We meet so many people in the span of a day. We may not even realize that we do. We even converse with them, it usually is only a few lines, but conversation nevertheless. By people, I mean the book shop person, the lift person, the mama who sits at the library entrance, the conductor on the bus, why even the bhaji wala!
But some days, these conversations go beyond the lines that you would use everyday. Some days, it goes beyond the small talk that you indulge in everyday.
Like one of the days, I was buying a book at Bhavan's book stall, the place I've been buying books for the past 5 years. There is one incredibly grumpy, always irritated old man at the cashier counter who has always asked me to stop talking to whoever is with me and buy the books and leave. So, I'm usually not enthusiastic about standing at the counter for too long as I can't not talk. :P
But then, one of the other days, besides mentioning the fact that I've been a customer for almost 5 years (I was surprised he knew that! ) he started talking about how they have been right outside the college for 50 years and while people earned away by unfair means, his shop has remained the same old humble shop. He also spoke about students coming back from America with a foreign wife and showing around the college.(He also let me return my books worth Rs 2000 15 days after the deadline..the advantages of being a regular customer I tell you :D )
Another incident with the mochi. This family owns a slipper shop on the roadside as well as a vegetable cart. The lady of the family handles the vegetable sales and there is no time that I have bought something from her when she hasn't given something extra as goodwill. Always a handful of curry leaves with lemon, a bunch of coriander leaves with ginger, 50 more gms of ginger when buying 100 gms of it. Also the rangoli powder in case of festivals. They will give you that knowing smile and you probably know nothing about them but there is this vendor-customer connect between the two.
Yet another incident. 3 years ago, the day I had got admission into this institute of mine, I was really surprised on my way back home in the rickshaw. The driver asked me about my marks and admission and all of that and also spoke about his son who was doing his diploma and how he would want admission into an engineering college the next year. He asked me if I would do a favour and tell him the cut offs for my college and gave me his number, didn't ask for mine. I somehow didn't dismiss it and actually searched the whole year on every notice board for cut offs but in vain. But finally when I did find, I made it a point to call him up and tell him. He was so happy and said that he used to wonder every time when he passed by my building if I had forgotten about this. Almost 2 months later, when I had totally forgotten about all of this, this very person called back to inform me (he had stored my number as I had called him on his mobile phone) that his son got into Saboo Siddik with an aggregate of 86% and thanked me profusely for having informed him. I wouldn't recognize him if I ever saw him again but then this incident proves how random people are related somehow by small incidents like these.
How can we forget those BEST bus drivers who see you running across the road and stop an extra 5 seconds for you to reach and get into the bus?! They don't even know you, they might have had a bad day but yet they'll wait for you the day you are so late for college and you end up thanking them so much.
Leave aside people you may meet just once and never meet again. Consider people who are your colleagues, who you have spoken to so less often but still they are people you see everyday. One of my practicals in which there is this one professor who absolutely hates me( at least hated me in the last semester) was the invigilator. I was so terrified of the practical exam because of him. When I did get the experiment, an easy one at that, one of "the people" I spoke about asked me not to show the experiment within 5 minutes as the professor might screw my case. When I got done with my vivas with no hassles( I was so terrified before entering his cabin, I tried taking long breaths to calm me down :O), another person came up to me and said that it was surprising yet good that the professor did nothing troublesome. (Thank God, he had forgotten my face! ) I was so surprised, the fact that they would approach me and tell this, my faith in people instilled back again.
Being in IEEE the last year, I can name and thank all the watchmen, the library mama and the lift mama as well for being so supportive and going out of their way in their own ways to help us out whenever we had an event on the weekends.
I can keep narrating incidents like these. The whole point is that people are so cynical about the world around us. We pity ourselves for the state we are in. We complain that people are money minded, only looking for materialistic gains. These are incidents that show us that people despite all the things happening in their life sometimes do go out of their way to make someone else's life better, in a small way maybe, for no gain, just for the mental satisfaction. But then we dismiss them as nothing. We shouldn't. As it is things like these, which help us restore our faith back in people and realize the world isn't too bad a place to live in either.
But some days, these conversations go beyond the lines that you would use everyday. Some days, it goes beyond the small talk that you indulge in everyday.
