Sluggish Slave

I heard a sad story about one of our domestic staff, who has been temporarily entrusted with the job of a receptionist and phone attendant. Looking at him, any one would think that he should be either an alcoholic or a drug addict. Such is the look, and yet one would notice him attending the Holy Mass at six o’clock in the morning. Is he excessively pious, just to impress the Fathers and Brothers? I would not think so, because for a man in his forties, such a thing might not occur in the mind. But what I heard from the Brother in charge of him made me think about what this man could be heading towards. To begin with, he is living alone presently, and was married some years ago, and his wife deserted him unable to cope with his temperaments and behavioral pattern, and now he is earning a living here in our house and is managing life by himself. But what could be wrong with him?

One of the reasons for the breakdown of his marriage is probably because he is an alcoholic, who would spend most of his earnings in alcohol, and now that there is no one who would control him, and say not to his drinking habits, he is quite happy. When the Brother in charge refused to give him all the money from his wages, and withheld five hundred rupees for saving, he was not much enthused. He had spent all the money he received at the beginning of the month, and in two weeks be approached the Brother asking for an advance from his wages. It is impossible for drunkards to organize their lives, and think of saving something for future. He lives every day and does not care to think about tomorrow, and if some emergency were to take place, he might be driven to the streets, and there is no doubt about it. Anyone who tries to help him put an order in his life is looked upon as an unwanted intrusion, and in such a situation, his future is bleak.

The gentleman should be happy to get a job, where at least he is sure to get his three meals assured, and if he would behave well, he might get employed on a more serious basis, and may even be taken as a contract employee and therefore might get additional benefits. But who would make him understand that he is only lucky to come to our house and work under the watchful but helpful care of Brother. If there was someone else, he would have been only too happy about the job, however mean and insignificant that is. One of his tendencies which annoy the people, who are responsible for him, is his constant attempt to threaten them that he would not continue in the job too long; poor man, he does not realize that there are other people who are ready to take his job, even if it is only for a few days. Ultimately he would be the one who would suffer due to his stupidity.

Opportunities knock at our doors but only once; now that this gentleman had been threatening us of stopping coming for work, from tomorrow someone else has been arranged, and the Brother in charge is going to tell him not to come for work for the next 10 days, which means there is no guarantee that he would get a job somewhere else where he could earn enough money to have his three meals a day. But that is what is so very typical of drunkards, who only look at the immediate future and fail to see what is ahead of them. If only he was level-headed he would make compromises with the Brother in charge to retain the job, and once he is comfortable with it, he could have pleaded with them to provide him with additional facilities. No one can predict what the slaves of alcoholism would do next, and that is why his life is being drifted each day, and for how long it would continue, no one can say.

He is one who refuses to learn from life; the very fact that his wife could not live with him is ample proof that he needed to do something to keep his marriage intact; instead he is blissfully happy with his life alone, and does not even bother to get her back. Perhaps if his wife had been with him, there are chances that she might be able to turn his mind to something else, and slowly bring him back to his consciousness. The love and affection of women has immense potentiality to change even the hardest of nuts among men; however it would be impossible for women to take risk on their lives and come forward to live with such men, who may not even care to feed them once a day. I feel sad for him, and for his wife (if she is still waiting for him to turn a new leaf and invite her back home), but what could I do, but only wish he stops his alcoholism and take life seriously.

Caring for the Treasure House

We often realize the worth of things and persons only in their absence. A father may be the worst kind of person and notorious drunkard, and the mother may curse him each day, why God is not calling him; but look at the same mother after the untimely death of the father. She would not be happy to have lost her husband; she would feel the pinch only when he is no more there. Probably all these years, she was able to look only at his drunkenness, and not any thing else. But after his death, she realizes that he was much more than a mere drunkard; at least sometimes, when he was sober, he used to be affectionate and loving towards her.

The same is also true of our human body; we do not realize what a treasure house we possess in our bodies; maybe a whole life will not be sufficient to understand the minute intricate mechanism which is operative in our bodies; the crisscrossing of veins, bones, flesh, and all of them perfectly linked to the mind, the central processing unit. When one of the body parts is dysfunctional, it affects the entire body, and that is what is so very obvious, when we look at one of our senior friends, who has spoiled both his kidneys, and is frantically on the look out for a donor, and a nursing home which will conduct the transplant.

