Ravi Speaks: -
‘A Carpenter and a Cobbler’-
A
close childhood observation.
Carpenter ‘Kartara’ during my childhood days: -
That person was a very famous Carpenter and we
used to call him “Kartara”. I mean as you very well know- a carpenter is a
worker who builds or repairs wooden structures or their structural parts.
For carpenters I am reminded of a very good
quote that we were taught in our childhood- - “Just like
the carpenter saw each of these disciples in a plain block of wood,
so Jesus sees disciples in each of us. If we let Him shape us and carve away
our sins, then we too can be saved. There is perfect within imperfect.
A carpenter sees and creates what we need to survive.”
This ‘kartara’ was always under the influence
of liquor and he used to have a small bottle of local wine called the
‘Desi-sharab’ in his pocket of the loose pajama which he used to wear always
with a yellowish-white Kurta with a color. He was an expert in his work and
knew very well how to build or repair wooden structures or their
structural parts. We used to call him for some similar work at our house as and
when the need was there. He would come and do his job with no talk or
disturbance and after getting his money he would simply say thanks and move on.
A Known Drunkard in the whole Mohalla:-
I knew his residence also-which was hardly
around half a kilometer away from our house on the backside near a very
well-known Sheikh Amin’s Kothi/Building. He was very poor and had a wooden
small hutment type where his wife and two sons were with him. Many times I
had seen him lying outside his wooden hutment on the roadside completely under
the influence of liquor in an unconscious condition. Even his wife and children
would also not open the door for him in such a condition. He was really a
chronic alcoholic so much that one day he could not get the alcohol
and somehow managed the methylated spirit and drank the same spirit. His
condition became again very precarious and his two sons along with his
neighbors took him to the SMGS hospital-where he was kept under observation
for many days. Even after he came back, we thought that he would have stopped
taking the liquor after that hospitalization. But to our surprise, he continued
consuming the same with no stoppage. Finally, one day while I was returning
from my school to home I saw people taking his body for the cremation. When I
inquired as to how it all happened from my neighbors- I came to know that one
day prior he was recovered from the side drain of the tight street-where after
consuming a lot of liquor he had dumped himself into the flowing water of the
drain and till the time he was brought to his home-he had expired. He must have
been hard in his late forties, but this Desi Liquor had made his body so frail that he looked as if he was over sixty. He disturbed no one around him and used to be always in a smiling mood-which actually was his influenced
condition after consuming the liquor. Later I started seeing his two sons
attending the shop he had, and they too were doing the same carpenter’s
job.
Katara's sons took the Batton after him: -
After a few months, I found the shop getting a new
touch and its appearance also improved. The sons started devoting regular hours
of labor there and got good work too. Slowly and steadily the shop became very
popular and these two guys shifted their work to a far-off place which was
around a couple of miles away from their residence in the ‘Rehari area’ of Jammu.
They were around twenty when they shifted from the Mohalla to ‘Rehari’.
I started thinking that these two guys would
now increase their business and would flourish. But it was not like that and
things had happened contrary to one’s expectations. I came to know later that
these two guys started quarreling with each other and one of them had left the
factory which they had made in Rehari and started doing some private job. The
one who was handling the factory went into the same mold as his father and
started drinking like a fish and became a drunkard. Again after hardly a couple
of years of their separation, this man too died. Their mother was alive and
their families too were there. Both of them had married in between but they had
started living separately.
Kartara’s magical work still in use after 35 years: -
I remember we had a big box like a double
bed-which ‘Kartara’ had made and it was till 2010 with us in Jammu so strong
and solid that we used to keep the winter woolens into that wooden box and use
it is bedding as well. Why I mentioned 2010-because that year my revered mother
had expired and the same box was given to one of our neighbors since we had to
despatch some of the heavy items at that time. This wooden box was 35 years old
made in 1975 by ‘Kartara’.
