The Guava Tree

 

This is a unique Guava Tree on our doorstep that produces “unripe” fruit! Yes, the unripe, green and hard guavas are plucked by the young working girls and their mothers (housemaids), bitten repeatedly and devoured immediately by them. Sometimes, their moms help them when the girls are unable to extend their small arms to pluck the fruit even if they try to raise themselves by standing on their toes.

When we relocated from the official residence to our newly constructed house in the year 2020, a 200 square yard area, the only green piece of patch we could develop, according to the bylaws of housing society, was outside of our house, on either of the shoulders of 12 feet wide road the house is located on. We planted some fruit trees on it: A Guava tree on the side of our house, and a Fig and two Lemon trees the other shoulder across the street. Besides, other flowery plants and trees on both shoulders were also planted.

The guava tree has grown into a sizeable height (about 10-12 ft.) since then and is still growing tall. It started giving fruits in nearly a year after its plantation. There are plenty of other fig and lemon trees in our area comprising about 700 houses (more than half of them are already under occupation) but I’m yet to find any other guava tree here.

The guava fruit is very common in Pakistan and its production occurs mostly in the winter season. The sweet and tasty guavas of Larkana, Sindh are very famous in the country. The “ewer” shaped of these guavas is peculiar and distinct from other “round” shaped guavas grown in the rest of the country. It is comparatively priced cheaper than other fruits like Apple, Pomegranate, Grapes, etc. I can fairly say that people from across all the income groups, including the lower income groups, consume a large quantity of guava every year. Unfortunately, it becomes very expensive during the month of Ramadhan due to its high demand, and unethical and illegal hoarding by the venders.

Since our guava tree is planted and raised on the State land therefore, anyone passing through the street can see the guavas hanging on the branches of the tree, and hence, they cannot resist themselves from plucking them. Sometimes, neighbors and passersby seek our permission for plucking them. We haven’t barred anyone from plucking the fruits though, and consider the tree as a public property.

This guava tree is particularly very attractive to the housemaids and their children equally who swarm the housing society, coming from the nearby slums, for their paid jobs (cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc.) every day in the morning time for working in the houses. They do not let the guavas turn fully ripened. These people pluck them instead, as soon as they think the fruit can be eaten even if the same is harder, green (yet to turn ripe, change the color from greenish to yellowish and become softer) and unripe.

Initially, we tried to convince the children and maids to wait till the fruit gets fully ripened but the temptation of plucking a fresh guava has been just too strong for them even if it was not ready. Besides, it costs nothing and they have all the liberty to pluck the fruits. We just watch their glowing and ecstatic faces joyfully and blissfully.

Deserted Parental Homes!

 

“The home is where your parents are.”

We all have been blessed to have grown up in homes in the presence (as well as in the guidance) and under the blessings of our parents. It’s every household story, and it is a natural process and happens everywhere around the world. As the children grow into adults, the pursuit of higher education, lucrative jobs, other commitments and some peculiar circumstances compel them to seek new vistas; moving from a village to a town, to a sizable city, and to a large city where opportunities abound, and even, to overseas, the developed countries. Initially, they move temporarily, not sure of their future prospects, but with the passage of time, the migration translates and transcends into perpetuity.

My grandfather lived in a small village devoid of any amenities or utilities in early 1900s. He didn’t undergo any formal education. My father, born in the same village, was the only lucky child of the entire village to travel to a nearby small town for attending middle school. By virtue of it, he managed to get a fairly good white-collared clerical job in the post-partition era.

My elder brother and me were also born in the same village but soon our father took his family along with him and moved to the town for enrolling his children in the school for starting formal education in an effort to make them educated and better citizens. The journey undertaken by our father from a small village to a town was to become a repetitive act in our family history of next 100 years; village to a town, to a city, to a larger city, and to a new country(s).

Unfortunately, the adage “The home is where your parents are” was no longer valid neither for our father nor our generation and so on; all new/subsequent parents preferred their children’s future over their old parents. But, father had had an escape; our grandparents were already dead when he moved us to the town. My justification (lame maybe) could be that I studied away from the home, and then during my entire job career I never get posted at or near our parental town.

At the age of 18, I left my hometown for the university education in a larger city. It was perceived that completion of my education will bring me back to our hometown, parental home, but it did not happen. My job, commencing immediately after completion of the education, required me to remain stay away from the home and live at different places across the country all along the working career. My other siblings also went through almost similar conditions. In the next 10-15 years, everyone was living at a new place, in their respective independent home. Our parental home, became deserted, and eventually it was sold out. About 20 years later, history repeated itself as our home became deserted after our children moved away for better future prospects.

The disintegration of families always take place irrespective of whether the parents are alive or not but there are, of course, some exceptions around when families never disintegrated, they lived like a well knitted unit and thrived peacefully.

