Clutching at Straws

People build false props: wealth, friends, and religious personalities, thinking they will protect them. Doomsday will reveal the flimsiness of these ‘structures’. There will not be so much as a straw at which to clutch.

Once in a shop in Azamgarh, I greeted an old acquaintance. There was no response. I greeted him once more, but still, he gave no sign of recognition. Although he looked straight at me, he did not utter a word. “Can it be someone else?” I thought. However, my eyes gave the lie to my doubts. He was the person I had known for the last fifteen years, and I did not think he could have forgotten me.

The owner of the shop, noticing my astonishment, explained that a tragic happening had caused him to lose his senses. When he was constructing a new house, the newly built roof had caved in when the scaffolding had been removed. This incident had so affected his mind that he had gone half-mad. After that, he neither worked, ate, spoke, just sat about in old places, looking like a statue—which is how he appeared at that moment.

On further inquiry, I discovered that he had been the victim of certain unscrupulous elements selling spurious cement. Unfortunately, the so-called cement was a little better than grey dust, so it was not surprising that his roof met that fate.

Although this incident occurred some twenty years ago, it has always provided me with a good analogy for discussing what people regard as props in their lives—what they feel dependent upon. Some build a roof of wealth over themselves; others depend upon their persuasiveness yet think that it is enough to have friends. Great religious personalities are considered among the greatest of props. However, all of these props are false. When Doomsday finally reveals the flimsiness of these ‘structures’, the various roofs that people have been building to protect themselves will come tumbling about their ears. There will not be so much as a straw at which to clutch.