Something money cant buy

Long back, one day dad asked me to help him arranging his files and stuffs. He was cleaning his cabinet. When you dig into old piled up stuffs, sometimes you do find interesting things. Whenever I open my Grandmother’s glass door cabinet, I find something or other very interesting. Dad’s childhood photo, my old school badge, few sea shells we gathered long back in Puri. These things always take me back to that age. But in my dad’s files, I didn’t expect any such interesting things, so the job was pretty boring for me. Suddenly I found a diary. I have never seen my dad writing anything in diary, so I was very happy finding the diary. I took out a pen to write my name on the first page to establish my ownership before my sister even come to know about it. The moment I opened the diary, I found a dirty black colored stuff inside it wrapped with some small piece of very old news paper.
- “Eeik!!!! What’s that dad? It must be some kinda insect, died in the fold of the diary”. I threw the diary on the ground. Some part of the dirty stuff came out of the diary and scattered on the floor.
Dad smiled and took the diary in his hand, carefully kept the shabby thing back into the diary pages; I don’t know what it was but certainly not a fossil of any insect. It was something my dad wants to cherish. I started feeling bad for throwing the diary without knowing what it was. But that didn’t last long smelling a story. I could see the expression on my dad’s face. Certainly he was recollecting something very old, something very special happened in his life. I kept my mouth shut expecting dad to start again.
“You know dear, this apparently dirty stuff means a lot to me”. I dragged my chair near to him.
He continued, I started my career in Block Development Office back in 70s. I was different at that time, a lot more enthusiasm was in me, lot more self believes. I don’t know how the spark faded out from me in these many years. May be in times it happens like this. At that time, every day I wanted to something different but never got a chance to be different than others. One day I noticed a new guy as the sweeper of our mess. Asking others what I came to know is the young guy who used to work here before is ill, so became irregular. That’s why they appointed someone new. I didn’t enquire more on the guy who was ill. Few days after that, I met the guy on the road. I asked him what happened. In reply what he said just stunned me. He was suffering from critical heart disease. I asked him to consult a good doctor and assured him to help if he comes to Kolkata. But he said, he can’t afford the treatment cost. He was the only earning member of the family and that job also he lost because of health condition.
I came back to mess but his words kept me bugging. Once I feel to extend some financial help, but on that time I just started earning, so I couldn’t even have afforded more. I didn’t sleep the entire night. Next day morning I took the writing pad out. I drafted two letters, one to the Prime Minister and another to the Governor of the state. I read in the news paper that both on state and central govt level they have some funding to help poor people. Though I didn’t know how to get that fund, I just gave a shot on that. My expectations were not much from the so called govt processes, but to my surprise I got a reply for both my letters from PM office and Governor Office. In next few days, two inspections took place with the help of local police station regarding the financial condition of that guy. In a month time he got a good treatment in Vellore under Dr. Sunil Sen. He got two cheques, one from central govt of Rs 10,000 and another for Rs 5,000 from state government. Those amounts were not small in those days. Finally in a month time, that guy came back from Vellore. I can’t tell you how great it felt to me seeing him completely cured. And the guy couldn’t say much to thank me, but I read it on his tears. Two months after this I got a job in banking field, so had to leave the place. My farewell was done; all the gifts were packed well in the suitcase. I said good bye to all my friends and neighbors and waiting for the bullock cart to the station. I heard a knock on the door. I turned back and saw the guy, standing just outside of my room. I called him in. we talked for a while and then took out a small thing packed in a piece of news paper from his pocket. He gave that to me and said, “I opened a Pan stall last month. I can’t afford much to give you a good bye gift, so I prepared this special Pan for you. Please have it. I know it’s nothing with compare to the help I got from you. Not only you saved me, you saved my family also. I pray to god everyday to send more people like you”. He was in tears. I took it from him and before I react he ran out of the room. I was running out of time so didn’t get a chance to tell him that he has given me probably the best gift in my entire life. He wanted me to have it, but I thought of keeping this for the last day of my life. It’s not a shabby thing dear, it’s the most precious gift I ever got.
Dad completed his story and took a piece of cloth to clean the diary. I saw a rare drop of tears in my dad’s eyes. At that age, I couldn’t connect myself much to the tears, it was all happy ending, then why tears. But today in a much paced life, I seek that few drops of tears of Happiness.