The Reluctant Woodcutter....!

The Reluctant Woodcutter…!

“If you don’t study properly, you will become a woodcutter”, my Uncle used to say.

Back in those days, Ali used to perform multiple task for our joint family of 23 people. From cutting firewood to taking the cattle for gazing, Ali’s footprints were felt on every step. The meals were mostly cooked on traditional firewood chula and as such demand was huge for fire woods. In spite of all his contribution I knew his salary was far from being impressive probably because he never took studies seriously. I had more similarities with Ali than with any other member of our family, never wore a chapel, spend most of the time with the cows, climbed trees and used to take bath in the pond. The only difference was I could not learn the art of wood cutting, more because the axe was too heavy for me to lift.

There was a fruit orchard behind the cow shed. We the children used to take ownership of one plant each and pour water every morning. We felt pride of our priceless asset and always kept the surroundings clean. Later, the children vanished in pursuit of higher education. I too left my home town not to become an engineer or a doctor but to escape from being a woodcutter. The trees were still there, taking self-care of themselves but not the cows. In course of time Ali left us and so does the traditional chulas.

After years of struggle, I found a job at a corporate house. The company takes care of all my need. I have been allocated a posh cabin, with a latest Laptop and a multifunctioning printer. I used to keep records of all  data company needs to have and as such my job profile was very sensitive. To impressive my boss I used to keep backup copies of every correspondence. I was considered for a merit promotion within a year.

Last week, when I was leaving my office, it was raining heavily. I still decided to take my laptop along with me. As I was on the way I heard the radio jockey forecasting more rains in the coming days. The traffic was chaotic, it took more than two hours to reach home. On a normal day it hardly takes around 30 min. That night my wife reached home after mid-night.

Next morning, we woke up to a different city. The roads were filled with water. There was no sign of the rain stopping. The electricity went off in the afternoon. There was water all around but hardly any drinking water at home. Our RO water filter stopped working. By evening half of the nation’s educated population was talking about our neighbourhood. For the next two days, people of the city forgot for a while what is ego, anger, property, position, etc. The only thing they knew was help, help, help and help each other.

The rain finally receded. Day before yesterday I got a call from my boss. He enquired about my health and informed that our office peon and the pantry boy is still untraceable. They used to commute from the suburb, located towards south of the city where the area is mostly low-lying. Yesterday, morning we all went to our office. It is located in the ground floor of a three storied building and was still under knee deep water. I tried to open my cabin, it was full of white papers floating around. At one corner, the dustbin too was floating, with papers still packed inside it. I went near and saw a printout out of a newspaper clippings, which I never read.

Looking at the papers floating around my cabin. I felt like crying. I lost all the records preserved so affectionately to impress my boss. But, than again I realized that I had a soft copy of all these papers saved in my laptop. Realizing that I still had my prized possession preserved safely, gave me a sense of satisfaction.

Walking out of the office, I saw people camping near the road. Their condition was far worse than ours. I went back home and explained to my wife how bad I felt looking at all those important documents floating in my office and then the sense of relief after I realized I had a backup. After listening to me, she said “Do you realized one more thing, that you must have wasted thousand rims of paper in the last couple of years at your office, when it was not at all required”.

That night, I thought of all the printout commands I gave which were not at all necessary, the tissue papers I had wasted, the photocopies, the repeated re-drafting, “please send a hard copy” mail. All these papers must have come after cutting of many trees. Suddenly I recalled the words of my uncle. In spite of a Bachelor Degree I became a Wood Cutter. Like me there must be millions of other educated graduates across the globe using the print command at liberty. Had we all shown an iota of maturity, there would not have been any family camping in the streets. These families and their children had no role in welcoming the deadly rains, but still they are suffering because of our immaturity.  

What Ali used to do for a living, I did to destroy the living of our future generation.

Abhijit Bhattacharya

CSR Delhi

(I did not took a printout of this write-up, errors may please be ignored)