Am your Friend but with a Guilt

       

                                   Life would have been easy if heart and mind echoed each other. But the very problem is that both seldom work in tandem and love to contradict most of the times. That is when the situation becomes tough to tackle and we end up doing things that we either adore or repent later.

                      Here is a story of Biju and Anvesh, who were closest of the friends but things changed that evening for ever between them. Both were class V students, studying in KV Coimbatore  in the year 1996 and were fast friends. The story is written in Biju s voice to reduce the vicarious factor. 

           It was evening 5 pm and as Anvesh's father just returned from Chennai. Anvesh called me (Biju)  up and asked me to come home. I walked the stone throw away distance playing football with the pebbles on the road. As i greeted Uncle and Aunty, Anvesh took me to his room to show something exciting he had. I was awestruck when i saw beautiful white calculator with its number pad illuminated. This calculator was completely a different machine. It had big display of numbers and a folding display, like current days small laptops. For the next 1 hour we were busy exploring the features and looks

of the calculator. It may seem little funny to the readers for the way a simple calculator is being admired. But in those times(1996) we had no electronic gadgets like mobile phones,latops and video games were the possessions of rich people. So a calculator with a foldable display was a big thing to possess. It was like a white magic box, a push button to open the flap display automatically. At last Anvesh placed it on his study table and we moved out of the room to his drawing room.

 It was more than 6 pm and was time for me to go back home. But in my mind i was still occupied with the gadget and nothing was visible or audible to me. I wanted to own it, play with it all alone in my room. But that was not possible until and unless I owned it. As i was about to leave Anvesh home, I stopped for a while and asked him for a glass of water. He left for the kitchen and my heart started forcing me to slip the calculator inside my pocket but my mind was saying it was wrong. My mind brought pictures of our friendship but it was getting over shadowed by the imaginary pictures of me and the calculator. And at last fantasy won over ethics, heart won over the mind. Almost in a trance  with a kind of numbness i walked the most difficult three steps and secretly slipped the fantasy calculator inside my pocket before i drank the glass of water that
Anvesh brought me.

With the calculator in my pocket i moved those heavy steps back home. I knew i had done something very shameful and disgraceful. As i pitied myself i regained the situation and cursed myself for having done something as bad as this. I also realized that if i take this calculator home my parents would beat me blue to know where from I got it. Oh my god ! Can i revert this ? No I can't. I hid the calculator under a big stone beneath a tree and left home. That night i did not sleep. Morning when i met Anvesh in the school,I could not talk normally to him  out of guilt. He too had a different vibe for me. May be he knew what I did to him or may be he did not know. That same day I decided to secretly keep back the calculator at Anvesh place. So in the evening I went to the place where i had hid the gadget but to my surprise it was missing. I could not help but cried for the whole situation. I cried for doing that to my friend and even more for denying the chance to correct myself to be good again. But there are deeds that you are compelled to live life long with guilt. This one was exclusively for me. Not a day passed without me dying inside for my deed. Things changed, i never went to Anvesh s home nor did he invite me ever again. I wish my heart had said a big NO that day or i had gone with my mind that stopped me from stealing the calculator.

Moral: When you are in a situation where mind and heart are equivocating, just move out from the situation and develop a prospective thinking (a distant view). You ll get your answer right and also ethical.
This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda