A Stroke of Luck- Ch 6 - Towards the Final Destination by Masood Sadiq

     6| A Stroke of  Good Luck

Self-knowledge, self-confidence and self-esteem are the basics of our education and pieces of training in life. If we lack these basics, we are always at loss. Everyone should try to learn these basic pillars of education. Without this one cannot achieve success in life, and with the help of these basics, he can face the multi-facet challenges in his life. Every day he has to face problems and issues that he has to deal with. If he has learnt these basics of education, he can overcome these challenges comfortably.  

In our early childhood, we used to listen to the stories that were broadcast daily at 8. P.M. Before we did our homework and lay in the bed to listen to the stories and before the end of the story, sleep came swiftly and peacefully, more like a mystic intensifying of perception than any changeful entrance into another world. 

We, my elder sister and brother, were happy on the day when we got the final results of our respective classes. The result of my brother was not yet declared on that day. However, he made a plan to tell a lie about his result to shock the parents. Reaching home, he said that he had failed the class. My mother was surprised to hear the news. In the evening when my father came home after hearing the news, he declared that my brother would go to some workshop to learn some vocations. After a few minutes, my brother told the news that he was lying and the result was not declared on that day.

The very next day when my brother reached school, he was really stunned to hear the result that he had really failed. Reaching home, he could not make anybody believe that he had failed.  By the evening, my father came home from the railway station and decided to send him some workshops nearby the next day. 

That drab and dark picture of the workshop still haunts me and it is so vivid in my mind now. One day, I went to deliver him his lunch. He was standing near a lath machine wearing rough clothes and rubber tyre shoes, having black specks on everywhere, even his hands messed with the grey colour of mobile oil. Seeing tools in a grey tray, and voices of chotty pana pakra!, and tuck, tuck! . . . gave me strange feelings. Whenever I was about to leave the books, these dark pictures flashed back and made me keep on studying. My educational expenses till my matric was born by my family. Will of God is obeyed when my father died and I had to meet my own educational expenses all by myself. However, I could manage it easily and till now I have many students to teach daily. 

When I visited the workshop the first day, I was shocked to see his gloomy and innocent face.  Only his eyes were visible and shining to me. That visit of mine was a blessing in disguise and a warning for me. Later, I could distinctly imagine my future in case of my failure. I used to deliver his lunch. However, it energised and strengthened me a lot and could never quit off that picture of the workshop, having no paint on the walls, hanging wires and some lights, everything was rough and oily with black colour and stinging odours of mobile and diesel oil, the exhaust of silencers and what not. I would tell the story many times to my friends who did not like going to school regularly.  They laughed and did what they liked. Some of them decided to continue their studies, but mostly they didn't follow. 

It lay with me, an unbidden partner of fear at every midnight talk, at every dawn awakening, throughout my academic career. 

After passing fifty years, looking back in the annals of the past life I am surprised to see that when I tried to quit my passion for studying, I failed. Finally one day I decided to keep in touch with the only teaching profession, and till now I am quite satisfied with it. I have everything I desired. I have health, money, and a loving family of three sweet daughters. Despite having faced all social norms,  I never feel dismay over my ineligibility of my daughters'  brother or of my son. 

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Learn through reading Ch 5 My Passion for Painting