Monday column: Towering Achievements

The man was so short that I mistaken him for a child. He walked in quick but short strides to keep up with his family. Walking with his wife, he looked like a ten-year old tagging behind her. His three kids were much taller than him and his wife towered a foot over his bald head. But he was happy to be with them though he appeared to struggle to keep up with their pace. I knew who he was but I lost contact with the man since my college days. I could not have mistaken his thin eyebrows and flat nose. Another trademark of his features was his smile. It was genuine, full of life and infectious.

He saw me but he was not sure if I was the same person who used to trade war of words with him years ago in a college campus. I waved my hand and the smile lit up his face. He pushed through a crowd with the astonishing speed for a small man who was a few inches under five feet. He gave me a bear hug and I literally lifted him off his feet when I hugged him back. For a few seconds, we caused a spectacle to a dozen people or so who turned their heads to look at us. For some understandable reason, it made his family a little uncomfortable. They just kept walking perhaps pretending that the man had nothing to do with them. But it did not matter to my friend. He just gave them his blessing by waving them away.

We caught up with the old times. We called him 'tiny' then and he was not great to academic achievements. However, as I know now, there is nothing tiny about his current achievements. He has a thriving business with a couple of big projects coming along.  The man certainly knows how to build tall buildings in contrast to his physical stature. He was not boasting but it was I who probed about his life. He was almost embarrassed when he talked about it and quickly changed the subject. We talked a good part of the hour in the crowded café. In the end, his wife came to rescue him from my idle conversation. We exchanged business cards as we parted company but a month later now, neither of us bothered to call the other. It was a chance meeting. This is the problem of old colleagues who drifted and a chance encounter is not enough to fill the void of a long passage of time. There is nothing else to talk about after catching up with lost time. We might have been friends then but now we are a couple of strangers who just knew each other in the past.

The funny thing is that, when you are a teenager trying to make sense what they teach you in the classroom, the future is a distant endeavor. Something that can wait and you are in no hurry to get there. Now, life flashes past you so fast that you see some of your ambitions dashed for good. Having said that, I am happy that 'tiny' made something from his life with his tall buildings. I don’t have to ask him but being a building contractor was far from his mind those days. I don’t envy him. At least I knew I was going to end up entertaining people with my written ramblings one day. I knew when to get out from a boring career before it got the better of me.

Next time I see him, I might ask him if his small status had inspired him from building towering structures to make up for his lack of height.