AAA BAIL MUJHE MAAR












Pic.: Sherry Haridas




“Never approach a bull from the front,
a horse from the rear…
 and a fool from any direction.”

- Pro Rodeao.com Sports League


I was eating my dinner last night. I had a very hectic day… I was very tired. So, as I was having my dinner, my cell-phone rang… It was someone I knew very well. Instinctively, I picked the phone. “Is it such an important call? Can’t you get back to him after the dinner?” my wife reminded me…

I took her advice for granted and began to talk to the man on the other end…

That's my first mistake...

The man had a certain complaint (my social work). Well, now that I had picked his call… so, I might as well satisfy him, I thought….

That’s was my second mistake…

I kept explaining and reasoning out with this man… and he was taking me round and round and round. I was heading nowhere…

I explained to him that I was having my dinner… I had just come home after a hard, tiring day… That, the issue was a petty one, and with a little more patience, it could be sorted out for sure…

But, I found myself breaking my head on the hard rock…

Then, I hung the phone…

“So?” My wife was asking me... “You are a fool.”

Well, honestly, I felt I was one!

I was expecting this man to empathize with me… understand my plight… that, I was having my supper… that, I had just come home after a long, hard day… that, I had my personal life, my family (his issue belonged to ‘social work’ category)… and, I was trying to make this man understand…
And, he was, what they say - ‘sitting on my head’, taking me for granted… stepping too much in… 

But, my wife was reminding me, that, it was still not his mistake… It was mine… In her eyes, he was not a pest or a fool… I was.


Long back, when I was still a boy, I had come across the famous phrase ‘Hold the bull by its horn.” Perhaps, I still consider it is a bravado, I still believe that when a bull comes charging towards me, I can hold it by its horns…

The other phrase – ‘Don’t be foolhardy’… which means ‘Dude, don’t try to be foolishly brave,’  keeps my sanity when I lie down there, flat, bruised and battered by the bull…

“Aaa bail mujhe maar,” that’s what it all sumps up to…

At the dinner table, when the cellphone rang and the name flashed, I should have not taken the call. By taking it, I invited my own trouble…


Earlier in the day, Anuraag, a dear friend of mine, had shared a brilliant Post (Pro Rodeao.com Sports League):


“Never approach a bull from the front,
a horse from the rear…
 and a fool from any direction.”


I had instantly liked the Post and commented, “Anuraag, ‘full’ (not ‘FOOL’) marks for it… Ten on Ten.” But, I had no hint – not even the faintest – that, at the end of the day, over my dinner, I would be trying to reason out with someone like this… from all directions… And, in the bargain, make a real fool of myself!

Well, my wife is very clear on this: She sees nothing wrong – nothing foolish – in a bull or a horse or a fool that comes charging. I can understand that, now.



GERALD D’CUNHA

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