A mixture of grief, joy, astonishment, doubt, and regret started shaking my thoughts
By Hilal Bukhari
This morning, a friend sent me a message: “Your friend Asraar has been caught red-handed by the CBI while taking a bribe.”
He further asked, “What is your opinion on this?”
Hearing this news, I was deeply saddened at first, but soon a strange turmoil began to overwhelm my heart and mind. A mixture of grief, joy, astonishment, doubt, and regret started shaking my thoughts.
Grief—that my friend had fallen into this calamity.
Joy—because justice means that the good should be rewarded and the bad should face the consequences.
Astonishment—that the man I had always considered honest and dutiful could be ensnared by such a curse.
Doubt—whether it was really true, or whether my friend had been trapped in a conspiracy, for here anything is possible.
Regret—that even if I wished, I could do nothing to help him now.
I replied to my friend’s message in these words:
“This is indeed very sad. Greed ultimately disgraces a person one day or another. And perhaps if I had been in Asraar’s position, I too might have met the same fate. In our society, only those remain safe from this poison of bribery who never get access to it. All others are victims in one way or another. Those who manage to escape are called clever and shrewd by the world, while those who get caught are disgraced so bitterly that death itself seems a kinder fate.”
This news disturbed me so much that, strangely, I wished I had instead heard of my friend’s sudden death in an accident.
At least then, with sincerity and grief, I could have joined his loved ones in offering condolences.
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