There are some episodes in life that define people through their travails. They also define how they will be remembered by you for the rest of your life. There is one such person for whom I have a certain amount of respect and regard. It was the winter of 2010 and the evenings were passable providing respite from the punishing heat of the summer. As usual, I'd leave office at 4:00 and come to the bus stop and catch the bus back home, a journey which would take 40 minutes at times and sometimes more than that. Usually a few colleagues would also board the bus and there were some strange faces which had become quite familiar to evoke a smile and a silent hello. I don't know when this routine broke, as a sexagenarian colleague started regularly using the same bus from office to back home. He would get down one stop ahead of me, which meant that he would be accompanying me for the greater part of the journey. He would invariably take the seat adjacent to the middle door and I would usually take his immediate front seat. He always kept to himself and to his rosary. This went on for a couple of days, we greeted each other and kept to ourselves. One day I didn't have the exact change to take the ticket and he paid for it. I think that broke the ice and my journey had company now. He would eat a chewing gum immediately as he sat and would give me one. I don't know when we fell into the comfort zone and started conversing at ease during the journey. We would talk about many things. He would share some Urdu couplets and poems, past experiences, his childhood memories, about his deceased parents and his children. I would also share such matters with him but with a certain sense of dignity that his age required and also because familiarity breeds contempt. Both of us would go down memory lane and talk about our families living in our respective native lands. One Thursday, as is the week-end here, I shared with him a humorous incident about a friend who would say that it is weekend and with a mischievous smile, cheekily say that his better-half is waiting for him at home and he'll be having kebabs. We both laughed at the hidden innuendo in the humor. From then on, on a Thursday, I'd say: "Today is Thursday and there will be kebabs" and laugh ourselves to our homes. Looking at his mood, one such day I joked that he must also be bracing himself for kebabs. He just laughed it away and said that at his age kebabs are not easily digested. That weekend he bought some carrot halva from home and gave me. The halva was delicious and I said that his wife really cooks well. He said that his daughter and he had made the halva and that his wife is in fact bedridden for the last many years. She seldom walked and nobody knew the ailment she was suffering from. In a very dignified way he expressed his desire for a woman's company, a desire that every man rightfully has. That day he spoke at length about his inner anguish and I lent a mindful ear to his soliloquy. He said that he had expressed this to his friends who were of his age and they suggested that he should get remarried, as being a Muslim this is allowed and can be done. I knew that his health was being compromised by this self imposed celibacy. I said that if the need be then it is not wrong to do so but he should get his daughter married first as she may face some problems because we all come from a society which sometimes blames a person for just being a human being. All through the journey we spoke about the matter and he kept on repeating that some how he was uncomfortable with the thought. It was the last signal before he had to alight from the bus when he said: Yaar, you know there is only one thought that comes to my mind when I think about another woman. If I tell or ask my wife that I want to get married, she will agree to it. She knows what I am going through and she knows her own plight as well. But I have lived my life with her and I still care for her; her health, her life and I want her to live. And even if she gives me permission or agrees to my getting married, she may not tell me but surely a feeling will cross her mind and she will think at least once, that it is better for her to die before seeing such a day in her life." Saying this, he called for the bus to stop as his destination had arrived. I looked at him as he stood and alighted from the bus. He was a simple man but a superior human being. It was the desire of a man that he had sacrificed and defeated to allow a more human need which is nothing but compassion and love, to triumph.
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