Mysteries of Life

Manoj Makker served in Customs and Central Excise for 24 years before seeking voluntary retirement. At present, he is part of a consultancy firm at Jaipur. Manoj's passions are trekking and shooting. He has participated in 16 trekking expeditions in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, besides undertaking numerous personal treks. He still finds time for his other love: landscape photography. He is a prolific writer on various aspects of life.

In the year 2005 I was posted in Jaipur. The Pink City is tremendously gorgeous city and gifted enough to keep its populace in cheerful mood. Besides high happiness index of the city, I had an added advantage of my posting in a beautifully located office. It was wonderfully situated at the bank of forest area of the capital city. Especially, during rains the panoramic scenes of lush green Aravallis from the rooftop of our office were not less than the scenic beauty portrayed by Coleridge in his wonderful narration ‘Kubla Khan’ conceived in trance.

VDN Nagar, Jaipur

Being a nature lover, I felt blessed to be posted in such a magnificently located office. Besides the location of the office, the staff posted in the office was also very affable and supportive.

View from the rooftop of my office in Jaipur.

Next to our office there was a funeral compound divided in three parts allotted to Hindus, Muslims and Christians. We used to call that compound as ‘Amar, Akbar and Anthony’. Almost every day we used to hear last ritual sounds from the triple A campus. In the beginning the sounds were very intimidating but slowly it became a routine, rather it daily reminded us of our ultimate destination.

The daily encounter with Life & Death made us greater acquaintance with the mysterious circle of life. During those days I could understand the significance of ‘present’.

We become so erudite on this score that during lunch time, from the rooftop of our office, we could even sense the sprawling & rambling beauty of nature amidst the reverberations coming out from Amar, Akbar and Anthony. It was experience like watching splendour of nature through windowpanes of a cemetery. During those days, I also used to preach regarding my newly acquired understanding regarding inexplicable loop of the life.

View from the rooftop of my office in Jaipur.

During my stay in that office, a Vocational Institute of Jaipur attached a few apprentices to our office for learning of official data feeding. I was assigned to coordinate and arrange for their effective learning.

I had a flair for teaching and was excited for this new assignment. Within a couple of days I became very friendly with all the apprentices. Their learning schedule was going on very smoothly. One day, as I entered in the computer room, I witnessed a girl apprentice was sobbing. On enquiry, the other girl told me that just two minutes back she had received a phone call from her fiancé that he has just then met with a serious accident on Jaipur – Kota national highway near Deoli town.

Her friend was riding a bike and a speeding truck hit him. He made his first call to his fiancé, and he was lying, bleeding on the road unattended to.

I immediately took the charge of the situation and telephoned one of my acquaintances residing in Deoli and explained to him about the accident. I was surprised to hear from that end that my friend was the President of an NGO, functioning from Deoli, which extended medical support to the victims of highway accidents.

My friend immediately rushed an ambulance towards the accident site and within ten minutes he phoned me back that they have located the victim and medical aid/support has commenced. He also conveyed that they were immediately shifting the victim to a local hospital and also assured me that they will do their best to save the life.

I conveyed the situation to the girl and consoled her to remain composed. After an hour my friend again phoned me to inform that the victim was out of danger; bleeding was controlled and one blood unit was transfused . His other injuries and fractures were being treated. He also made that victim talk to his fiancé on telephone.

That girl was very thankful to me and I was also feeling very happy & pleased with my efforts. I also conveyed my gratitude to my friend for his immediate response. I murmured a famous Hindi quote, “Jakho rakhe saaiyan, maar sake na koye.” After getting training for one month the group of apprentices departed from our office for their future ventures.

After four or five years that girl accidentally met me in the market of Pink City. I asked her how her life was going on. She had completed her computer course and was now doing a job in a corporate office. I asked about her fiancé, as I was very eager to know about him.

Immediately her expression turned gloomy and I could sense that some misfortune had happened with the girl. She told me the story that they had tied the nuptial knot and were leading a happy married life. But after one year of their happy marriage, her husband met with a road accident again and this time he succumbed to his injuries.

I felt a wave of inexorable pain spreading throughout my body. I was shaken. I was beseeching to almighty, if that guy had a short life span, why the destiny played havoc with the life of this innocent girl and forced her to face such a massive misery. It dismantled my confidence of understanding ‘loop of life’.

I realized life is a complicated & entwined genre of warp and weft without any navigation support, or may be something else beyond the acquired three dimensional knowledge of man.

May God bless all!