Dusserah Buksheesh

Dusserah Buksheesh
October 07, 2008
Last evening while coming out of my office, the security guard outside my office just gave me a long salute.... I never talk to those guys. Not because I am in higher position or ego but it seems I live a no frills life. Then I just walk slowly the guard was just smiling at me and trying to build up the courage to ask me something. I could read his body languages. I could read his name written on the batch hanging from his shirt. His name is Rohan Singh. I just see that man everyday but never knew his name. So I asked him “ What happened? Do you want any thing Rohan Singh? Then slowly he was developing the courage to ask me something. He asked fumblingly “Sirrrr Dussserrrahhhh Baksheeeeshhhhhh”. I just pull out my wallet and handed him a 500 rupees bill. I could see the sparks in his eyes he was like blessing me through his eyes. He could not control his emotions and fumbled few good words for my kids. I just smiled as I'm single and no plans for kids in this life. Just rushed out of the office.

I just picked up a cab. Returning back home. Unintentionally that instance was coming into my mind again and again. It seems as if they are just reminding me something. I just went to my past googling with the word Baksheesh. We were living in a small town when I was a kid. Dusserah is one of the most important festival of that place. During this time the town just come to live with back to back festivals in a row. Dusserah, Gajalaxmi puja, Kali Puja. A famous Durga mandap was there near our house. There used to a circus every year. The ground near the mandap was full of amusement swings, Ram Doli, Death well, Roaming Zoo, all kinds of spice foods like chat, gupchup, Mixtures by the famousSahoo vendor . We had a joint piggy bank made out of used parachute coconut oil tin. I still remember the yellow color tin. I remember I was 8 then. During that time me and my elder brother decided that we will ask Baksheesh to all our brothers and sisters and spend the money for all these amusements and food. We used to get good baksheesh... much lesser than the 500 bill that I gave today but it was much larger that the 500 bill..... Sometimes we used to get unwanted guest from our village during that time. We also spend some of the money on them.....

Its not like that we always do the fun those time. We use to pluck the ground-lotus flowers(Sthalapadma in oriya) from our garden. These flowers just change their colour with sunlight. During morning they are white. As the day day grows they get lighter shade of pink. Towards evening they become dark pink. My sisters used to make a long garland with 108 flowers. Me n my elder brother used to take that offer it to Maa Durga. Though there were many flower offering but ours garland used to be longest on neck of Maa Durga. After offering the garland we used to pray for everybody in our family. Especially a good job for our eldest brother and a good husband for our eldest sister. These two wishes were most important for our family.

How fast 25 years passed. Some of the dreams that we saw during then have been fulfilled.....Some dreams remained as wishes forever........ Some small small dreams fulfilled.

Most of our dreams remained as a dream.........But that does not mean we will stop dreaming..

Now I remember I was never firm on my aim. I was fascinated by many professions. Sometimes I wanted to become an engineer as many of the middle class kids. Sometimes I wanted to become an Army officer specially after seeing defence oriented movies. Sometimes wanted to become a scientist thats the reason why I took Physics during my graduation. But some time later I lost interest in Physics also. Sometime I wanted to join some Government job like my dad. I am glad that I could work for a Government job for few months of my career.

May be this is the main reason why I am always bitting around the bush throughout my career and still bitting around the bush It's not that I work sincerely. I am very sincere and concern about my work. But somewhere I am just lost for the purpose of my life.........