Opportunity

“Okay, we will contact you after due consideration. You may leave now”. The man across the table said, adjusting the thick-rimmed glasses on his flecked nose; shut the file in his hands and passed it forward.

Zaheer sat there; a feeling of abrupt shock taking over. Barely a minute had elapsed since he had entered the room. The man across the table looked up, met Zaheer’s staring eyes, took off his glasses and gazed deeper into them

“Didn’t you hear me, young man?”

“But sir, the interview hasn’t even started yet”, said Zaheer. As he heard his own voice resound, he realized he was almost pleading.

The man across the table leaned back into his comfortable chair, a smirk on his partially wrinkled face. “Well… I’m done with my part of the interview”.

Zaheer leaned forward, desperate. “Sir, I believe this job is for me. You can give me this opportunity. Take a look at my credentials; I’ve always excelled at….” His words trailed off as he saw the smirk transform into an iniquitous grin.

“I won’t lie to you”, said the interviewer. “The bargain has already been done.”

Trounced by a sudden rage, Zaheer snapped the file off the table, pushed the chair back and started heading for the door. “Young man!” came a voice from behind and he stopped. “Opportunities are never begged for. They are scattered out there… everywhere. You should know the art of grasping them by the throat.”

Moments later, Zaheer found himself aimlessly meandering the nearby streets, aggravation and distress manifest from his face. The seven-month odyssey of finding a job in that big city was about to get longer. He felt exhausted. He had expected so much from the interview; it was the ideal job for him and he was the perfect choice for it. He knew it!! And now he felt as if the final ounce of hope and commitment had drained off. He was one of the better graduates to have come out of his college. Fate, it seemed, had deserted him. He had seen the ordinary and the unworthy being blessed by the unseen; and there he was… unable to hit upon any appropriate job. His family was in a state of financial crisis and money was their supreme necessity. The aged, beseeching face of her old mother flashed right in front of his eyes and he shut them tight, trying to rub out the image.

The night was descending rapidly on the lifeless streets as thoughts swarmed in and out of his mind. One sentence, however, kept coming back to him: ‘Opportunities are never begged for. They are scattered out there… everywhere. You should know the art of grasping them by the throat’.

He curved around a corner to enter a soggy street. A light-bulb that dangled from a wire on a wall provided some illumination. On the other end of the street, he saw two men… two shadows. They were visibly in the middle of a commotion; one was trying to pin the other against the wall as he struggled to break free. From a concoction of grunting noises they uttered, Zaheer heard one man say “Give me the damned money…”!! His eyes aligned themselves, attempting to get a more lucid view; and then he spotted a briefcase in one man’s hand and a gun in the other’s. Money!! The guy was palpably being robbed. The man with the briefcase kneed the other in the stomach and clouted his gun away. The man squatted as he held his stomach in pain; the briefcase was punched away and the two started landing firm blows on one another.

Zaheer’s heart was beating fast as his mind raced… like it had never done before. A sentence resonated in the back of his mind: ‘Opportunities are never begged for. They are scattered out there… everywhere. You should know the art of grasping them by the throat’. The briefcase lay there on the ground as the two men continued to hustle. The thought of his family, his aged mother, the enduring fiascos and the anger proceeded to stimulate the dark corners of his mind as a decision formed within him. This WAS his opportunity.

The adrenalin rushed and his legs pushed him into a bolt. The two mean ahead were rolling together on the ground, seeking a power advantage. Zaheer ran, as fast as he could, his heart pounding; irresolute of the rightness of what he was about to do. And yet, something appeared to propel him. As he swished past the scuttling men, he scooped the briefcase off the ground, took a jagged turn and sped away still faster. A little down the street, he heard a gunshot from behind and he felt something whiz past his ear; he ducked and scrambled into another street to the immediate right. He took turn after turn, his legs working faster than they ever had. He had done it… he felt delighted!! He had clutched one right from the throat. Yet, the shock of experiencing a bullet rocket past his ear had made him numb. He kept running, feeling only the weight in his hand… groping the possibilities that had pounced out of nothingness. He discerned a bigger road ahead and felt an odd relief; terrified of looking back, he kept running; his mind occupied and his body as if on automation.

As he stepped onto the larger road, he experienced intense light towards his right. The next second, he banged into the lorry; it dragged him with itself and somehow he slipped under it. The heavy tires rolled over him and he could hear the bones in his body shatter.

As he lay there in the pool of his own blood, looking skywards and the briefcase still clutched in his hand, the face of her mother returned. As the breathing faded away, his mind processed its final thought: ‘Opportunities are never begged for. They are scattered out there… everywhere. You should know the art of grasping them by the throat’.