“I don’t know when this project is going to end,” Swami sighed while munching into his muffin the other day. “First there was the budget problem. Once we got the budget, we didn’t have enough people. Then some people left. Now the client says he needs everything tomorrow. One obstacle after another after another! And Raichand doesn’t make it easy, you know,” Swami sounded exasperated even as he sipped his cold coffee.
Jigneshbhai looked at me and Swami silently.
“Are obstacles the real obstacle?” Jigneshbhai asked me and Swami. Swami’s chocolate muffin faced a little hurdle in his throat when he heard the question. He pushed it down with a sip of his coffee before looking up.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “There are lots of real obstacles. They are called bosses, clients and people,” he added with a mischievous smile.
Jigneshbhai was reading through a sports magazine that listed the Olympic medallists in the 110 m hurdles race over the years.
“Look at these athletes. They have set records crossing hurdles in the lowest times,” he remarked. He seemed to be in a world far removed from the world of Swami’s obstacles.
Swami shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t interested in talking about sports today. He had had enough games played at work.
“Well, they are athletes. That’s what they do. What does that have to do with us?” he asked.
Jigneshbhai stared blankly at the magazine while we waited. After a few moments, he spoke.
“I was just thinking that if they didn’t expect these hurdles every few meters, would they be able to set these records?” he asked.
Swami looked at me wondering whether our wise friend had lost it. Here he was complaining about the obstacles in his project and all Jigneshbhai was giving him was some useless information on an Olympic race and its non-existent hurdles.
“Of course, they expect these hurdles and prepare their run to jump over them at the right time. That’s the nature of their race. If they don’t do that, how can they finish in record times?” Swami said what seemed logical to me.
“Exactly right,” Jigneshbhai said. “So it’s not the obstacle that is the problem in the race,” he declared a conclusion that seemed to excite him a lot. But that didn’t light any bulb in our heads.
Then he continued, looking at us.
“Then what is the problem, my dear Jigneshbhai? Though I have no plans to run a hurdle race, by the way” Swami sneered at our wise friend, who removed his glasses and smiled. Even I had no intention of running any hurdle races and shuffled in my seat at the uncomfortable thought.
“I can’t, even if I want to,” Jigneshbhai laughed aloud.
“Ok. Now tell us what is the problem in the race then?” Swami persisted, with some sort of relief.
“I wonder if it is the expectation of no obstacles,” Jigneshbhai remarked sipping his coffee.
“Expectation of no obstacles? Meaning?” Swami asked.
“Well, isn’t it true that they expect the obstacles and so time their jump to get over them?” Jigneshbhai started while Swami and I nodded. “If they didn’t expect them, wouldn’t they stutter and lose time?” he asked.
Swami and I were lost in the confusion of obstacles meanwhile. But that didn’t stop Swami from not agreeing with Jigneshbhai.
“Well, I don’t agree,” he said.
“I expected that obstacle,” Jigneshbhai said, with a twinkle in his eye.
“It is called the obstacle race. So what’s so great about expecting hurdles in that race and jumping over them?” Swami asked. “That’s what they signed up for. They would be fools not expecting obstacles in a 110 m hurdles race,” he added, jeering.
Jigneshbhai looked at me and Swami and smiled again.
“Of course,” he said. “Indeed, anyone would be a fool not to expect obstacles in their race,” he added slyly, and started sipping his coffee in silence.
Jigneshbhai smiled and stared into blank space again. Swami and I munched our muffins for a few moments and pondered over what he had said, wondering if we had missed something.
Swami and I looked at each other and wondered which fools and which race he had referred to. Swami seemed to get it.
“We expect the regular obstacles all the time in our project too. Still new ones come up,” he said in a morose tone.
“What if you expect even those new ones?” Jigneshbhai asked.
I realised that this obstacle race was unending. Swami would never run out of obstacles and Jigneshbhai would ask him to keep expecting them. I decided to focus on my coffee and chocolate muffin while they resolved their argument. There were no hurdles in the path I chose.
I noticed that, meanwhile, the wealthy old man had joined us. He had been listening to this conversation for a while.
He stood near us for a bit with a cryptic smile as usual. He left us scratching our heads when he said, “Expect hurdles in any race. Because the hurdles is the race.”
***