After so much time, this incident still is fresh in my memory. almost like it happened yesterday.This is a real story which happened couple of years back.
My very good friend Patryjca and I were returning from one of our day excursions from the city. We worked in night shifts so had the day time to enjoy Delhi. Patryjca was in her last month of stay in India after which she was returning home to Poland for Christmas holidays.
This time, I took her to Janpath to do shopping. Frankly I never have liked shopping very much. And this fact was more so while shopping with Patty. Our shop keepers are shameless in quoting prices to foreigner. If Indian rate for a simple “chunni” is Rs. 100, for foreigners the bargain starts at Rs 1000 and ends at Rs 700! Total Loot!
Anyways I will write about these double standards some other times. (We had a backup with us in form of my school friend Rajeev who was a local and had good contacts. He helped us in getting some good stuff at reasonable root rates!). Having spent the whole morning roaming Janpath and CP It was finally time to return from the arduous shopping trip. It was going to be a long drive, but as it was afternoon the traffic was less.
I have always felt that traffic lights can tell you a lot about a place or city you are in. There is always so much activity around a traffic signal. There are places were traffic lights are given their due respect and people stop. and there are places were people do things otherwise! this is more visible in Delhi NCR. In Delhi, people follow traffic stops; you cross border and go to Noida or Gurgaon, people would look ferociously (swear at times) at you as they drive past you over a red light (i.e. if you are foolish enough to stop over one yourself !)
Traffic signals have also become good source of income for many. Starting with the local traffic constable who demands money from every Truck that passes his traffic junction, to hawkers who try to push the items inside your car window given opportunity. Who can forget the poor woman with a baby latched on here breast, or one arm in plaster asking for money.
This has become so normal for us Delhites that we have stopped noticing. I am one of them.
This experience that I want to share is something that I still cannot forget. So Back to the story. We crossed Regal cinema hall in Connaught Place
and were our way towards office (Gurgaon).
Patty was concerned about we reaching office late. I felt guilty about the shopping she did. The price at which she got all the stuff! We tried consoling each other. I comforted her by assuring 1 hour late to office was okay! (by Indian standards), she returned favors by assuring me that the cost of chunni was okay (by European standards).
We eased into one of the many red lights we were going to get on your way. We were in Central Delhi area and it being a week day, after noon traffic was light. A small boy waited patiently on the corner of the red light. This five-year old was short, tanned all over ( Delhi sun on black asphalt road can bake you like this is days ). He wore a simple brown shirt and a blue half-pant, no footwear. He wore a small brown satchel around him which looked rather over sized on him.
He came silently to window and offered a set a of fancy pencils. Two long pencils with a fur cap and a rubber. And said ” Bhayia! Pencil lelo” , he looked at the co-occupant of the vehicle and called up in English. “Only 10 Rupees Saab, per pencil Saab! take Saab!”. I gave a soft smile! i knew the reason the conversation had changed to English and the prices shot up double!By conviction my first reaction would have been to shrug away the boy and ask him to go away. But I continued the conversion, I took the pencil and reviewed it, asked couple of things about the pencil. Then asked him whether he goes to a school or not. The boy replied “Nahi Saab! Me Kaam Karta hu; pencil lelo Saab” (No , I work, take the pencil saab). I told him I will take a pencil only if he asks his mother to go home. “Apni Mummy ko bolna tumko school bheje” (tell your mother to send you to a school), I said, giving some unwanted advice. The answer to this made me feel so guilty. The boy replied and asked me gently “Koun Mummy Saab ? ” (Mummy Who saab ?). This innocent answer was a genuine reply, and not doctored just to earn sympathy.
I quietly took out a 20 Rupee note from the dashboard and handed it softly to the boy and kept the two pencils. light had turned green and it was time to move along.
At times, I still think about this incident. I feel sad for the poor orphan boy, some thing I could have done any thing differently that day. We make tall claims of our growth rates and hyper malls with 1km plus shopping space; then i wonder how this growth and country’s prosperity has not touched this boy’s life. This boy who lives in a capital of the country and works from the central business district of the city still can’t go to school. Probably plays real-life chor-police and hide-and-seek with Delhi Police constables every day just to make a living and survive.
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him. ~Galileo Galilei
I too learn a few things from this ignorant little boy that day.
I have a collections quotes which I keep saving. These quotes are from some famous minds and best way i can think of to summarize and end this story is by quoting them.
I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains. ~Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful. ~Buddha
True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander. ~Charles Caleb Colton
My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. ~J. Brotherton
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”
