Those Ten Days
He was a changed man. When I met him fifteen years ago, he was an arrogant person. He was bragging endlessly: “I bought a five-million-dollar apartment in Long Island, I’ve booked a new Ferrari, I took my kids to Honolulu for vacation, I sent a fifty-million-rupee check to Edhi Foundation last year, and I hate this country,” and so on. His words were full of arrogance, boasting, pretension, and hatred.
I grew tired of him within half an hour. His Rolex watch, the ten-tola gold chain around his neck, his black Italian suit, Havana cigar, and Gucci shoes were all bothering me. He was a walking (smelly) advertisement of wealth from head to toe. When he came to my office, he brought his own water bottle, coffee mug, and tissues. He wasn’t even willing to drink our mineral water. After shaking hands, he would reach into his pocket, take out his hands, rub them together, and I soon realized he kept a disinfectant in his pocket. After shaking hands, he would squeeze some out of the tube, rub his hands, and protect himself from foreign germs. He was also casting disapproving looks at my office, rolling his eyes from side to side and then making a sour face. He was a barrel of gossip.
Any name I mentioned, he would open a case against that person. Whatever place, city, or country I talked about, he would begin to list its negative aspects. He had no sense of humor either. Whenever I told him a joke, he would pull a sour face and make me feel embarrassed. I grew tired of him in just half an hour. A divine hand intervened; his gold-plated phone rang, he took the call in a corner, and after finishing it, hurried out of my office.
I looked up at the ceiling and thanked God. He left, but for fifteen years, we stayed in touch via email and SMS, though this was limited to holiday greetings and congratulations on Eid, Shab-e-Barat, or Independence Day. I later found out that even these “emails” weren’t sent by him. He had installed greeting software in his laptop, which automatically sent messages to everyone on his list. His SMS greetings were also sent by an automated system to people all over the world.
We didn’t meet for fifteen years, which is a long time. In that time, you can forget even the biggest of incidents, tragedies, and disasters. It’s said that if a person doesn’t speak a language for fifteen years, they lose 95% of its vocabulary. We didn’t meet for fifteen years, yet I couldn’t forget him. Whenever I saw a Rolex watch, heard the name Long Island, or saw someone disinfecting their hands, drinking French mineral water, or boasting, I would involuntarily remember him and couldn’t help but smile. But yesterday, when I met him again after fifteen years, he was a changed man. He was wearing ordinary jeans, a loose sweater, a long coat, long boots, and a woolen cap. He was smiling, telling jokes, and laughing heartily. He had arrived in a simple 1800cc car.
He even drank the cheap tea from my office and shook hands with everyone without any hesitation. I have dozens of people coming to my office, and I’ve never seen anyone shake hands with my office boy, but he stood up for the boy, shook his hand, and asked how he was doing. He was even expressing positive opinions about the country. He sat with me for two hours, and in those two hours, he didn’t gossip about anyone, say anything negative, boast, or mention his cars, travels, or apartments. I cautiously asked him, “How’s your company doing?” His answer surprised me. He said, “The company’s growth is accelerating rapidly. We hope it will be among the top thousand companies in the U.S. next year.” During our meeting, the time for prayer came, and he stood up, laid out a prayer mat, performed his prayers, and returned.
He told me that he performs ablution twice a day, and these two ablutions last him the entire day. I was astonished by this transformation. Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked him about the reason for this change. He smiled and softly said, “Brother Javed, this is all because of ten days in my life. Those ten days came, and they changed the entire pattern of my life.” I remained silent as he continued, “One day, while running on the treadmill, I felt a pain in my stomach. I went to the doctor, who gave me medicine, but I didn’t feel any relief. The next day, I went to the hospital. The doctor examined me, took blood and urine samples, and sent them to the lab. When the blood test results came back, the ground slipped from beneath my feet. I had pancreatic cancer. I didn’t have much time left. Darkness descended before my eyes. I sat on a bench in the hospital lawn and looked at the world with longing.
Life was rushing by, but I was sad. Deep inside, something was breaking. I felt like there were shards instead of blood in my veins, and with every heartbeat, those shards were moving forward. I got up from the bench, smashed my mobile phone, withdrew fifty thousand dollars from the bank, put my wallet, bag, and laptop in the car, sent the car home, went to the airport, bought a ticket, and flew to Fiji Island. I thought I only had two months left, and I had to live an entire lifetime in those two months.
For the first time in my life, I bought a tent and went into the wilderness. I spent four days in the forests, by lakes, waterfalls, and on the desolate shores of the sea. After that, I lost myself in the hustle and bustle of the city. I danced on the streets and sidewalks with young people, bought burgers from street stalls, sat facing the east at dawn, and watched the sun rise before me. I walked barefoot along the shore, watching the waves rise, crash into the shore, and recede. I felt the sand slip from under my feet.
I watched the shifting shadows of light among the trees. For the first time in my life, I saw the life bound in echoes, sounds, cascading waterfalls, and the wings of flying birds. For the first time, I truly felt life. Even when I drank water, I felt its coolness from my throat to my stomach. When I ate, I tasted every flavor hidden in the food. When I closed my eyes, I could sense the colors hidden in the darkness. When I met strangers, I saw their goodness. When I looked around me—up, down, to the sides—I found everything beautiful. For the first time in my life, nothing in the world seemed bad, no fault seemed like a fault, no flaw like a flaw.
The world felt like a beautiful island, a blessing. I remained in that state for ten days. On the tenth day, I called my wife. She was very worried. They had been searching for me all over the world. My wife revealed, ‘Your medical report was wrong. The hospital sent your blood samples to three different labs. The first report showed pancreatic cancer, but the other two reports were normal. The doctors want to take new blood samples.’ I was astonished. I went straight to the hospital in Fiji, gave a blood sample, and the results came back normal. I thanked God and returned to the U.S.”
He continued, “I believe that first report was a wake-up call from God. Allah wanted to show me the reality of life, and I learned that truth. Now, I believe that until you live every moment of life as if it’s your last, you will never be able to truly feel life or its real colors.”
