Daniyal Mueenuddin's Nawadbin Electrican - Essay Example

Nawabdin Electrician by Daniyal Mueenuddin How does Nawabdin define the good life? How do you? Nawabdin Electrician by Daniyal Mueenuddin is a short story based on the life of a Pakistani Electrician leads a tough life like every other commoner in his country. However, his life is complicated as the Electrical Company pays him a meager salary which stifles him in making his ends meet. Therefore, he resorts to cheating the company for more profits through unethical means and justifies it for a good and comfortable life for his wife and more than a dozen children.

His life is described as ‘unfortunately and fortunately’ as he is unfortunate to fend for his twelve daughters and a son in a crime infested area and on the contrary is also fortunate to have a family that loves and supports his hard working nature. Having a large, loving family is the definition of good life for Nawabdin. Interestingly, this is very significant in the life of a person who works hard in the most toiling circumstances as money and the need for basic necessities places enormous amount of pressure on a person.

It is important to live a life that is extremely satisfactory with the support and love of family members. All the same, it is also necessary to find a job that meets and exceeds all the needs and wants of an entire family. In the absence of these basic factors, one succumbs to wrong means of achieving comfort and basic need. As in the case of Nawabdin, he tampers with the electric meters to enlarge his revenue and suffice his family’s needs. In his quest for good life, how similar are Nawabdin’s pressures, ambitions and moral values to yours?

Nawabdin’s desire for a happy and content family life echoes the cry of every man in the society. He is a man who battles pressure on a daily basis but brushes it off with absolute pride as he looks into the mirror each morning and witnesses a warrior heading out to the battlefield of an Electrician’s world. His is a world of extreme sweat and grime, an income that is tough to make ends meet for a dozen-sized family. In the face of such a predicament, he stoops to other compromised means to make more money for the happiness of his children.

In a society that offers very less opportunity for a person of Nawabdin’s expertise, he finds it right to do things in the wrong way. However, he could have been more careful and planned well ahead on how he would earn for his family even before he fell a prey to such demoralizing techniques. In a world that does not always offer a fairer chance to everyone, it is difficult to balance morals with ways to earn and satisfy the hungry ego of an ambitious worker. There comes a time, when every person faces a grueling test of morality in an unsafe and gullible society.

It is good to be ambitious but it is definitely wrong to look for hidden and compromised means to achieve our ambitions for living a life of contentment and happiness. There is a price to pay for choosing bad means of achieving a good life for our families. What do you think of Nawabdin’s decision to let his attacker die, and without forgivesness? Nawabdin had tired himself out through various means by constantly trying to achieve a good life for his family. As he rides on a motorcycle given by his employer, he is shot by a robber and in the course of the attack, the robber is also shot by other attackers.

This reflects a society that is struggling to maintain peace and safety for its citizens. As the robber lay wallowing on his deathbed, he pleads forgiveness from Nawabdin. In a stunning turn of events, Nawabdin offers no forgiveness and this reveals a glimpse of his hard-heartedness that can be attributed to the mindset of the society, that hates crime and those that resort to such uncouth means to meet their ends. He remains the same stony-hearted unforgiving person even at the robber’s final breath.

Nawabdin’s reaction to the pleas and death of the robber reveals his callous and hypocritical nature. His life is no better than the criminal who had resorted to other compromised means to steal from him to earn a better future. In this case, he had gone physically violent as in the case of Nawabdin, it was a morally decaying strategy to realize his dreams. It was a matter of choices and he chose to see the culprit die without offering any forgiveness. It was a lame reaction that was infested with dubious nature with a false sense of identity and achievement.