A Short Story
It was 5.30 a.m. on this Thursday. There was a cool breeze flowing outside the window. I wanted to cuddle my quilt and sleep but the Divine voice woke me up. “You have just one day to live. I’ll take you up with me tonight at 11:45 p.m.” Oh shit! I was shivering, my mind wasn’t working, and my face was already pale. I didn’t know what to do in just one day. I had so many dreams, so many plans and so many pending works.
I tried thinking of it as a bad dream and tried to sleep. But those words wouldn’t let me. I gathered courage, got up, switched on the lights and took out my sticky notes. I thought I write my last ‘to-do’ list – this time only to follow it. I started writing and after 20 minutes of writing incessantly, I still had so many things to write. How wrong I was in thinking that I had ‘whole life’ to achieve my dreams, work on my plans and do the pending works! The ‘whole life’ meant just 1 day, here not even 24 complete hours.
I got ready in precisely 7 minutes and 35 seconds (including brushing my teeth, bathing, wearing clothes). Normally, I took more than an hour to do this daily. I didn’t have my breakfast, thinking it might waste my ‘very limited’ time. I went to my office very, very early today. The adrenaline was rushing faster than normal, heart was beating faster than usual and I was driving crazier than ever. I just parked the bike, rushed to the elevator and reached my office. I ran to my desk. And oh shit, I forgot my last ‘to-do’ list. Fuck, what would I do now? How would I start? Whom do I curse now?
Forget it. I just sat there, opened my PC and checked my emails. There were many emails and a few important ones that needed my response. I just couldn’t commit a timeline by when I’d be able to deliver the code and show the demo to the client – there’s no point in committing a time after tonight.
(I work in an MNC in Bangalore, India. I’m a Software Developer, writing some bits and bytes of code in Java programming language. And now I’m struggling with the bits and bytes of my very short life.)
I was feeling hungry but didn’t have time to get up and get some food from the canteen. I had previous day’s program development yet to be done. I had a nice book to be read. I had to plan for a surprise for Rajat’s birthday.
(Rajat is my best friend at work and works on the same project)
There was a beautiful girl in another wing near my building in the same premises. I so wanted to meet her and tell her my feelings about her. There’s this music band in one of the clubs in the company, where I play guitar. Today is our meeting day. And I have to give my life’s best performance. I was so excited for this Saturday as the CEO of the company was supposed to visit the company to award people who had given excellent contribution for CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities. And yes I was there in the list. And I’m not sure if I’ll be able to see the dawn of Saturday. There’s still so much to be done.
It was already 9 a.m. and other employees had started coming. By 9.30 a.m. the entire floor was full of people. Gosh, what had happened to all of them? Today, nobody seemed interested in talking to each other, nobody greeted each other and nobody went for a cup of coffee. What’s even worse is Rajat didn’t turn up today. I was still busy figuring out how I would spend the remaining hours of my life. I was supposed to teach some parts of my project to a new trainee, but I politely refused. And guess what, he was happy. His happiness made me smile. And this was my first smile during the day. People are so happy when they are given off from the office.
Slowly lunch hours passed and then all were busy with their works. At 4.30 p.m. my music band colleagues tried calling me. But I didn’t have the courage to go. At the knock of 5.30 p.m. everyone headed to the main gate. I was still sitting at my desk – gloomy, disheartened and as if I were a loser. I left at around 8 p.m. and gulped a few gol gappas (round, hollow, crispy and fried Indian breads filled with a mixture of water and other ingredients). This was my first meal of the day. I gave Rs. 10 as a TIP to the person making gol gappas. He was so happy that he offered me a few more gol gappas and asked me to come again. Again? I don’t know if I would ever be able to come again.
It was 8.40 p.m. I reached home in 20 minutes and went straight to my room without talking to anyone. I asked all my family members not to disturb me for dinner or for anything else. I lay on my bed with my eyes stuck at the ceiling of my room. A few minutes into thinking and I drifted off to sleep. I heard the Divine voice again – “I’ll take you up with me tonight at 11:45 p.m.” And I instantly woke up. It was 9.45 p.m. Again, I was shivering, my heart was pounding and face was deep red due to fear.
I took out my ‘to-do’ list that I had prepared early morning to see what I had achieved during the day. 5, 10, 15, 20 points down the list and I had achieved NONE. Bullshit. Gosh, I had not even listened to some good music today. Just 2 hours to go (or should I say, just 2 hours to live) and I have to do so many things. I was almost crying now. Angrily, I crumpled that ‘to-do’ list, took out another page of sticky notes and decided to write one thing, just one thing that I’ll do in the last 2 hours of my life. And this time, the thoughts were coming really slow.
1) Listen to some soulful music and die a death of peace? Nah.
2) Watch some good videos online and feel motivated enough to leave this world? Not very convincing.
3) Talk to family members and share the Divine voice with them? They’ll be tensed.
4) Play loud guitar and get engrossed in my passion? It might disturb the neighbours.
5) Open social networking sites and write to all friends, fans and followers one last post? Nah, it might create a panic.
6) See old photos with my friends and colleagues? Hmmm, sounds good. But it doesn’t help me connect to myself.
7) Meditate. Nah. It’s not ‘cool’.
Hey but wait, it’s the only thing that will help me connect to my inner self. After all, I only have one thought running in my mind at this time – ‘I’ll die at 11:45 p.m.’ It would be a lot easier to do with mind focused on just one thing.
After crumpling about 6 sticky notes, I finally had something to do. It was already 10:45 p.m. and I just had 1 hour to go. I hurriedly removed the quilt of my bed and placed it on the ground and sat on it.
For the first five minutes I just couldn’t get my mind off of thinking about death. All kinds of negativities cropped up – the sins I had done, fear of dying, anger about not being able to achieve much, how my relatives would feel about my untimely death, etc. Then I encouraged myself to think of something that would give me eternal happiness and peace. I got it right this time.
I opened my eyes, closed my fists and thumped it to gain that confidence. The next 30 minutes were so serene that I had time-travelled all 24 years of my life. There were all kinds of places in my imagination – mountain, blue water, dense green forest, my home, hotels and streets. But there was one thing that was common. The only snapshots of life that came in those 30 minutes in all those places were the times I had made someone smile, including today when I had made the gol gappa maker smile on the street. The aura around me was so powerful that I too was smiling. This was a startling revelation for me.
I realised then that the purpose of the life, that God gave me, was to make people around me smile. I was fairly successful in getting that part right. I hadn’t acquired enough material wealth myself, neither did I make a dent in the universe but I did make people around me smile at all possible times. I did not donate enough money to improve someone’s life but I had given moments to all people I’ve met to cherish about.
Finally I was happy. Yeah I knew I was about to die, but I was happy since I’ve found the purpose of my life. It took me 24 long years to know what I was born to do. I am still happy. I was lucky to hear those Divine words that gave me one whole day to know the purpose of my life. “Thank you, God. I am ready to fly with you now. I don’t know if I’d go to heaven or hell, but what I know is that it was a great journey till now and I’m sure it would be a great journey from here on. I am ready to fly now.”
I just lay on the floor of my balcony facing the sky – with my eyes wide open, arms wanting to embrace death, heart almost stopped and a “SMILE” on my face. It was 11:45 p.m.
The post first appeared on my website: CATapp
Ashish Chowdhary
Anamika: Woops.. Hope you still had something better than your urgent work..
Thanks Rupesh and Richa…
Shashidhara B
Sorry Kunal, i just overlook this information. Thanks for point it out!!