It’s one of the most impressive old structures among the heritage buildings along the sea front, looked after with total dedication by a tall Anglo- Indian gentleman with a booming voice. The building would have gone to the dogs if not for this one man. And yet I remember him thirty-five years ago, a watchman for an orphanage. He was an alcoholic and lived more in the gutters where he fell asleep after his last drink than in the room the trustees of the orphanage had given him.
He was Mr. Nobody.
One day he decided to change. It was a long haul, from his little room to the hospital rehab center. I was there, often dragging him back to those centers from the local bar he strayed into. Finally, he made it and then came this job as a caretaker and then manager. It had been tough days. Today, when people visit the building they know who is behind its restoration and maintenance.
Now he’s Mr. Somebody.
The same with another friend from Orissa. He was a poor farmer’s son, who lived in a small thatched hut. His job was to work from morn to dusk with his father in the rice fields. He was a nobody if ever there was one. One day he fell sick. The doctors told him his disease was fatal. He lay in bed waiting for death when a man of God entered his room, prayed for him, and he was healed. Suddenly he was a changed man, his one mission was to tell people about God.
He taught himself to read, write and speak English. He then came to the city. It is a different Prabhakar than the man who worked in the rice fields: A man, who speaks with authority, cool and confident, no more a ‘nobody’, but ‘God’s Somebody!’
It was last week that I was invited for the inauguration of a new TV channel. Speaker after speaker got up and spoke of the dynamic man and owner of the TV company. Finally, it was the man’s turn. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I was a nobody and I still am!”
The audience gasped. I did too. I’d heard of nobody’s becoming somebody’s but this millionaire was telling a different tale: “God takes ordinary people like me,” he said, “and gives us extraordinary powers. It’s there for everybody. I am still a Mr Nobody but with His power in me I achieve the impossible!”
I walked out of that meeting, a smile on my face and am sure my driver must have thought I’d had one too many, but it was an elation born from a joyous thought, that the same God given power was available for me. All I had to do was to ask and trust, and the One above would do the rest! I am a Mr Nobody, but I can do great things through God who strengthens me..!
—bobsbanter@gmail.com
