He was a common person. But he didn’t look like us. He looked different. If he would walk on streets the way he looked, it would be ludicrous. He was always wearing a suit of armor and carrying a sword and shield in his hands. Actually he was a warrior. Needless to say, his job was not only to save himself or fight but to put his opponents to rout. And his opponents could fall in from anywhere anytime. So he had to be prepared all the time. He could not take chances as we all know ‘life doesn’t give a second chance.’ And when he defeated one opponent, there was always one more to take on. And it went on and on. It never ended. It was like cruising from one stage to another. Attaining new heights after every win.
But I don’t want to bore you or crow you by his triumphant warrior stories. Instead I have the one he lost to tell which he never forgot!
As he had never encountered any failure, he always looked brash; his chest always strutted. He knew he had a lot more opponents to take on. ‘Big deal!’ was his attitude towards his opponents. He always ignored his opponents before fight. A big fight was imminent. His whole life was dependent on that fight. Beneath his brash exterior, he knew that it was going to be tough. But buoyed by the smaller wins earlier, he never strained himself, never went through required rigorous sessions. Although he and his opponents were practicing in the same training centre, he never bothered to see what and how they practiced, what all they did. His conscience would always warn him to put his back into practicing for a fight, but his self-pride would always shove it off saying “so what? I can annihilate them.”
And finally when the hour of the fight approached, he entered the battlefield. He zapped towards it with the same sword and shield he had successfully used in earlier battles. But he saw everyone else with brandishing swords and shields. Half of his courage deflated out right then. But somehow he took his courage in both hands to fight. But he saw his opponents, who were all trained at the same training centre, using new techniques which he could not even understand, let alone fight back. Eventually it took his opponents no more than few minutes to defeat him. And thus he lost his first and the most important battle in his life. He was lying on the ground with no idea what to do next and where to go. No one was to help him out or encourage him.
Let me not forget to tell you, he was not the only warrior who had lost the battle. There were many others who had lost but they seemed to be quite satisfied. Perplexed, he asked them the reason of being so satisfied, they said “see no matter what happens, at least we… we came, we saw, we tried.” It reminded him of his parents who would always tell him to ‘work hard and leave the rest to Allah.’
After cudgeling his brains about the defeat in the battle, he realized his over-confidence, taking the battle easily, not working hard enough and wasting most of his precious time, were the causes of his failure.
Discouraged and defeated, he called his parents who encouraged him saying “girtey hai sheh sawaar maidan e jung mein, wo tifl kya girey jo ghutnoon ke bal chaley.”
Footnote: It goes without saying, the training centre was one of his colleges and the battlefield was, patently, his exam and other warriors were his classmates.

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Lastupdate on : Sun, 24 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 24 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:00:00 IST