Fly while you have wings

Abdul Matin

RENOWNED scientist and former Indian President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam quoted the following poem of the great Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi while addressing a gathering of youth in Dhaka recently: “I am born with potential. I am born with goodness and trust. I am born with ideas and dreams. I am born with greatness. I am born with wings. I am not meant for crawling because I have wings. I will learn to use them and fly.” This prompted me to reconstruct a short story partly based on a theme I borrowed from one of my professors:

A young man serving an old but wealthy Arab Sheikh once complained to his master: “Sir, why are you so rich while I am so poor?”

“Why should you be poor? You too are very rich,” the Sheikh replied smilingly.

“You must be joking, Sir,” the young man said.

The Sheikh said: “No, I am not. You are really very rich. If you don't believe me, I am ready to give you all of my wealth, provided you give me something in return.” The young man was puzzled and began to wonder what he had that he could exchange with his master's wealth! He thought for a while and said: “I have nothing worthy of exchange, Sir.”

The old man said confidently: “Surely you have but you don't know.” The young man was still confused. He asked impatiently: “Sir, please tell me what it is.” “It is your youth,” the Sheikh said calmly and continued: “If you give me your youth, I shall give you all my wealth plus my age. Would you like to exchange?”

The young man put his head down without uttering a word. The old man continued: “I know why you want my wealth but not my age. It proves your youth is more valuable than my wealth. If I could be young like you, I could re-build my career. Perhaps I could double or triple my wealth. To tell you the truth, I was not rich at your age. I made my fortune through hard work during my youth. If I could do it, why shouldn't you? A person's best asset is his/her youth. Remember, it comes but once in life. If you can make the best use of it, you can achieve anything in life -- perhaps more than I did.” The young man felt ashamed and said: “Please forgive me, Sir. I must have said something very silly.”

The old man said: “No, you didn't. We appreciate the worth of youth only after we lose it. So, fly, my boy, while you have wings.”

The writer is a former chief engineer of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission.

This was sent by Arun Shroff