Like one of the days, I was buying a book at Bhavan's book stall, the place I've been buying books for the past 5 years. There is one incredibly grumpy, always irritated old man at the cashier counter who has always asked me to stop talking to whoever is with me and buy the books and leave. So, I'm usually not enthusiastic about standing at the counter for too long as I can't not talk. :P
But then, one of the other days, besides mentioning the fact that I've been a customer for almost 5 years (I was surprised he knew that! ) he started talking about how they have been right outside the college for 50 years and while people earned away by unfair means, his shop has remained the same old humble shop. He also spoke about students coming back from America with a foreign wife and showing around the college.(He also let me return my books worth Rs 2000 15 days after the deadline..the advantages of being a regular customer I tell you :D )
Another incident with the mochi. This family owns a slipper shop on the roadside as well as a vegetable cart. The lady of the family handles the vegetable sales and there is no time that I have bought something from her when she hasn't given something extra as goodwill. Always a handful of curry leaves with lemon, a bunch of coriander leaves with ginger, 50 more gms of ginger when buying 100 gms of it. Also the rangoli powder in case of festivals. They will give you that knowing smile and you probably know nothing about them but there is this vendor-customer connect between the two.
Yet another incident. 3 years ago, the day I had got admission into this institute of mine, I was really surprised on my way back home in the rickshaw. The driver asked me about my marks and admission and all of that and also spoke about his son who was doing his diploma and how he would want admission into an engineering college the next year. He asked me if I would do a favour and tell him the cut offs for my college and gave me his number, didn't ask for mine. I somehow didn't dismiss it and actually searched the whole year on every notice board for cut offs but in vain. But finally when I did find, I made it a point to call him up and tell him. He was so happy and said that he used to wonder every time when he passed by my building if I had forgotten about this. Almost 2 months later, when I had totally forgotten about all of this, this very person called back to inform me (he had stored my number as I had called him on his mobile phone) that his son got into Saboo Siddik with an aggregate of 86% and thanked me profusely for having informed him. I wouldn't recognize him if I ever saw him again but then this incident proves how random people are related somehow by small incidents like these.
How can we forget those BEST bus drivers who see you running across the road and stop an extra 5 seconds for you to reach and get into the bus?! They don't even know you, they might have had a bad day but yet they'll wait for you the day you are so late for college and you end up thanking them so much.
Leave aside people you may meet just once and never meet again. Consider people who are your colleagues, who you have spoken to so less often but still they are people you see everyday. One of my practicals in which there is this one professor who absolutely hates me( at least hated me in the last semester) was the invigilator. I was so terrified of the practical exam because of him. When I did get the experiment, an easy one at that, one of "the people" I spoke about asked me not to show the experiment within 5 minutes as the professor might screw my case. When I got done with my vivas with no hassles( I was so terrified before entering his cabin, I tried taking long breaths to calm me down :O), another person came up to me and said that it was surprising yet good that the professor did nothing troublesome. (Thank God, he had forgotten my face! ) I was so surprised, the fact that they would approach me and tell this, my faith in people instilled back again.
Being in IEEE the last year, I can name and thank all the watchmen, the library mama and the lift mama as well for being so supportive and going out of their way in their own ways to help us out whenever we had an event on the weekends.
I can keep narrating incidents like these. The whole point is that people are so cynical about the world around us. We pity ourselves for the state we are in. We complain that people are money minded, only looking for materialistic gains. These are incidents that show us that people despite all the things happening in their life sometimes do go out of their way to make someone else's life better, in a small way maybe, for no gain, just for the mental satisfaction. But then we dismiss them as nothing. We shouldn't. As it is things like these, which help us restore our faith back in people and realize the world isn't too bad a place to live in either.
6 comments:
This post coming from a woman who loves to talk, it is indeed a heart felt post!
And yeah, people have been nice to you! not everyone is that lucky! :P
PS: I still have my opinions about the Bhavans ka buddha! well, we ll leave that for later!
Good work!
I like your simple style of writing. You are a good person that is why people are good with you. :) Ofcourse there are good people among strangers but there are bad ones too. I have had my share of experience on that! But I make it a point to say Thank you everytime to the Rickshawalla, the mail-man,the person who collects garbage at my home, etc. and they often return a smile. It feels good then.
God bless.
@shri: haha, I know, Im one of the very few ppl the bhavans buddha is recently nice to :P and thanks!
@mithil: thank you! and yes, I too make it a pt to say thank you to all of them and the feeling is amazing!
I guess we all turned from strangers to super close friends in almost no time when we met at Hyderabad! True story, brilliant post :) I learn a lot from the way you write!
i know the rickshaw wala story!! that was really sweet! n which bhavan's bookstall ka uncle ??
@aadi: yea,those 2 months were exactly what I am talking about here :)
@san:the buddha guy who used to keep screaming at me for talking inside :P
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