SHORT STORY: UNSCHOLARLY SCHOLAR

Copyright@kamleshsujata1

By Kamlesh Tripathi

Long time back a rich man in a small town was standing on the terrace of his house and smoking a cigarette. He was basking under the evening sun and reminiscing, the hard struggle that he had undergone in his lifetime, to earn the high repute and standing, in the society. And, while inhaling a puff each time, it appeared he was as remembering every challenge of his life, and while exhaling, as if how he countered the challenge.

Just then a scholar was passing by on the road. He stopped, for a moment, and looked at the rich man and asked, ‘Hey you, why are you smoking. Don’t you know it is very harmful for health?’

‘Yes I know, yet I smoke, because I like it.’

‘And since how many years have you been smoking?’ asked the scholar.

‘For the last twenty years.’ replied, the rich man, in a jovial tone.

‘And how many cigarettes do you smoke each day?’

‘Say about two packets, which is, twenty cigarettes.’

‘And how much does a packet cost?’

The rich man thought for a moment and then gingerly replied, ‘Say about two rupees.’

‘That means you spend about four rupees a day, which in twenty years with interest should be somewhere around thirty five thousand rupees.’

‘Yes I know. I am a businessman.’ Curtly, replied the rich man.

‘And what other vices do you have?’ asked the scholar in a concerned tone.

‘I also drink?’

‘Drink!! That is really said. But, how much do you drink?’

‘A pint a day, and that costs some ten rupees a day, and that too I have been drinking for the last twenty years.’

The scholar, astonished, halted for a moment to calculate and then said, ‘That means you have wasted another ninety thousand on drinks.’

‘So what, and how does it matter?’ asked the rich man.

The scholar by now was irritated at the rich man, and he decided to give his peace of mind to the rich man.

‘Hey you, don’t you know that both cigarettes and drinks are extremely harmful for health, plus you have wasted over a lac of rupees on your vices. And had you saved all this you could have bought this house, atop which you are standing so proudly.’

The rich man looked at the scholar amusingly, took a deep puff and said,

‘Dear passerby. This house is mine, my vices are mine and I’m in good health.’ But who are you to ask these questions?

The moral of the story is no matter how intelligent you are, avoid, unsolicited and free advice to others, even if the matter is of extreme importance.

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Refrain: cigarette smoking and drinking are injurious to health