The lady seemed over the moon with happiness when she found I knew Hindi. Apparently not many at the station could understand what she had to say. She told me their suitcase with all money had been stolen the previous night. In trying to catch the thief, they had missed their train and they had spent more than 20 hours on this station without money to feed the kid or to buy tickets to go back home for diwali. And I found myself wondering if I should trust her. After all, the world is not full of good honest people and I didn’t want to be cheated. But then, I couldn’t ignore the possibility that she was being honest. This was not the first time in life that I had this choice to make – either trust the person and MAYBE let myself be cheated or turn my back on them when they might be genuinely in need of help.
What I ultimately chose to do is of lesser significance in comparison to the chain of thoughts she triggered in me. How often do we, people of the so-called present day "egoist" world, ask for help to total strangers? The answer is, very rarely. Don’t we fear exposing our inefficiency or inability to handle our own problems? When that is the case, why don't we trust someone when they break these shackles of ego or fear and ask out for help? Why have we become so cynical about the world and its inmates? Whether ultimately we help them or not is secondary, but why do we doubt their integrity? Why do we doubt the fact that they wouldn’t be asking us for help if they could manage the situation themselves? Is it because we don’t place ourselves in their shoes and think from their position? Or is it because we do? Like a wise person once said – “you doubt that a person is lying only when you know you may have lied in his position”…………….. In that sense, isn’t this world simply a reflection of what we are?
As I pondered more and more, my mind jumped to other related issues. All of us have our own notion of good and bad. I myself look down upon people without civic sense, small things that are sooo common in our country anger me - someone spitting on the road, a well-built beggar, people not using dustbins, women bickering over a good for nothing issue in a crowded bus etc. Then again, it’s easy for me to expect these things, given what I am, and what God has given me in life. But how does spitting in public places matter to someone struggling to make ends meet everyday?
And thus wandered my thoughts, as I waited for my train for nearly 4 hours in piercing cold and rain. I had thought I would have to somehow kill time when I entered the railway station but now I wouldn’t say I had ‘killed’ time, for I realized, somewhere during those 4 hours, I had unknowingly made a resolution to be a bit more considerate, trusting and understanding before jumping to conclusions about the people around me.
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