The Way Up

As the big car stopped, the driver rushed to the rear door and respectfully opened the door. An old man and a nine-year-old boy got down. Telling the driver to come back after an hour, the old man held the boy’s hand and both walked to the beach. The boy started his morning jog and exercise while the old man started his usual morning walk. After half an hour’s walk, the old man sat down on his favourite bench on the strand road which ran along the beach and soon was joined by the young boy. This was the usual routine with the two; they spent the next half an hour there talking about this and that, occasionally sipping from tender coconuts, before it was time to go home.

As they sat there today, the old man said,

“Today, I will tell you about the countries which lie beyond the sea you see in front of you. Will you like that?”

“No grandpa, today I am not in a mood for geography. Why don’t you tell me a story today?”

"Story? But stories are best told at bedtime, not when you are starting a new day."

“No grandpa, I want a story now, please.”

The old man sat thinking for a while and then said,

“Okay, here is a story for you.”

And this is the story the old man told:-

It was the day the class teacher was to announce the result of the third standard comprising children of eight to nine-year-olds. He first distributed the marked answer sheets and asked the children to check the totals, and then, he said, he would announce who stood first in the class. Mohan was elated to see that he had got eighty-two marks out of hundred, but when he checked the total it came to seventy-two only. Mohan rechecked his answer sheet but again he found that the correct total was seventy-two, and not eighty-two. Before he could decide what to do, the teacher asked him to stand up, and announced to the class,

“Children, the boy with the top marks is Mohan, with eighty-two marks, while at the second place is Vinod with seventy-five marks. Boys, give Mohan a big hand.”

As the class started clapping, Mohan was almost in tears. As soon as the clapping stopped, he said to the teacher,

“Sir, there is a totalling mistake. My total comes to seventy-two, not eighty-two."

“What are you saying? Bring your answer sheet to me.”

The teacher checked the total and found that Mohan was right; the correct total was seventy-two only.

"Well boys, There was a mistake in totalling. Mohan's marks are only seventy-two, and so the topper in the class is Vinod with seventy-five marks. Give him a big hand.”

Mohan had lost the topper’s position, but though some of his friends told him that he had been foolish to tell the teacher about the wrong total, Mohan himself was not sorry. He did not think there was any other course for him than to bring the mistake to the teacher’s notice.

The wheels of time continued spinning and Mohan passed out from school and joined a college, and soon he had graduated with a first-class degree in commerce. He got a job in the accounts department of a big corporation, owned by one of the richest men in the country. But though the owner was himself a man of integrity, some of the employees in this corporation were not upright. Soon after Mohan had joined, he was called by the boss of the accounts department and asked to make certain manipulations in the accounts which would have harmed the company but benefit the boss personally. Mohan was shocked; this was against all the values Mohan had been taught and which held dear. But, on the other hand, there was a risk that he would lose his job if he defied the boss. The boss once or twice again repeated his suggestion but soon the boss realized that Mohan was not going to do anything wrong. Finally, some charges were cooked up against Mohan and he was sacked. Mohan tried to meet the owner, but he was too junior an employee to get access to him. He, however, wrote a letter to the owner, describing how he had been asked to manipulate the accounts and, on his refusal, had been sacked.

The old man paused at this stage and asked the boy,

“Getting bored? Should we continue the story tomorrow?”

“No grandpa, please continue. What happened to Mohan after he was sacked?”

“Okay. I will continue.”

Getting a new job was as difficult those days as it is now (continued the old man), especially if one had been sacked from the previous job. For several months Mohan tried whatever avenues were available, but failed to get any job. Finally, he started taking home tuitions, helping students with their studies. After some years he got married. His tuitions did not bring him a large income but at least he was able to feed himself and his wife.

Now the rich owner who had sacked Mohan had been rising in his own career and was now the owner of the biggest industrial empire in the country. On getting the letter that Mohan had written when he was sacked, the owner had made enquiries about the entire episode and had learnt about the dishonest actions of Mohan's boss. He had also kept a watch on Mohan's activities after his sackbut Mohan was not aware of this. So Mohan was really surprised when one day he received a letter, signed by the big man himself, asking him to meet him in his office. When Mohan met him, he was offered a senior position in one of the new units which the owner was setting up. Mohan gladly accepted the offer. As he was an honest and capable man, he soon progressed and was made an equal partner in the big man’s empire.

The old man paused, and said,

“That is the end of the story. Did you like it?”

“Yes, grandpa. It was very interesting. But can I ask you something?”

“Oh yes. Why not? What do you want to ask?”

"Grandpa, isn't this your own story?"

The old man smiled. He held the boy’s hand and said,

“Time for us to go home. The driver must be waiting for us.”

As they made their way home, the old man knew that the young boy would never stray from the right path.