How Liquor demolishes the families: -
See how the families get totally spoilt
generation after the generation-when this worst vice clings onto their
bread-earners. Much as he could have controlled his vice he could not do so and
the same thing went on to spoil his body and Health-stature. Finally, his
condition became such that even his own blood relation isolated him. He used to
bring his earnings to them and in return, he was not given any respect by his
own children and spouse. Slowly, and steadily he must have realized that he had
reached a point of no return and there was no scope of any improvement since
this liquor had spread like a real addiction-which finally leaves the person
only after he breathes his last.
Even his son whom we thought would rise to a
better standard of life-also followed the same suit. Maybe whatever he did to
his father and even his brother -he must have started realizing his own follies
committed. And it was all the result of his own approach towards his father and
his blood relations that he had to pay the price so heavily.
Yet again this cobbler was a genius: -
The similar thing I saw in the same street with
a cobbler-who too used to take Desi Liquor in the evening. I mean Cobbler,
a person who repairs, and sometimes makes, shoes and not the Cobbler-
who illegally forges passports and other documents. I used to go to his
shop for the repair of my shoes in the same street as my hometown. He had been
there for years and years in the same spot and was really a literal magician.
He was a magician because there were no computers those days but this guy was a
genius – obviously now a dying breed. The place-I mean the shop smelled of
leather and glue and it was an art form as much as a service.
One day I went to get my shoes mended and found
in the shop his wife and a small kid. When I asked as to where was he-I came to
know that he was admitted to the hospital and had a very narrow escape just one
night prior. It may look to be a laughing story but seriously conveys many
lessons.
See what this Cobbler did with his leather cutter?
This cobbler had a small fight with his wife
one night prior and since he was under the influence of liquor he took the
metallic cutter-which was normally used by him for cutting the leather and with
the help of his left hand stretching the tongue outside the mouth, he cut that
portion with the same cutter and in the wild-rage threw that portion of flesh
into the side drain-which used to be open. It is said that in the very fast
reacting manner his wife jumped into the side drain and took out the small
flesh piece of the tongue and wrapped it into a handkerchief. The cobbler was
very badly bleeding from the cut in the tongue and being under the influence he
was immediately taken to the SMGS hospital by the neighbors and admitted
there. The surgery was done immediately and it took quite a few hours for the
surgeons to do the microsurgery on his tongue. Later after say around a couple
of months when he started attending his shop, I being a very young
fifteen-year-old went to him with a lot of eagerness to see as to whether his
tongue was really repaired or not. I wanted to talk to him and found that his
talk was not complete and his pronunciation too was all gone. So here is again
a real-life example of the worst things happening as a result of consuming
Liquor as a drunkard. Thank god in his case his hands were perfect and he could
continue his cobbler’s job without any problem.
A Bad vice overpowers the good magical traits: -
Now, look at the magical powers this cobbler had, and at the same time, his bad vice of consuming the local liquor almost took his
livelihood and even his life. The most unfortunate part in such cases is that
even if these guys are saved from death they still tend to pave the same way
and follow the same destructive direction since all the good things which are
conveyed to them and even the attempts to change their thinking process with
the sole aim of de-addicting them from such addictions go as a mere exercise in
futility. Of course, a few may be quoted as the exceptions here.
Poverty alone is not the contributory factor for sticking to
bad vices: -
Poverty may be the one causative factor for
such situations but getting into this addiction and spoiling one’s own life
along with his family directly getting affected-the lack of education and
awareness with a proper understanding of what is good or bad for them- is equally
another major contributory factor for their destruction. All the government
policies come with full emphasis on such segments as de-addiction centers,
educational awareness programs, adversities due to alcohol and its remedial
programs, etc., etc. But the million-dollar question still after forty-five
years of the above happenings remains as to “How much success we could get out
of all such initiatives”. It seems that we are just filling the blanks but not
really going seriously about wiping out such menaces from our societies and
communities.
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