Being from the same neighborhood, of the same age group and their families having known each other for years, Daani and Zeezu were meant to be best friends. Their day started together with both walking all the way to school, spending all the time in class together, coming back together and playing in the evenings.
Both the families were poor and for them to afford a school for their kids was something really admirable but the two kids had to walk 3 miles everyday to reach the school. Being just 7 and 8 years old, they were too young to understand why they can’t travel in bus like other kids used to. They would always talk about the day when they would have money to travel in the fast travelling bus that always used to pass in front of their eyes.
One day, both Daani and Zeezu decided to save money so that they can one day afford to go school in that bus. They started saving every penny they would ever get and finally after two months, they managed to save 4 rupees and it was enough for both of them to get a ride to school in the bus. Just to make sure that the money is enough, both got it confirmed from their class mates that the fare was 2 rupees for one person.
So, they selected Monday as the day to board that bus and both of them were really excited. They hardly slept imagining how the experience would be. Both of them woke up early, got ready for the school and waited at the stop for the bus to arrive. It came running and honking as always and both kids just jumped into the bus, sat into it fighting for the window seat and putting their heads out of window to see what difference it made to be on that side. The conductor came and started collecting money from the passengers. When he reached Daani and Zeezu’s seat, the kids realized the money had been stolen from the pocket.
The conductor started abusing the kids, slapped them hard saying that they never had money and called them all the bad names. Both started crying and their dream of traveling in the bus got shattered. Even some people advised to throw the kids out of the running bus to teach them a lesson. There was no one to listen to them and everything seems going the wrong way for them.
Suddenly an elderly man stopped the conductor and shouted at him for beating the kids. He took out his wallet and from the corner of this wallet, took out a 5 rupee note and handed over to conductor as the fare for the two kids. The kids saw that his wallet was full of money – 100, 500, 100, rupee notes. The kids reached school not talking to anyone and that day changed their life altogether.
Daani was of the opinion that GOD was cruel to them and HE is cruel to all poor people. Daani thought that if that rich guy who paid their fare had lost few notes, it wouldn’t have mattered to him but it was these little creatures that had to bear the fruits of that lost money. He then concluded that their is no GOD as such and he refuse to believe that anything like that exists.
Zeezu had a different way of putting that incident. He believed that it was GOD who sent that rich man to help them out of that nasty situation. Things could have been real worse had that rich man not appeared on the scene. He concluded that GOD is always for them no matter what happens.
Today Zeezu is 23 and Daani is 24 but both are poles apart. One believes in GOD and other rejects its existence. One incident changed them both but in real different ways.
According to Mamkol, “You cannot influence the way things take place but you can control the way they influence you”.
