~ Life’s Offer…~

The secluded finisher always sees himself in the midst of rolling his hands or doing brisk running and hardly takes are break. His persona at this stage of his life is riveting to me, almost at the fag end of life, his zeal to keep himself fit has been phenomenal – sometimes doing a glancing ‘Hello” or a “Namaste” gives you a feeling of intrigue to have a long conversation with uncle.

One such day hence arrived, on reaching the tracks of the park early in the morning, I started to do brisk walk with a purposeful aim of loosening my still body after a deep sleep – I had only circumambulated the park’s track that I could see the old gentleman coming towards me, whilst he was jogging.

Clothed in his favorite track suit which he generally loves to wear, I had made up my mind to be a conversationalist with him, be whatever it takes. The moment thus arrived, after about 40 mins of walking he took a short break and positioned himself quite satisfyingly on the nearby bench. Taking out his water bottle , he sipped through gently as if the thirst had overcome him after a hard exercise regimen. As I was observing him for some time, he used to sit on the same bench which could be termed his favorite. With a streaking eye contact, I started the conversation with a pensive thought – “ Hope he is in a mood to talk.”

“Hello Uncle, I often see you jog and do exercises , at this age you are so fit and fine, what makes you do all this , you can come to park and sit calmly and introspect the best moments of your life in all those moments.”

With a grimace , he thus spoke “ Son , I have been working so hard all through my life, I had a electronics shop and never took a break almost all my life, Sundays were too occupied as there was lot to do and achieve as per my aspirations.”

Then suddenly his voice chocked, and his eyes turned wet, after a brief pause, he started to speak again – “I lost my wife and my only son got separated as he got a good career option out of this country. I am all alone now and thus have lot of time on this planet till I am alive, almost nothing to do.”.

“Last year I was prognosed with Cancer and am undergoing treatment and have to periodically go to hospital to get rid of the disease – Don’t know if I ever will be able to do that!”

As the story got melancholic, quite inquisitively, I again asked “But what about your shop?”

He replied “Ah, I closed it down at the peak of my earning capacity – as there was no zeal left to continue after my wife’s passing away and my son taking his own stance in life. I never thought that one day I shall close the dream of my life on such account. All my life I dreamt that one day my son would take the reigns of this business and I shall sit at home and thus enjoy the time life has to offer, but God had decided otherwise.”

Though it was a sad little story – It made me wonder about most of us who are struggling and running  an endless race without almost the same outcome – One day we shall be left alone with all the money we ever thought we could amass but without near or dear ones and compromising on our health.

Taking leave from Subhash Uncle – As we conversed I gently asked his name and thus told him that I shall be addressing him thus so , I started to take my own course as the sun had started to shine quite bright hinting for a humid afternoon coming over, not before promising myself to meet him the next day with yet another round of fruitful conversations whilst we shall sit in beautiful meadows of monsoon greenery!