Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2011

Lessons in Humility

We were going somewhere, I forget where, to Brigade Road or some such place. Stuck in traffic, I did my favourite thing--people watching. Men and and women, grim, scowling, smiling, laughing, joking. Then I spotted a frail body stumbling through the traffic, hand outstretched, supplicating, beseeching. People kept smiling, staring, scowling, laughing...as if this less-than-human being didn't exist. They turned away so they wouldn't see. But who am I to moralise? The minute I spotted that old woman, I felt a sinking in my heart. Oh no, I thought, another beggar. Another grimy hand thrust into the car, carrying God Knows What Infection. What if she accidentally touches my child? What if I touch her? I shrank inside, mentally cowering away from that image. Hoping she would disappear. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the autorickshaw parked beside our big, flashy, shiny car. Three little heads peering out. The auto driver's children. He reached into hi