The Real Riches

A wealthy middle-aged businessperson, Suhas Chauhan, cracked a business deal worth 75 crores in his office’s conference room located in a high-rise commercial tower in the industrial estate of the city. He and his team were extremely overjoyed for their accomplishment tonight and planned to rush home to celebrate with their families. Everyone on the team had been working on the prototypes day and night to get this business deal with one of the top-notch customers and had not spent adequate time at home all this while. Mr. Chauhan finally gave a thankful speech for his team’s hard work and announced a grand celebration in the upcoming week. On this note, he watched as his employees rushed out of the office to be with their families tonight.

Suhas reached home about an hour later. He turned on the lights of the empty 5 BHK apartment and sat alone on the couch relaxing for a while. His housekeeper had prepared the dinner and left a couple of hours ago. He warmed the food and ate his meal alone while watching some business news. He was incredibly happy to have gotten through such a huge deal and wanted to share his joy with someone. But today, he had no one by his side.

Suhas decided to take a stroll in the nearby areas. It was already late and fewer people were around. He bought a cigarette from the paanwala’s shop around the corner of his society and walked on the footpath while enjoying the smoke.

Suhas came across a family of six people who were sitting beside a tattered cloth tent on the roadside. The family consisting of an elderly woman, a couple, and their three children seemed to be the occupants of the tent house and were having their dinner outside. ‘How do these poor people live in such cramped tents?’, Suhas pitied them and took a moment to pause his stroll and stood aside to observe the family. They were all sharing their food as they ate. They chatted continuously, narrating their day’s events to one another. They seemed a bit cold, but they shared each other's worn-out blankets and shawls. They were smiling, sometimes laughing, and overall looked so cheerful. Suhas was lost in the family’s world full of poverty and compromises, which still seemed a good place to be in.

He observed as the family finished their meal and lit up a small fire to keep themselves warm. The kids threw twigs in the fire and playfully circled it enjoying the heat. Their mother pulled them closer to her in her lap and patted them to sleep. Suddenly Suhas drifted back to the world of reality and went down the memory lane of his life.

Suhas had been a very money-minded person all his life. But he was equally a workaholic. His motto was to work as hard as you can to get all the money you desire. A few years back, he too had a family. His wife, a young son, and his mother. His father had passed away a long time back and he wasn’t in touch with his only sister now. Five years ago, his wife filed for a divorce on the grounds of his sheer ignorance towards their family life and son’s upbringing. She had stormed out of Suhas’s lavish apartment one day in utter frustration holding her son’s arms and decided to raise him all by herself with whatever she could earn. Suhas had arrogantly challenged her that she and their son could do nothing without his money and would one day come back begging him to accept them. But that day had not come so far. The mother and the kid were living happily in the suburban areas with basic amenities and had broken all ties with Suhas.

Recently, Suhas’s mother passed away from an ailment. He spent maximum of his fortune on her treatment in the most expensive hospital in the city, but she finally succumbed to her condition.

Today, Suhas had everything he had ever wanted, but no human around to share his happiness with.

Looking at the poor family by the roadside, Suhas wondered, “Who is rich and who is poor?” He felt like the poorest man on earth and deemed the family the richest in the world.

{{ Happiness and Mental peace are the real wealth. }}