Bishwa Nath Singh :
It’s a good write-up. The courtesy and kind words cost nothing to one but pay very rich dividend to him/her. Though, we are living in space age, but the greatest tragedy one comes across that our present generation has started adopting to b...e most discourteous and unkind to others just to show off their supremacy on farce pretext and wrong notion. It is time that our present generation should adopt behavioral change in their attitude towards others and shower all love, affection and respect on them. The forgiveness may be considered simply great who forgives others. Jesus Christ had laid emphasis in the following manner: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. I am happy that merchant who was ill mannered in early days realized his faults later on and exhibited utmost change in his behavior during his next visit and realized his mistake and that is the reason, he was welcome.

Shashwati Chaudhuri likes this. 
 
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Nov.21,2010