The Miracle of Hard Work

The Miracle of Hard Work

1992 8-9 August-September 10 The Miracle of Hard Work (377) Akhtar Husain Ghazi Khan was born in Ghapzipur in 1926. When he was just over 30 years of age, he moved to Delhi to improve his prospects in life. But he failed to find a good job as he had never received a proper education. For a very long time he lived from hand to mouth, accepting any temporary, low-paid job that came his way. Often his family had to be content with just chutney, pulses and rice. Yet, today, he lives in a well-appointed flat in New Delhi, with all the facilities, including a telephone.

Thirteen years after he came to Delhi he was still living with his wife and six sons in a single, small room next to a mosque. ‘If they had little living space, they had even less to eat. Finally, his wife became so sick of this life that she told her husband to bring home some poison so that they could all put an end to it.

Hearing these words from the lips of his wife, he fell into a terrible state of anxiety. Thinking deeply about why things had turned out this way, he concluded that it was because he had not been properly educated. He realised that if he failed to give his children a good education, their fate would be the same as his. It would not be poison that he would give them, but an education was his firm resolve.

This gave him a great new incentive. The pressure of circumstances now turned him into a hero. He would work for 16 hours a day at whatever job he was offered so that he could pay for his children’s education.

When I met him just last summer, he told me that for years together he had run about like a man possessed in the streets of Delhi to make enough money for his project.

The adverse circumstances which turned Akhtar Husain into a hero also had the effect of making his children work hard at their studies. Each child having devoted every available moment to study passed his examinations with distinction. It was a long struggle for all of them – twenty years – but today all of them are safely at the top of the ladder of success.