On the wrong side of life

“Life is a beautiful gift of god and we must have to cherish every moment of it.” A round of applauses followed by the sentence as one of the guest lecturer finally ends his speech. I was relieved and was preparing to leave the hall. Suddenly one of our college cleaners entered in the hall and start picking up the empty disposable cups. Bounded by the habit of presenting smile to everyone around, I did the same with him and got a dull smile in reply.  His smile was covering lot of problems and I want to know the reason of his dejection. I asked him in straight forward manner and got the straight forward response that he is not feeling well. Though I know he was lying but was not having the dare to confront him and hence rather than asking him the real reason I asked him to take leave which he again courteously denied. One of my friends too notice agony in his eyes and asked him a bit more forcefully.

Breaking the silence he reveals that he was having typhoid and hasn’t recovered fully. Moreover his medical leaves are finished and his financials does not allow him to take more leaves. After listening to the matter we asked him to request the management for sanctioning the leaves but he was not having any courage to do so.  We decided to consult the management on his behalf but he was not ready for it as well. After some time he requested to leave the hall and pleaded that we won’t be discussing his predicaments with anyone. We assure him that we won’t break his trust and finally a bit satisfied smile comes on his face.  We also left the hall and proceed to our homes.

In night one of my friend who missed the lecture called me to ask about the lecture and while briefing him about the lecture, ending note again struck my mind and this time it was with the painful smile of that cleaner. I figure out the fact that it’s really easy to say that cherish every moment of life but it’s really hard when life is at wrong side. When the odd winds are blowing all we can do is to present the smile to the one and keep others away from our personal matter. That’s what he was trying to do and I was restraining him to do. I hope his worries may end soon and he won’t be cherishing the bitter moments of life.