The flight back to Mumbai was uneventful. We were returning back to our children after six weeks but strangely it didn’t feel as exciting as it had felt when we had boarded the flight to Jeddah or during our six week stay when we would at times count the weeks remaining for the return journey.
As the flight readied for take-off, I picked the newspaper lying in the seat pocket. It was our first contact with the outside world after six weeks.
At the Mumbai airport I immediately realized the difficulty in applying the seemingly simple lessons learnt during the pilgrimage.
Everyone had brought tons of baggage from Saudi to be gifted to relatives and friends but I knew it had little value since all those items were actually made in China or Indonesia or some such foreign country and thus had no connection to the holy land. There were only two things that came from the place – dates from Medina and the water from Zam Zam, the holy stream of Mecca. Even the dates of Medina are now imported and available in Mumbai, so it was Zam Zam that was available only when you visited Mecca.
I had thus been very finicky about packing as much water as I can (each Haji is legally allowed a can of 10 liters) and I had packed in small bottles along with the large can. The water cans, due to their fragility are deplaned separately and kept in a separate corner of the baggage collection section, from where you have to identify your can by the name written on it and collect it. I wasn’t worried about my baggage, my only concern was to ensure that my can (and my wife’s) came undamaged.
As I searched through the many water cans that were kept in the corner I could locate only my wife’s can. I read and re-read the names but couldn’t find mine. Probably there was a lot that was still being deplaned.
I went to the baggage belt to collect my regular baggage. As I loaded my trolley and wanted to rush back to the can section I was besieged by an old lady who had always relied on me during the pilgrimage. Her trolley with all her luggage had suddenly gone missing as she had gone to fetch the water can. She was desperate; had someone walked away with her trolley, would all her luggage be lost?
She requested me to help her find her trolley. I knew in my heart that I should help her – that was what right behavior demanded. But my own desperation at not being able to find my water can was gnawing at me. I reasoned to myself that the water was more precious than luggage so I gave her directions as to where she would find her trolley (I vaguely remembered where I had seen it), assured her no one would walk away with it and left her to locate it herself.
When I reached the can station, most of the cans had been collected and there were only a few left. Yet mine was not amongst them. My desperation began to grow into despair. Was I going to miss on the only real valuable thing one could bring from Mecca, something that was not available anywhere else?
And then I found a can with no name or number on it lying unclaimed in a corner. Pilgrims continued to come, identify their cans and collect them, but no one came to collect that unnamed can. And then I had a thought; should I pick that can since it purportedly didn’t belong to anyone because it had no name on it. Of course someone would have put it in the luggage with the hope of getting it through, but obviously it must be an additional can. If for any reason my can didn’t come, did I have the moral right to take the unnamed can?
I knew it wasn’t completely correct, yet as I couldn’t locate my own I began to make plans of taking that unnamed can. Probably, I tried to convince myself, I would wait till the end, wait for every can to be collected and even then if that can remained uncollected I felt I would have done enough diligence before picking it.
As I struggled with my moral dilemma I noticed my can in the middle of the few remaining ones. How had I missed it despite the many checks?
As I walked out with the luggage and the cans safely stacked on the trolley I realized how the slightest threat to something I valued, had diverted me from the task of helping an old lady and made me almost claim a possession which didn’t rightfully belong to me.
Had all my learning, all my days and nights of realizations faltered at the first test of faith? If I had complete faith in the Lord should I have not believed that I would get my can if He so desired and have the fortitude to help others in need?
The children ran to greet us and during the entire ride back home they kept talking incessantly. They had obviously missed us more than we did.
On the Santacruz flyover our taxi driver sharply cut past a car. The car driver honked angrily. As the taxi stopped at the Bandra signal, the car driver got out and assaulted our taxi driver. It seemed the car belonged to the local MLA and thus the driver felt insulted at being overtaken. Our taxi driver tried to put up a brave front but obviously smarted at being roughed up.
As the taxi gathered speed again my seven year old son vented his ire at the preposterousness of the car driver. I had sat passively during the entire incident. Should I have intervened in the matter, should I have stood up for the hapless taxi driver?
And I realized that putting learning into action was not going to be easy at all. That application also required the courage to act and that courage could only come from a firm belief in God and the merit of doing right.
And I also realized that while I had not been able to act as desired I had at least become acutely aware of the need to act. Was this awareness in itself a beginning, a precursor to action which would eventually follow?
We had arrived in Mumbai on Friday evening and I had the weekend to rest at home before joining work. There had never been an occasion when I had stayed away so long from mails. Even when I was on leave I had the constant impulse of checking my Blackberry and logging on to the laptop at the first available opportunity. An hour with an email felt like a disappointment.
However now I didn’t feel like opening my laptop even though I had been away for six weeks. Reluctantly on the Sunday night I reactivated the mail service on my mobile. And it was only on Monday in the office that I started to download my emails.
As I checked through them I realized that a week into my leave some gracious soul had sent me an email with a 12MB attachment post which my mailbox had closed and I had no mail for five full weeks. I suddenly felt a sense of huge relief. A month of all communication had been wiped off my mailbox. It was as if I had ceased to exist professionally for that one month and I didn’t feel the slightest disappointment, the smallest hint of insecurity at that thought.
Was this the beginning of what they call transformation?
{In the next episode - which will probably be the last we will try to recreate the algorithm, the grand design which makes a pilgrimage a source of purification}
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