Life is not the same when these kidneys have refused to filter the waste; he has to go for four agonising hours of dialysis, twice a week. When he returns after the dialysis, he is half dead; he has not much energy, and each day, as his body weight increases due to the accumulation of urine, he feels uncomfortable, and so cannot engage in any serious work. Life has come to a standstill for him, and therefore whenever there is a ray of hope for transplant, he gets excited, and sincerely hopes that something good will come out of this desire. When he neglected the care of his body for several years, he did not realize what could happen to him one day, and today he regrets for neglecting the care of his health.

It is illegal to even indirectly convince a person to donate one of his/her kidneys so that this friend of ours may live a fairly healthy life, for atleast another ten or fifteen years. It is also unethical, to imply that our friend's life is more worthwhile than the donor, even if it is a friend who has come forward to do this great favor. The moral and ethical questions are not easy to resolve, though it is easy to cut short the arguments on the ground that all lives are equal, and if one has destroyed one's kidneys due to neglect, it is for the one to reap the fruits of what he had done, but humanly speaking we cannot stop at that.

Most of us falter in life, not out of willful, deliberate action, but out of ignorance and carelessness. If only our friend had known for sure that if he did not care for his health, and take necessary precaution, he may lose his kidneys, probably he might not have landed at this stage. But could he be given yet another chance to taste and see what life has to offer to him? It is a big lesson for us, to realize the worth of each of the body parts, big or small, all of them have a specific role and function. Yesterday I saw a middleaged man, whose both feet have been amputated. Yet he looked quite happy, walking on his knees. He may feel envious of us, but do we sufficiently care for our feet?

Charming Cheers and After

It is not strange that sometimes the most unexpected people could come in our way and make us smile. It is generally not possible for us to imagine that a hardcore drunkard could reach us safely, when we are helpless, and find it hard to find a way. That is what happened to my friend today, and while narrating this incident, all that she could do was have a hearty laughter. But there is nothing strange that a drunkard may be the right person, when we are caught in a tight corner, and find it hard to find a way; for one thing, the drunkards know exactly what they are up to, and maybe more normal under the influence of liquor than otherwise.

We should be extremely careful when we deal with drunkards, because they may not be as oblivious of what is happening around them as we might think them to be. There are many who feign after having a drink, and some others gain enormous amount of guts and courage after a peg or two. There are very few who can really forget the whole world and enter into a world of make-belief where they can realize all their dreams and aspirations. It would be cruel to pull them out of this state forcefully, by any violent means, though I understand what are the things that the drunkards are capable of when drunk.

A few days ago, a close friend of mine, did acknowledge that he committed a socially objectionable act, under the influence of alcohol, and said he should have been more careful not to drink to the point of not realizing what he was doing. That one moment had darkened his entire life, and he had to go through agonizing moments because of the few minutes when he forgot himself and what he was doing. But that is the story with many a drunkard; many begin to regret for ever giving in to alcohol, which had led them to endless troubles and misery. If we look around, we shall find many who would vouch for this.

We often think that those who are under the influence of alcohol are bound to falter in their steps; it is true with amateurs, but not with veterans. There are men and women, who even after half a dozen pegs of hard drink can walk unfalteringly, and speak as if they had not touched wine. In fact, these people enter into a higher level of consciousness, only when they are drunk, and when they are not drunk, they may appear to be in a stupor. A few months, I was sorry to meet my cousin, who was so addicted to wine, that without it, he was violent, abnormal; but as soon as he had a peg, he was calm and quiet, and was even able to joke.

Not all those who drink alcohol are drunkards; quite a many do drink on social gatherings and special occasions, while some others require it, as if it is their staple drink. I have become rather sympathetic towards who are either victims of alcohol or are unable to get out of the clutches of wine, which may slowly ruin their entire lives. But while we do not encourage drunkards to continue drinking, we take our hats off to the “good” drunkards, who can come to our aid daringly and willingly, and rescue us from the stalemate we might otherwise be languishing in. After all, the whole sky is not filled with dark clouds, we may come across a few stray immaculate white ones too.