Do not complain

After a long time, I met my friend. “Hi, how are you?” I asked him. “what to tell you, life is so miserable,” he replied. “Why, what happened?” I asked.

“See, the corruption has reached its peak level; even the climate is so hot because of no rainfall; both of our maids are not coming for last 4 days; the inflation is not showing any signs of taming down; yesterday my daughter broke the new flowerpot that we bought. If this is not enough, the candidate whom I voted for in the recent municipal corporation election, lost his deposit and someone else got elected. I am thoroughly disturbed with the news in yesterday’s newspaper of an 86 year old man taking divorce from his 82 year old wife because my wife is also not talking to me for last 3 days. Recently, we saw a movie three times in which one of my friends has acted as an extra artist. Despite this, the movie flopped. I do not understand how to live in this cruel and ruthless world.”

I knew this friend for a long time. He was an expert crier. I said to him funnily, “see, you can lodge an FIR against the rain for absconding and causing heat. And you can be more friendly with your neighbour’s wife so that your wife starts talking to you immediately. And…” “ Stop that nonsense. I was knowing, you always look for an opportunity to pull my legs.” said the friend.

I said to him, “look my friend, you are just focusing on the dark side of the things. Start looking at their positive side as well. Why don’t you consider that you can afford to have two maids, which means you are well to do financially, which a majority of the people in our country are not? You have so lovely daughter to be proud of. Instead of being happy you keep crying about the flowerpot she broke unknowingly. You have so loving (I was just about to say lovely, but fortunately could avoid the slip of tongue) and hardworking wife and may be she is not talking to you because you don’t help her in household work when the maids are absent. You must consider yourself fortunate that you get time to watch three movies with the family, when in today’s world peoples don’t get time for their families. Also, you read the news of divorce of the old couple. But in the same newspaper just below that news there is another news of a 70 year old man marrying a 30 year old woman. Like there are divorces happening, there are marriages also taking place around us.”

“Agreed, but what about corruption and inflation?” asked the friend. “Well, these are the problems we need to fight collectively. Definitely nothing is going to happen if we keep crying about them. We need to take thoughtful action and refuse to participate in any sort of corruption.” My friend seemed to be convinced with these words.

Next morning he called me and said, “arey Praveen (my name in this story), you are really brilliant yaar!” “Why, what happened?” I asked surprisingly. “Arey, I applied your trick and it worked very well. I spoke to my neighbour’s wife in a friendly tone yesterday and my wife started talking to me immediately.” I did not understand what to say. My friend was ignoring my words of wisdom and accepting only the sarcasm.