My Sis: Through My Eyes (31)

Chapter -31 (Making A Difference)

I am finally beginning to enjoy what may be termed as a semblance of respite. I have turned down the fifth offer of working in a school since coming back from Bhutan, have had a soothing, balmy bath, and with all the windows closed, curtain drawn, I find myself being transported to a dreamy world.

Just to give you an example – my younger daughter, Anushka, was seriously ill, suffering from a severe attack of the life-threatening Dengue fever. I hurried down when my leave application was graciously approved by the Principal, Mr. Namgay Wangchuk. In the ensuing hustle and bustle, I found it difficult to explicate myself from the demands of the daily chores and couldn’t keep the Principal updated as a member of the staff should. A couple of days after my arrival in Kolkata, when I was in the lobby on the ground floor of the Children Hospital, waiting for something, I found my Sis had already posted something on the timeline of the Principal. Away from us due to the shackle of her duties as the Matron of North Point at that time, Sis wanted to provide us the much needed moral support in the only way she could, by posting an update of my daughter’s condition on the timeline of my Principal! Can you believe or beat it?

Now any brother should be grateful to such a sister. But you know what? When she asked me to make a call to a senior teacher of the BPK last week for a job, I got so annoyed that I started shouting at her over the phone! Within no time she brought an end to the problem by asking me not to bother calling that senior teacher! She is getting closer by the day, I reckon, to the stage where one attains maturity over the rashness and madness of the youth.

I have always admired and adored my Sis. It is another matter that I have, of late, started envying her as well! She has always been a good human. She narrated to me how she had tried to save an official of the BPK at the risk of being misunderstood by others, by asking a student not to post on Facebook something as a tell-tale evidence of the brutality of the official concerned. There is still something called HUMANITY after all!

Anyway, I want to wind up this chapter by writing about how I must have gotten into her skin last night. Ever forgiving, my Sis preferred to keep quiet even after that blatant insult and humiliation at the hand of her younger brother.

I have already told you about how stubbornly I refused to call a Senior Teacher of BPK regarding a job, at the request of my Sis. (Me and my ego!) Anyway, acting on her advice, I later applied for the post of an English Teacher in response to the advert published in the ToI that day. I have been in constant touch with the Principal of the school in Pune lately. Last night when I was out shopping with my wife, I received a call from Sis. She wanted to know if I was busy, or she would call me later. She wondered, before disconnecting the line, if the Offer Letter I received yesterday had anything to do with the application I had submitted at her request earlier ( she had another agent Mr. Wasim Khan, calling me in the afternoon for a vacancy in Malda). She then hung up saying that if that was the case, the Senior teacher had a hand behind the job being offered to me. Feeling uneasy, I promised to call her later.

Back in 41, I scrolled down to the STARRED section of my mail, found I had submitted the application on the 3rd of this month. The Principal, who was unknown to me till then, emerged on the horizon with a request for my CV exactly one week after, thereby initiating a prolonged period of negotiations and conversations through WhatsApp.

I should have felt grateful to Sis after the scroll-down. I did not. When I called her later, I told her that having been brought up in the periphery of 41, I felt uneasy every time I heard someone talking about how others should be grateful to A, B or C for being employed. I consider myself lucky that I had landed up with a job in the god-blessed country in the 1990s otherwise, I would have been at the beck and. call of the person who might have helped me with a job.

I was fuming and gave vent to my feelings to my Sis. My inflated ego had been burst and I was not really feeling any grateful about it. Patient as a python (Sorry about this, I don’t know for the life of me, if pythons are patient by nature), Sis heard me through. Didn’t utter a word of how hurt she must have been at a time when her sole intention was to help me, her younger brother, not a stranger!

I feel ashamed of myself now. I realize how egoistic, ego-centric I have become all on a sudden. Relationships do not amount to much to me anymore. I have quit being respectful. Nor do I bother about others feelings and hurts any more! My only consolation is that, despite the presence of such egocentric, selfish people like me in this world, our world can only get better as long as there are precious people like my Sister.