Recently I happened to learn an invaluable lesson from the handicapped tea vendor in my street and that set me to pen down the following thoughts. Every night when i came out of my house for the customary night walk with my friends, I saw a tea vendor -a handicapped person trying to earn his livelihood by trying to sell tea to the late night workers and watchmen on duty. I realised the observance was mutual when on one night he approached me and asked if i knew of any of my friends who had taken a flask from him along with tea about a week earlier. Since he had still not received the flask, he was eager to trace it and receive it back. After that, every day, he kept looking at me with the fond hope that i would have traced that friend of mine and was able to give the flask to him at least that day.
I walked past him for couple of days and then realised that the person was losing about a third of his income each night as he was not able to supply his buck-u-uppo reagent to the needy warriors of the night.
Many times have i wondered as to what constituted charity!...going with friends to a hotel, having a good time, and then vying with each other to pay the bill for the group or, to drop a tenner to the occasional beggar that came our way. Though, the intention is benevolent- to avoid the hassle of money matters after a night well spent with the dear ones, we may tend to forget that all of us are actually capable of bearing the total expenditure by ourselves!
Before eco friendly reader wonders why i am beating around the bush and destroying the foliage, let me get back to the theme. One day i saw the tea vendor grinning at us and talking very happily to us. So, i picked up the courage (that comes out of the vanquishing the guilt born of subjecting someone to the avoidable stress ) and asked him to serve us a few cups. After we drank and were coming back, i wondered as to how the issue got resolved. It was then that one of my friends told me that he had provided one new flask to the vendor of the nightly elixir.
That set me to think... After all, the amount was paltry compared to the amounts that we spent each day when we went out for dinner or for that matter, procure dinner for all the friends for a group meal. But, the joy it gave to the vendor and the gratifying looks with which he greeted us each day..., i am sure, i can not procure that out of the ten or twenty rupees that i get to save by haggling and convincing the vendors that i am a better connoisseur of the trade nor out of the hundreds spent on my peers!
If we were to bump into a street vendor offering us a small flimsy article for an apparently highly price, we may not appreciate it. After this incident, i began to appreciate the value of ten rupees foregone by refusing to bargain with the needy vendors to the hundreds spent on the flimsy social gesture of paying up for the friends who could as well take care of their needs!
All need not learn through their own experience.May be, some can gain out of others' experiences! I am thankful to my physically handicapped nightly elixir vendor friend for setting right my handicapped thought processes floundering in the black lazy waters of uncaring attitudes.
3 comments:
Well-written. Beautiful Narration, bringing out how little acts of caring in everyday life can bring cheer to the immediate environ we live in.
imho, probably the comparison with "paying for friends" is one of misplaced example. Paying for a friends gang is NOT charity in the first place, it's not even called "help". It's just partying or chilling out. So you can't raise a question "is that good charity ?" and then go on to say "real charity means..." and so forth. Each one knows perfectly that he is capable of bearing the expenditure, it's not the technical financial analysis that's important, but the gang thing. Comparing that with charity is like comparing swimming with scuba-diving or cooking with catering. We can't possibly take the vendor for having a group meal, not everyday, and even if we did, it would still be charity and won't be a gang thing. If indeed he joins the gang, then it wouldn't be charity any more. There are things that soothe our soul (like charity) and those that just release us from our strains (like friendship). The former borders on nobility and the latter is about being mixed humans with good, average and not-so-good attributes all bundled into one. Agreed that friendship shouldn't rest on such flimsy counts such as paying of bills, but all the little things, good, bad, funny, average, meaningless, teasing, tickling things make the gang. As an old saying puts it, "However learned you may be, you need atleast one friend with whom you can fool around with."
Cakes,
Only few could make a post out of that incident and I feel you have done full justice to it.
Naams, you are right in differentiating Gang-thing and Needy, Helpful-thing. But what point Cakes is trying to make also includes, its so important to know and do such acts which are neglected. Sometimes, it can be a substitute for our usual 'Gang-thing'.
Cakes, great going...never read your posts till now - Ignorance is bliss they say. I was indeed in a apparent Bliss. But, only when we know the power of Knowledge can we distinguish ignorance from others. At the same time, Wisdom is one that is supposed to dispel the darkness not just ignorance.
Thanks for making a day :)
Cakes,
Only few could make a post out of that incident and I feel you have done full justice to it.
Naams, you are right in differentiating Gang-thing and Needy, Helpful-thing. But what point Cakes is trying to make also includes, its so important to know and do such acts which are neglected. Sometimes, it can be a substitute for our usual 'Gang-thing'.
Cakes, great going...never read your posts till now - Ignorance is bliss they say. I was indeed in a apparent Bliss. But, only when we know the power of Knowledge can we distinguish ignorance from others. At the same time, Wisdom is one that is supposed to dispel the darkness not just ignorance and you seem to have marching on it...
Thanks for making a day :)
Post a Comment