Amrut-Ganga Society is a residents society of an apartment which has 16 flats. Although the apartment was in a livable condition since past 3 years but did not have all the amenities till recently. In these 3 years the occupancy has increased from 2 to 11. New families came in and new friends were made. Some became friends as soon as they came and some remained indifferent. Some friends turned foes and some foes turned friends. All these continued as it does in any human village.
Celebration, fun, cooperation, arguments, gossips, quarrel, sacrifice, love and hatred all coexisted in the society. This made it a fun place to stay. I call it fun place because the above activities acted like ingredients to make the stay at society taste like undhiyu.
The basement of the apartment was reserved for parking for residents. As people occupied the flats the car owners picked up their preferred parking spot available at that moment. At times there were little tussle between car owners to occupy the convenient parking spot. When residents realized that parking is giving some trouble, they tried to find a solution to the problem. They thought of allotting parking spot to each flat. But upon careful study it was realized that there were only 11 parking spots and out of them some were not convenient for parking midsized vehicles. So they thought of leaving the resolution of the problem on time and let the currents car owners park their cars where they usually do. These were all good as only few out of 16 were owning cars and others had two wheelers.
It continued with some hiccups in between when a owner got a guest who came with a car or somebody parked their car at another place etc. But the situation remained bearable.
As some flats were occupied by young couples, over time they started buying cars and gradually all the convenient spots started filling up. The tussle became minor to moderate over time.
One fine morning when one of the owner came back from a vacation found his (So called) parking spot was occupied by a newly bought car. Despite being happy that one of the member of their society has bought a beautiful car, he was upset. He asked the new car owner to take the car out of his parking spot but the owner of new car denied and sounded rude.
Fearing the situation has come to a threshold there were lots of arguments, discussions and ideas to solve the parking problem. Finally some came up with an idea to allot the parking spots available. Fortunately there were only 11 occupants and 11 parking spots. Hence they went ahead and allotted the parking spots. Then they came to tell everybody to park their car in the allotted spot. Everybody obliged except the owner of the new car. He was arrogant and also turned violent stating you have no right to decide where I shall park my car. You are not a legalized authority. This resulted in many more arguments, strategies, tactics to solve the problem but the owner of new car was stubborn.
People started boycotting the owner from every activity, thought of evil ideas to trouble him and his family, cursed him and negativity flourished like weeds during rainy season.
Finally one day a senior member of the society thought of having a dialog with the new car owner. He went with some flowers, sweets and snacks with him and knocked the door of the owner.
“Hello uncle, good morning”, the owner said.
“How are you son? Happy new year! I have got something for you and your family. May I come inside?”, the senior said.
“Yes Uncle, always welcome.”, the owner said and called his wife and kids. Then he offered him to sit.
They spoke on various topics to know each other and it was a great discussion. The senior member was surprised to see how cordial and respectful he is, unlike his impression about him. He finally decided to ask, “Son, is there a reason you are not following the society’s allocation of parking lot. I see you are such a nice person. Is there a reason and can I help anyway”.
The owner hesitated and the family members who were sitting there gradually left the drawing room. After much hesitation he said, “We don’t know how to drive a car. We bought the car as we always wished to but we could not still get the confidence to drive the car. I can not park my car in the allotted space because its narrow and needs lot of care. I also feel uncomfortable asking for help to park the car and I do not want to show my weakness. I am telling you the truth uncle but please do not disclose it to others. They will laugh at me. I know everybody in the society are angry with me and we are also spending sleepless night due to this.”.
Uncle was now dumbfounded by hearing this. He did not expect this at all. After absorbing the matter he said, “Son, would you mind if I teach you driving. I assure you nobody will know about it. Once you learn you can park comfortably in the allotted parking spot. It will not take more than 7 days.”
The new car owner agreed to it and everyday night after all owners slept they went for driving training and within a week he was expert to park his car at the spot allotted. All others were surprised. Some thought it was due to their pressure and negativity this car owner bent down.
Fear, sorrow, lack of confidence and many other type of weaknesses take the form of anger or arrogance if not managed well. We all need help time to time but our weaknesses stop us from taking it. Hence we show anger or bad behavior to hide the weakness. If we can be truthful to ourselves and tell the true feeling to our mind and loved ones, we will live a happy and satisfying life.
Namaste!!!
Stray Dog
Life as Sakti 