The Refugee - Ranjankumar Desai
Magne se jo maut mil jati
To kaun jeeta is jamane me
For the last 72 hours I have been struggling non stop against death in the ICCI unit of Mumbai Hospital.
I am left with no time to survive as the guest of this universe. This idea gives me a sort of a relief. It is better to die once instead of dying every moment of life.
Despite this I cannot leave the finger of life.
A massive heart attack has dragged me in the hospital alongwith other ailments associated there with.
The scenarios covering pieces of ice slabs, mirchi powder and sugar coated water keep on visualising before my eyes.
Habitually I had risked to tell lies in presence of C. B. I. Team., which caused a huge financial loss due to rigorous punishment called " Third Degree ".
They had demanded to betray the secret of Anti National and illegal activities carried by my working organisation and denied any co operation in that regard was instrumental to enforce upon third degree punishment on me.
And I was severely tortured untill the truth was revealed before them.
After that they had granted me bail with a condition not to leave Mumbai without their permission.
And next day I reported Nathalal & Sons.
To my utter surprise my name plate was missing.
It gave me a feeling that I was not the part of Nathalal & Sons any more.
The younger son of Nathalal had displayed his smartness and over intelligence to mislead the CBI team.
He wanted to establish or fabricate the story to prove that Mohan Bhai was not the part of their organisation.
For the last few days I was leading miserable life with no time to relax or breath for a while . I was fully exhausted due to over straining my self due to hectic activities. Despite all the adversities, I could not keep myself away from my responsibilities. Being the utmost faithfull employee I had no option but to report the office in time.
Nathalal 's sons were annoyed to see me entring in the office.
Nathalal was a person of short temper. His sons inherited this quality from their father.
He was in the category of millioners due to their forfathers hard work., and efforts
And Nathalal had acclaimed sole credit for no efforts of him. He had openly declared.
' Mohan is nothing but a senseless donkey. On recovery 40 lakhs of rupees I will chuck him out.'
The hard working over a decade paid me this dividend. My loyalty was over looked and left aside.
Had he kept a bit patience and waited for a while the things would not have gone to the stage beyond repairs.
Nathalal 's attitude was the chief cause of such a critical situation. I had over heard his talking to some one of his business clients.
His injurious comments had disturbed me to the greater extent.
It gave way to grow my pain intensely.
I was in the habit of calling office staff and peons to my cabin by pressing call button provided any time I preferred. No body took me seriously for my strange attitude much nor worried about my bell.
I realy needed some one to attend but no body had shown up.
I constantly pressed the call button but nobody answered the call
After a while senior most peon entered my cabin.
I was already out of my mind.
I could not suppressed my negative feelings and afuriously burst out my anger.
" Where were you, bloody fool?
Before he could explain I collapsed on my revolving chair.
I was not in a position to know what happed there after.
Nathalal owned four cars of his own.
Despite this he had arranged ambulance to reach me hospital.
A man may be thousand times worst person possess some human qualities.
I had auctioned my heart for the sake my brain and well being of theirs.
All important days of decade of my life I had devoted to Nathalal for his official and domestic problems.
Despite he had placed me in the row of an ordinary person.
On knowing my critical state of health Sushma had rushed back to me.
It was her second marriage with me.
Her first husband had absconded with her whole of money.
He was good for nothing. Not ready to work any where and enjoyed his life with wife's money.
There was no parity of thoughts and action between themselves.
Ocasional disputes were the parts of their merital life.
Once there was big dispute and her husband had absconded with money and gold.
At this time I happened to meet Sushma in one of the marriage function of my friend's brother.
My friend had introduced each other.
And soon we were married through Arya Samaj rituals.
She had grown up with the prejudice about her old husband community.
They dont even bother or feel ashamed to disrobe their mothers if the situation goes to that level.
And Nathalal too belonged to his community.
Under the influence of heavy doses of medicines I had slept almost for 12 hours.
On waking up the chain of thoughts occupied my mind.
In the universe of selfish people, we cannot trust any one.
This idea almost led me to think negatively.
This had tightened vein of my brain.
The memoirs of olden days revived in front of my eyes.
With the powers in my hands I never stopped from exploiting small people according to my whims.
And I was taking pride in doing so.
Because of my attitude no body cared about me.
Despite every body for once had come to inquire about my health.
Once upon time I too had export import business of my own, which earned millions of rupees. I was leading a peaceful and comfortable life.
But manipulating habit was a integral part of my life which definitely helped me to run my busines smoothly.
But one of my weakness was instrumental for my debacle.
Just to get benefits even in trifle transactions , I used to manipulate government documents.
By virtue of my good fortune I had no problems with my business, but the greed for every thing caused damage to both and my business.
I was endowned with the art of forgery. I took no time to duplicate the sign any officials of any category, if the situation demanded.
And this habit took heavy toll of my life.
I had imported a consignment from Singapore via sea route.
The steamer carrying my cargo had already taken berth in dock and all the importers had cleared their consignments on the basis of documents forwarded. But due to loss of documents in transit my consignment was lying in ware house with heavy demurrage charges. I had no patience left.
Market was going down briskly for the product I had imported. At this point of time my sixth sense came to my rescue.
With a view to save the guarantee margin demanded by the bank, I went a step ahead and prepared fake guarantee on stamp paper, signed as bank manager with rubber stamp and submitted it to custom authorities.
But due to some technical error it was sent to bank and my fraud was exposed.
This amounted to criminal offence and I was sent behind prison.
I declared myself bankrupt.
Before this as a safety measure I had transferred money to my brother's account in Germany.
Under the circumstances...