Off the Cuff: Looking past the black and white

This "Cuff" might read like something extracted from Chicken Soup for the Soul, it has that kind of feel to it that, while helping elevate some, also puts others off. Still, it's worth telling simply because it's quite remarkable really how, when one is convinced that there's no hope ahead, that life has suddenly become one long, dark tunnel, in desperation you perch yourself beside what you think is a heap of manure and, presto, you find that there are flowers growing in the dirt. At least that's the way my ex-student friend back in the States saw it and I'm inclined to agree with him.

As Nizam says, he'd become a victim of the post-9/11 fallout. His Ph.D in Metallurgy, once valued at several thousand dollars, suddenly took a stock market-like plunge and seemed worth but a few cents. He concedes he was lucky not to have got chopped in the axe-wielding that took place post-event. Afzal and Arif, two guys he roomed with, caught the blow and disappeared into the ranks of the unemployed. His doctorate saved him, he reckons. But he was informed that since the section he was heading was being downsized, his own monthly paycheck would diminish proportionately. At the end of the month, the "proportional cut' was so severe that to stay on would have been to compromise his principles. He quit. He called home to put his impending engagement on hold and was told by the prospective bride's father that the offer was reminiscent of an Elvis Presley song: Now or Never. The young lady in question was in any case being inundated with proposals. She was in a position to pick, just as he was not in a position to choose. He reluctantly settled on "Never", took up a bread-and-butter job at a newsagent and proceeded from thereon to travel down the corridors of despair.

Jim, the elderly homeless waif, stationed roughly two doors down from the newsagent, was one person Nizam would pass on his way to work and back every day. Jim had this rather ingenious sign written up on a square of cardboard beside him which said: Two things about me: I never beg and I never turn aside good intention. Nizam said it was hard for people walking by not to stop and toss in a coin, or hand Jim some food. Nizam himself, however, could spare neither.

He reckoned at that point in his life he himself was little more than a glorified version of Jim. What he did take to doing, all the same, was drop off a copy of an unsold newspaper at Jim's at the end of the day. This worked itself into a routine and soon led to the exchange of pleasantries. Impoverished versions of "Hi, how you doing, I'm great thanks." "You're a bit of an intense lad, aren't you?" Jim shouted out once, extending the conversation for the first time. "Yea, I guess so," mumbled Nizam, "life and all that, you should know." "Well, actually I don't," replied Jim, quite surprisingly. "I don't. But I guess your thing comes from working with these newspapers all day long. People get so used to seeing things only in two colours. Let me tell you something, sonny, if you insist on seeing things only in black and white, you will never get to spot the rainbow. Look past the print in your life, there's a whole lot of colour there."

Nizam is now in Europe, employed and, typically, chasing rainbows once again with a vengeance. Shortly, he will wed Rehana, whose father was not called upon to issue an Elvis Presley ultimatum. Kinda schmaltzy tale, eh? But hey, it meant something to someone, and who knows to how many others. Look at it as a spot of "paying it forward", passing it on. Just as I, too, am passing on, flying to the eastern threshold to welcome a new dawn. Seeking my own golden bow in the Sydney skies.