Value time

"Mom, I will go for tuitions tomorrow. Today I want to sleep!” These were the most common words I used to say to mother during my school days. As a child, I never did my homework on time! I never went to school on time! For tuition, I was always late and during my exams, I used to sit and cry! However, these tears never taught me a lesson, until one fine day...

I was 16 and studying in class IX. My Hindi being very weak, my mother was worried that I would fail. She cried a lot and begged me to join some tuition, and improve my Hindi. I could see my mom cry no more! With my friend Kuresh, I finally joined the tuition class of a dear old man, "Ghalsasri Sir.”

Ghalsasri Sir always used to give us advice on how to live life, how to be good human beings, how to act in society. Slowly, we started believing in what he said.

A year passed by and in 2001, I sat for my boards. With the foundation Ghalsasri Sir gave me in Hindi, I scored a wonderful 81 percent in the language. My mother once again had tears in her eyes, but this time, tears of happiness!

After I left school, I did not meet my Hindi Sir often. All the advice he gave me too, with time, began to fade. I turned back into who I was, a "lazy, slow human being!”

However, I still had respect for Ghalsasri Sir and for all that he taught me. I wanted to thank him for what he had done, but I did not know how! After a few months of thinking, I finally decided to go and meet my Sir, sit with him and give him company in his old age! That’s the only way, I thought, I could repay him for his good deeds!

When my conscience urged me to visit him I would say, "I will go, but not today, I will go tomorrow!” In this way, days, weeks, months and a year passed by! Finally on one Wednesday morning, when it was raining heavily and I was in college, a peon came into my 12th standard classroom and announced, "College will be closed today on account of the sad demise of Ghalsasri Sir, Dahanu town’s most popular Hindi professor.” In the heavy rain, I rushed to his house with a heavy heart!

Seeing his closed eyes, I cried inside myself, telling Sir only one thing, "I am sorry! I got late Sir. Please come back!” That night while I lay on my bed, I heard a voice that said, "Farzan my child, had you only made it in time, I would have been able to hold your hand!” Tears began to roll down from my eyes. This was the first time in my entire life, that I repented being late! Ghalsasri Sir left behind for me the most important lesson — the value of time! "Time has an end. It is not forever! Do what you have to do today, or it may be too late.”

FARZAN B. MAZDA

Dahanu