THAT ARC PINE TREE!

- SAMUEL SAMTE, NEW DELHI

“Many a time, we are misled by our greedy and selfish instinct. We often misjudge and misinterpret things at our own conveniences.”

t was a windy afternoon in ARC, Shillong in 2005. I was going to a friend who had come to visit Shillong. As I reached close to ARC Taxi Stand, a huge Pine tree fell across the road. Bang!!! A speeding military truck collided with a car due to the blockade! Two people from the car died and a jawan seriously injured. People flocked all of a sudden while I try to recollect the incident. My inner self tells me “what a bad day for the men in car!”, “what a bad luck!” It never came into my mind that I got a second life and that I was lucky to be unharmed, at just a metre away from the spot. Seeing me standing there, everybody exclaimed that I was lucky.

Although I didn’t view the incident as anything but sheer chance, I nodded out the courtesy. Deep down, I didn’t feel any gratitude and thus quickly diverted the conversation to the cause of the uprooting, blaming callousness of the authorities.

When I narrated the incident to my visiting friend, he too suggested that I was lucky. He even embraced me and kissed me! Wait, “there is nothing special about it. I wasn’t destined to be under the tree today” I said.

Now three years past that incident had happened, I can still remember my calm and composure on that day.

Months later, a youth get together function was held at Laitmukhrah, near St. Anthony’s College. Apart from the food and entertainment, there was a special session wherein a lucky participant could win a prize. The organizer would pick a slip from a jar and read aloud the name of an item written there. Whoever produce the thing first, won a prize. “Get me a one rupee note and I pay Rs. 500”, announced a staff. My joy knew no bound. For I had a new one rupee note always kept in my wallet (I don’t know why) those days. I was a bit nervous. I asked myself “Are they serious”, etc. As I slowly reached for my wallet, someone else form the crowd hurriedly passed a one rupee note and claimed the prize before me. Believe me, I was red! I was inconsolable. For the rest of the day, my thoughts stayed rooted on the missed prize. ‘I would have won’. ‘I should have it.’ As everyone would put it, it was sheer bad luck. What a bad luck that I missed it by just a couple of seconds.

Then suddenly, I gained my conscious and recalled the incident at ARC. Where was the calm and composure that I had taken so much pride in that day? Did it exist only when things worked out in my favor? I could accept good fortune as a matter of destiny and brush it aside. Why is it then that I couldn’t accept bad luck too with the same intensity or equanimity?

I realized that while I look the good things that happened for granted, I grieved disproportionately when things didn’t go as I wished.

Later that evening, I was so to say at my best self. That grief and regret changed into joy! For from that moment I could maintain a balance between “good luck” and “bad luck”. Whenever disappointment comes, I quickly make a list of the times I have been lucky. If the Pipal tree is significant for Gautama Buddha, for me, it is the Pine tree at ARC!