The Morning’s Twist: A Tale of Friendship and Reality
- Pramod Tiwari, DNPPF 2023
It was a fine morning, the sun rising and birds chirping, I was enjoying the lovely sunlight in my garden. With every sip of tea, I was skimming the headlines of the newspaper; my eyes moved towards the news of a foreign agency donating a big infrastructural project to my country. I became too excited and went through the news where it was mentioned that the agency would conduct all the technical and construction tasks and would hand over the project to the government. The morning seemed even better; what more could I ask in such a fine morning other than that wonderful news? I then began to think that my country would develop as more projects would come in the upcoming days. I thought, “How fortunate we are to live in a generation where the developed nations help the developing ones and move forward together.” I imagined my living standard becoming more and more sophisticated as my nation would prosper through all the infrastructural projects helped by different organizations.
The morning could not be any better as my best friend Milan called me at the same time. The moment I saw his name on my screen, I remembered how we studied together since our school days till last year when I decided to join graduate school while he wanted to gather some work experience. Since then, we had not met each other for over a year, as I moved to another city to join the university while he remained back in the city searching for jobs. Seeing his name on my cell phone, I thought to myself, “Why did not I call him and ask about his whereabouts and his progress in his work till now? I don't even know whether he got a job or not.” I found myself selfish for not calling him earlier but consoled myself that our friendship should be more than the phone call and I am still his best friend. I strengthened our memories by remembering how we used to enjoy our school days; how I used to do the assignments for him as he was not quite interested in his studies. He used to take me to lunch several times as I did his assignments. I was proud of our friendship that I saved him from the teacher’s punishment by doing his assignments so that he could submit them as his own. Also, I was happy that although he did not do his assignments on his own, he would be achieving good grades that ultimately would lead to a successful career ahead. As per my imagination, he got the expected grades till last year and as I saw his name, I imagined him in a bright career position in a reputed company. All these thoughts within a few seconds of seeing his name on the screen, I hurried to answer the call and talked with him about his wonderful journey since we departed towards different paths of life.
Answering the phone revealed the truth opposite to my thoughts. Milan told me about the hindrances he had to face during the job search process. He shared about how he could not pass the technical phase of the interview. I was shocked to know that he could not crack any job interview till then. He understood that he did not pass the interview because he did not learn the technical aspects of the courses in the class as all his assignments were either done by friends like me or he copied his friend’s assignment. He felt the gap with other job interviewees and understood the importance of learning and doing on his own rather than taking fruits from others’ hard work. He talked about how he realized the long-term consequences of knowledge and started taking training and learning before appearing in more job interviews. He then shared a ray of light; he said, “I am now confident in appearing for the interviews and I hope some good news soon.” I relaxed a little bit with his statement. We talked for some more time regarding how my studies had been going at the university and we hung up the phone promising to meet in person at the weekend.
The phone call had a great impact on me; all my expectations turned out to be the opposite of the real events. I thought to myself how the phone call would have gone had I taught Milan to do the assignments on his own. How happy I was in my thoughts before the phone call and how the situations appeared in the opposite direction after that call. I began to feel that I misrepresented the true meaning of “help” and caused harm to my friend rather than strengthening him. With these thoughts, I took the cup in hand for another sip of tea but alas the cup was empty. I then took the cup and the newspaper in my hand to go inside the house; suddenly I saw the same news of a foreign agency donating the megaproject to my country. Contrary to some time ago, I was feeling downhearted while going inside.
I began to compare the status of my country with Milan. I was happy with the news thinking about the imminent progress of my country due to the projects gifted by foreign agencies; however, the phone call with Milan changed my perspective on the news. I thought to myself, “At least Milan learned the truth and started to learn and do his task by himself; when will we as a nation learn?” Before, I had the image of a prosperous country due to these projects, but the vision changed to the image of a crippled nation without any technical capacity of developing megaprojects and the nation who is always compelled to ask for favors from foreign agencies for any developmental projects. In the middle of these thoughts, I heard my mother calling me for breakfast. Then I marched ahead towards my normal day routine.