Following been written to be made into a short film for a cause-oriented film fest
Sitting somewhere in the middle of the array of wooden tables in the examination hall, amit wrote. He wrote fast and he wrote accurate. His eyes focusing on every word that he would write. Every word that he wrote extracted a bit of the tension that filled his mind. But even as his ball point pen was galloping away from sentence to sentence, amit had to keep an eye on the examiner.
The shrewd and alert examiner walked past tables, slowly and silently, as if she were a crocodile wading midst fish in a lake. And who would she devour? Amit knew he would be her prey if she saw his 'chit'. The chit. Every word amit wrote came from that chit of his. Fuelling him towards success, this chit was the key to success and maybe to doom. Amit was nearing the end of his task. With only one line remaining to write, he could see the examiner walking towards him. He quickly and wisely rolled up the chit and slidnit into his pocket. The examiner passed by.
Amit folded the answer sheet close and just as he was starting to stand-up, he heard is bench mate whisper to him. He was pleading amit to pass the chit to him. "Please give me this chit", he said. "I will fail without it". Amit looked at him,then at his chit and then at the examiner. He thought for a second as there was not much time to think. The examiner would then back in few moments. Amit looked at back at his friend, smiled and said, "although I don't need it anymore but i won't give it you". His smile grew sinister and he turned away and walked out of the hall. He tore that chit, that he needed little now and threw it free, to let the pieces fly with the wind.
The chit, merely a piece of paper that was now torn and discarded, was once the last strand of hope for his poor bench mate.But Amit was like this, right now and he would remain like this in the future.
With time there came many exams and many classes to study through. Many people to make friends with and many people to be known to. The people who knew Amit, believed that even through, with time Amit had grown in size and knowledge, some things remained unchanged. The size of his shoe had gone from being 2 to 7, but his heart, his friends said, did not grow much.
One day, Amit took his family to a fast food restaurant. Miscalculating the number of heads, he bought 8 burgers, while the number of heads were only 6. The family came out, huddled by the serene park and started to savor on the meal. Amit gladly took the initiative to eat one of the remaining burgers, to save wastage, but 1 was still left. Maybe the one extra burger caught someone's eye.
A little beggar boy, bearing a very honest and likable face walked towards the group. He told them he on an empty stomach since 2 days. Life was hard, the weather was hot and his means were little. Indeed, life for him was hard and it showed in his face, which sometimes looked as if he was aging in his years of growth.
But Amit would not buy any of that. He knew better. "Although I don't need it", he said as he walked to the central pond of the park, "I won't give it to you". And with this he unpacked the burger and threw it in the water. Of couse, his family was not happy about this. But they could simply stand there and stare as the man whose heart was, well, heartless, did what he wanted to do.
With passing years, there came many times, when Amit satisfied his desire of being heartless by crushing hopes of people. And it seemed God gave him way too many chances to do that too.
Once his mother was diagnosed of a heart ailment for which he immediately bought medicines. But later, on the same day, the report turned out to be flawed and it turned out that his mother was fit. As Amit stood in the hospital happy after hearing this news. A poor man, whose wife it seemed was diagnosed with the same ailment and asked if Amit would help him out by giving him the medicines. His wife, he said was quite serious and he was short of cash.
"She needs these medicines to live. God has given you good. Please help me", he said
Amit smiled, took cigarette lighter out of his pocket and set the packed of medicines on fire. "Although I don't need these....."
And so, even after being so heartless for years, God had seemed to given him a good life. But everything comes to an end. At 75 years of age, he lay on his deathbed in an hopsital. His daughter, son, their spouses and his grandchildren were all around him to spend the final moments. Gently interrupting the family union, the doctors asked Amit if he would want to donate his eyes.
Everyone in the room found it, a rather stupid question and midst subdued whispers, waited for the obvious reply. But as Amit curled up his wrinkled lips and started to utter, "Although I won't need them when I am dead", his daughter came ahead, interrupted him and revolted his attitude. Although this revolt was quite late, considering all the years, through which she had seen his father do his thing, but it was good that it came.
"You have been heartless all your life father. But for once. For once, can't give hope to someone? This is rediculous!"
"Ridiculous? If you think I am the only heartless fellow the world my dear, reconsider your thought. Giving hope to someone may not be hard at times and who does it? Look behind you. Yes, look that the reader of this story. Even to this day, as the reader reads this, has he ever thought of giving the light of hope to someone? Everyone, talks my dear. The things we don't need, may be the profoundly precious to someone else. I ask the reader"
"Would you donate your eyes to give someone hope? Or are you as heartless and indifferent as me?"
As everyone looked shocked, silence filled the room. The sound of the AC and medical tick-tocks proved that time was still on the roll. The silence broke, as Amit took in a deep breath, a breath which would be his last. He took the form from the doctor, signed it with his shivering hands.
"I have changed. Will you?"
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