Once, there was a poor man. His stomach was
invariably empty as he barely had 3 meals a day. He lived in a ramshackle flat
and was always pressed for house rent by the landlord. He was a student of a
college in a town and he could barely provide himself with the discounted
education fee for his financially challenging background. At day, he studied
hard and at night, he worked as a part-time crew to eke a living.
He craved
to win a scholarship but things did not go as he wished. To pay his delayed house
rent, he had to work at day too and thus had less time to revise his academic
works. On the next day of his
night-work, it was hard to concentrate on the lectures. He prayed every day to
God to help him excel in his academy. However, he was far from scholarship but
on the verge of retaining another year.
He was
bitter about his life. ‘Why wasn’t I born in a more affluent family? I could
have tuition like my peers instead of working as a part-time crew.’
‘Even if my family was in middle class, I could have
achieved better academy.’
‘If my parents had worked hard to earn more money,
I wouldn’t have to suffer this miserable poverty.’
‘Why am I given with poverty while others with
wealth?’
He bore a grudge against God.
‘Why doesn’t God grant me some joy?’
One
day, after his part-time work, he was dragging his frazzled body home. His head
down facing the ground, he moped about his unhappy life, speculating aboout
existence of joy and when joy would ever come for him.
After a few minutes of trudging, he jutted his
head up and stood agape with surprise. What loomed ahead of him was a splendor.
The sun was hung on the horizon of the sky, touching the edge of the mountain,
its brilliant beam blinding the man to see the short, thin line of the slope. The
peak of the mountain soared into the sky was so tall that it almost seemed that
it could hook the fringe of clouds. The layer of clouds was so thin that it
looked like cottons shredded across the sky. The rays from the dazzling ball
dyed the blue sky and the white clouds in golden red. Thin strips of light
shades were formed between the reddened clouds.
The man gazed at the scenery in awe. It
looked like a perfect combination of two regions beyond the horizon. He forgot
about his grief but was overwhelmed with poetic sentiments and wished he could
keep the picturesque scenery in his memory as vivid as possible. He wondered
why he had been passing this place indifferently. He eyed the landscape closely
and realised what attracted him was the sunset. He stood there still and
indulged himself in the scenery until the sun hid behind the mountain and the darkness
fell.
On his way home, he felt fatigue had left him
and his body seemed to be lighter. He kept flashing the view on his mind because
he knew it would be hard to catch the sunset on the mountain again and thus he
wanted to preserve the rare image fresh as long as possible. He thought he
would be happy if he could watch the scenery everyday.
Then, he realised. His question about joy was
solved. Joy is joy because it is rare. Because
of its rareness, people rejoice when joy finally finds them. The man knew, whether
how long joy would take to reach him, it would be great enough to beat his past
anguish.
On that
day he found a new joy when he found the scenery.
