Skip to main content

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 his pocket, took out three coins. Gave them to the children. When the old lady came by, they stuck out their hands. Clink, clink, clink. Three coins fell into the battered aluminium or steel vessel she carried.

The children sat back inside the auto. They smiled.
They who have so little did not grudge her a few coins.
Ashamed, I took out my wallet. Tried to appease my conscience.
Not that it helped, really.

Maybe next time I will not hesitate. Knowing I have more, I will give. And I will not judge. I will just help another human being.

(ends)






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wasteland

Something happened over the past two days. Our next door neighbours, or rather one particular family (like all metrizens in this cramped city, we live within literally, touching distance of the others in our neighbourhood), have decided to demolish their home. Fine, so what, you ask. They see how valuable land now is. Who can blame them? But along with their home, they have also decided to kill off the two trees -- a mango tree and a coconut tree -- in their compound. I used to look at those trees from my kitchen window. The mango tree, in particular, was a welcome sight. Bunches of ripe green fruit used to hang heavily from it. Looking at it, I'd think of my home in Kerala -- of the time when I was a little girl in a white petticoat helping my father pluck mangoes as they slowly changed from parrot green to a golden reddish-yellow-orange shade. That was our annual summer ritual, you see. My father plucked mangoes using a long stick with a hook or a 'kokka' (in my collo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Morning scenes

The wind blustery Skies grey blue A light so muted Birds are quiet too We walkers go Sidestepping Couple-dancing No touching Looking or meeting Glances…Oh no!   Masks dangling From chins Below noses Hanging from one ear Or sometimes Fitting so properly Covering everything So no one can see Or know What we’re really like.   Runners running Soundlessly Iron determination Seeping through So much so   That dogs being walked Know they cannot Wag tails Or even Bark a greeting.   Two men Creating content One breaking into Hair flipping, body popping Dance Faithful friend filming In fits and starts As a security guard Sips his chai Utterly bemused.
Post a Comment
Read more

A meltdown

Some days ago, I had what you might call, a meltdown. I went from anger to intense anguish in moments. I worked myself up into a frenzy. I wanted to lash out at my family. Hurl words that would wound and scar. I wanted to hurt myself.. Physically harm my own self or something/someone else. I wanted to break things,something... Anything would do, I felt, at that moment. Just to cope with the heaving emotions inside. Just so I could make sense of what I was feeling. So, I shouted at my loved ones. At my son for something he did or didn't do. At my husband for slights real and imagined. For angry words we have exchanged over the years. For everything we have ever done to each other. Then, I shut myself up in a room Immersed myself in all that was and is torn and tormented inside And I cried my heart out. I ended up with a migraine that day. But later, when I calmed down, I felt better. But more than that, I found that my family still loves me. My young son s...
Post a Comment
Read more