In the last decade of 1900s and during the early new century i.e. 2000s, we were acting as parents and our children beamed about the axiom: “The home is where your parents are.” We, me and the better half, however, without lamenting the future consequences, knew that we were destined to meet the same fate what our parents and grandparent went through!

About five years ago, I started building a new house for our family. We moved into it as soon as it completed within a year. We settled down into it with three people only; me, my better half and one of the four children. Three elder children, already married, with their kids, moved away to settle in Europe, North America and Down Under. Their migration to the overseas is well under our encouragement and blessings. The youngest child, married last year, is living within the same city but a strong aspirant of moving out of the country too.

The clutter and chatter, laughter and shouts, hugs and pushes, cellphones and videogames, and sleepless nights and lively daytime of our four children slowly waned away as they grew up and stepped into their respective practical lives. It was time for them to establish their respective new homes (new parental homes), leaving behind their ageing parents to sit back and relish memories of their children in a deserted house which used to bustle with their presence!

We, me and wife, are living and surviving the old age journey together. Our respective parents’ homes did not survive. Our home has also begun crumbling. One can always raise a query that why did we encourage our children to move abroad, the answer is simple: Even if we didn’t do it, they would have done the same on their own. This country is not easy for younger generation to buy an honest and comfortable living. They have seen us struggling throughout our whole life.

The process of evolution is timeless and endless. Every new generation will focus on to have their lives better than what their respective parents had. Our parents had a better life than our grandparents. We lived a life far better than our parents did. Our children are faring quite well than us.

It’s time, our grandkids sung: “The home is where OUR parents are.” Next is great grandkids and so on.

WAPDA Officers’ Career Journey; Up and Down

 

It has been indeed, a privilege, working with prestigious Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) or to be precise, serving the nation through WAPDA, for 30 plus years. Beginning the journey in mid 1980s, I, like many other inductees, never wanted to continue working with WAPDA and kept making efforts to break away from it; firstly, through moving to some Western countries for higher studies, and/or secondly, shifting to some other provincial or federal organization during early years of working with this organization.  It never happened, and my roots with WAPDA became deeper and stronger with every passing year.

I do not know about working environment of other organizations in the country but while working here it was observed that WAPDA has developed into a leading engineering organization of the nation through a well-designed and disciplined set of rules and regulations that provide equal opportunities of rich desk-job and field experience coupled with a series of effective local and international training courses available to every employee of Grade 17 (and above) that helps them translating their knowledge and experience into developing their careers all along the years.

Nevertheless, there is a downside of this career development too. During an ascending career growth journey, the power and authority vested in a position build a snobbish attribute, bit by bit, in the officers at each step of the ladder. While officers, at any step in the career, remain humble and respectable to their seniors, they, knowingly or otherwise, treat their juniors oddly, harshly, and at times, disrespectfully. The career building process on this pattern keeps going on, unabatedly.

When reaching at the pinnacle of the career; holding the positions of Chief Engineers, General Managers, Project Directors, and Director Generals, etc., they consider themselves sailing in a boat that runs solely on their own skills and capabilities only. At this stage of the career when everyone working under them is harmonized on their instructions and orders, and everything happening around them works in accordance with their wishes, they touch the highest point of superiority, if not arrogance. Their ears tend to like hearing yes sir, yes sir, and their eyes enjoy frowned, scared, and flattery faces of the subordinate employees with artificial smiles, while their minds process the whole environment of “leading through dictating” as the “kind and friendly”.  This authoritative role or rule does not last long since they become oblivious of the retirement date that stalks around slowly but surely.

On the way up, they meet and attend some farewell (retirement) parties of their seniors, where they, when asked to speak, shower heaps of praises on the qualities and caliber of the outgoing fellows. They vow to receive their calls instantly should they need any help from them. This hardly and seldom works because their working circle does not include retired colleagues. The calls and texts from them went ignored and forgotten. The official and private lives are two different worlds and at different levels. They never converge at any point.

Once retired, the officers go through initial tremors in their lives. Unlike the growth process which moves upwards slowly over a span of decades, the retirement makes a landfall quickly and undesirably, on an eventful day.  It rendered the officer devoid of office protocols, removal of facilities like vehicles, drivers, and other unspecified favours. It feels hard to find themselves sitting on opposite side of the main chair (now occupying the visitors’ chair).

The very next day, the same sun rises again but a new world dawns for a retired officer. The real-life shocks of running the errands; driving your personal car for opening Pension account in a nearby Bank, visiting crowded Pension office, Revenue office (for free electricity supply), and National Savings Center, etc., waiting in long queues as an ordinary senior citizen and still not assured of getting your problems solved, are not easy to encounter with. The other possible haunting problems could be the vacation of official residence, finding a suitable rented portion, and financing educational expenses of your youngest children.

Besides, in their recent post-retirement scenario, one will bump into the reality that all those colleagues, still working in the organization, who promised to extend their helps, are not helpful at all due to various valid and invalid reasons. This reminds the hard fact of life; what goes around comes around.