" The curious case of the Marwadi uncle "

Hello all! Welcome back! A second welcome to all your Monday blues XD 

It's been a very long time since I wrote and upon multiple enquires as to when my next blog will come up, that's when I decided to write this one, here I am, giving you another experience I had recently.

It was Deepavali, this time around, it's not in my childhood :p this is something that occurred recently.

This Deepavali was very different, I spent the festival all by myself, a lonely Deepavali in 24 years, no festivities, no new clothes, no crackers, no festive food and the most impactful of them all, complete absence of sweets.

Since I was all by myself this time, I had been invited to celebrate it with another lonely guy and this occurred while I was on the way to his house.

I decided to drive to his place, and while I waited at a traffic signal very near to his house, few kids enjoyed bursting loud crackers on the road, right opposite to my vehicle, very close to me.

I've been petrified of crackers since I was very young, there's no specific reason as what might have caused and why it chose to stay, as a safety measure, I had my noise cancelling buds beneath the helmet. 

An old guy pulled up next to me, looked at me and smiled, naturally, I smiled back, an old man on an old moped, how harmful can he be ?

As my smile declined, a cracker burst open and fell between both our vehicles, we reacted at the same time, a brief jerk, we shook! 

We look at each other after that, grin sheepishly, both of us embarassed enough for the rest of our lives.

I get back to waiting at the signal, he started talking randomly to me, but it couldn't clearly listen to him as i had my earbuds plugged in, i had to pull my phone out and pause the song that was being played, I had a strong feeling that he would justify the awkward smile we shared, no! It was not that, the next few lines he uttered has lasted an impact on me, just a single minute Ted Talk that has left me pondering, even to this day! 

I paused the song, he looks at me and tells, "We must enjoy life, do whatever we like. Look at those kids, they're enjoying bursting those crackers, we shouldn't stop them just because we are scared. I enjoy earning money, I am a marwadi, even if you skin me alive, I'd still earn money, we must work hard while we can, we must enjoy while we can, Happy Deepawali!"

Muttered these lines and drove away, I would literally pay thousands of rupees and buy a book to gain the piece of advice he donated for me, while we waited at a traffic signal.

I heard somewhere that life is very simple, we make it complicated, the same he had repeated, "Work hard, do what keeps you happy" 

That's pretty self explanatory, I'll not elaborate, simple yet impactful! 

I have been in that signal for almost 22 years of my life, neither have I seen him before nor will I see him again, I was destined to meet him that day at that time.

File image

Source: unsplash 

I reached the nearest shop selling crackers and bought myself a toy gun, I was the happiest kid on the block, my friend and I went around terrorising the streets that evening 😝

By the way, the song i was listening to had these lines, 

ನಲಿವಿನ ಕ್ಷಣಗಳ 

ಕಾಯುತ ಕುಳಿತು,

ದಿನಗಳ ಕಳೆವೆವು

ನಗುವುದೆ ಮರೆತು ...

Which translates to "We wait days together for happy moments, forgetting to smile today"