CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

One of the candidates I trained happened to be the son of a politician. However, unfortunately his father was in the opposition party, which never saw power. Chandran, was his name. He was the first-born, followed by two siblings. His parents loved him dearly. His father’s power and love spoilt hm. His dad gave him a Pulsar in his first year of college, and pocket money was available in thousands.  Thoroughly spoilt, with an inflated ego, he projected himself as a gang leader.

He had seen his father wield power and respect. Therefore, to Chandran, self respect, esteem and status were very important issues. Added to these, was the clan dominance. He felt his clan was superior. He also was sure that his religion was better, and had a conformed dislike for any other religion.    

According to him, he was from a fighting clan. Therefore, he used these beliefs to pick up a brawl and bashed the opponent. In his village, no one dared to oppose him. His cousins and uncles were also of the same materials. So there were weekly fights, most of them were caste issues.  

I learnt many fight terminologies from him. For instance “ Ditching” meant to dash your forehead against your opponent’s forehead with such force, that he will black out. This is very similar to ram’s butting their head.

He also told me that near the temple compound walls, short stout sticks were, hidden in sand. These were, pulled out during a fight to give a sharp whack to the rival. The sticks were, kept short on purpose, so that the rival could not grab it and use it on the attackers.

There were also sharp thin knives to superficially, cut the skin of the foes, so that they winced and ran off.

Every time there was a temple festival, there also a free fight between rival gangs. He and his cousins were regular visitors to the police station. He had a few cases registered in his name, with the cops.

However, the boy was intelligent and a natural at studies. He passed easily in spite of all the distractions.

In his family when a child was born, or when some girl attained puberty, or some one got married, it meant traditional expenses. In Chandran’s clan there was no dearth of such mindless exorbitant wastage of money. Each occasion meant an expense of Rs. 25000.

His dad’s major portion of property was, spent on such draining expensive rituals. The income from agricultural lands also slowly reduced.  So now, the family had to depend on Chandar’s income. In this critical situation, he came to my organization for a post of a representative.

He got his home- town as headquarters. Once the son of a rich man; he was now working as a commoner. He felt humiliated about the downfall in his status.

Therefore, he changed over to another organization, which gave him a different but nearby head quarter. From the new place, he could also visit his hometown each night, after the day’s work was over. This arrangement helped him maintain his status.

 Nowadays, with exposure to the realties of life, he is slowly turning into a new leaf. He has understood that violence leads to more violence. He is keeping away from the gangs that would pull him into a fight. He has also understood about the dignity of labour.  He is now relooking into his beliefs. Now he is realizing how of much pain one can get due to wrong viewpoints.

He has now mellowed into a better civil person. He is also regretting his past; about how much of valuable time has been lost in such useless pursuits.

He is abiding with time, to go abroad, far away from the maddening crowd, customs and meaningless customary extravagances; to start anew and to start afresh.

Certainly a change for the better.