We've all experienced the feeling. You're at a point when you think there is just no hope for us Indians; there is just too much poverty, too big a social and economic gap between sections of society, and just too little political commitment to set things right. There are too many cars on the road, too little public transport, too many potholes on the roads and too few spaces that allow safe transit for pedestrians. The lines are too long, people push too hard. Competition everywhere, from the classroom to the ticket counter at the railway station. The big picture is just too hard to take. And so we retreat to our little islands, in front of our television screens and computer monitors, into the even tinier interfaces of our mobile devices, playing games and being social in new and different ways.
Pull back, long shot, no getting away from it, we still need to negotiate the big bad world and all the people in it. So we set out each morning convinced that we're going to encounter pushiness, corruption, unpleasantness at every juncture.
To a large extent, we're proved right time and again. The honking on the streets has decreased but hasn't gone away. There are still an astonishing number of people who seem to want to get somewhere right now, and believe that the car in front of them is akin to a road block on their life path. The bus driver casually scrapes your left rear view mirror and goes on without a pause, believing he has the absolute right to use the road as he pleases. The driver of the swanky SUV behind you, who looks decidedly underage, honks non-stop at the red light, as you stay calm, telling yourself, "I will not budge until the signal turns green." And once it does, he swerves past you like a maniac.
At Secunderabad Railway Station, there are no lines to speak of at the single counter where they sell platform tickets. I have never been one to ask for separate queues for women but i must confess that when standing in a single line means having to put up with men jostling you from all sides, a certain fondness for that idea has been felt. So I reach the counter, somehow, and hand over the three rupees for a single platform ticket--"It is five rupees madam," the harrassed counter clerk says, "tender exact change please". I don't have the additional two rupees in change, and while I fish in my bag looking for the possibility of a wayward coin, someone else pushes his hand toward. There's a slight young man next to me who had moved to a side, having been told off by the counter clerk for not having five rupees in change. He quickly puts his hand across the counter and asks for two tickets as he hands the clerk his tenner. He gives me a ticket and smiles as he walks away. I'm stunned.
Of course, this is not the first time I've been the recipient of unexpected kindness from strangers. A complete unknown handed me five thousand rupees once when I was in the middle of a mob that gathered after my car hit a seven-seater auto rickshaw. Then there was the cheerful policeman who gave me a quarter to make a collect call at La Guardia Airport in New York--I was twenty one, had just landed from India, straight into a freeing new year's eve, no change in American money and as nervous as hell because I'd missed my connecting flight. When I tried to thank him, he said, "Hey, smile, it's new year's eve!"
Inside the railway compartment where I am dropping off my aunt, is more kindness. Co-travellers who share their dinner, or move aside to make room for that extra child or to hold the baby while the harried mother goes to wash up.
And ultimately, that's what gives you hope. Despite the filth on the streets and the bad behaviour of drivers, the corruption in politics and the mismanagement of public money, there is still kindness enough to go around.
Pull back, long shot, no getting away from it, we still need to negotiate the big bad world and all the people in it. So we set out each morning convinced that we're going to encounter pushiness, corruption, unpleasantness at every juncture.
To a large extent, we're proved right time and again. The honking on the streets has decreased but hasn't gone away. There are still an astonishing number of people who seem to want to get somewhere right now, and believe that the car in front of them is akin to a road block on their life path. The bus driver casually scrapes your left rear view mirror and goes on without a pause, believing he has the absolute right to use the road as he pleases. The driver of the swanky SUV behind you, who looks decidedly underage, honks non-stop at the red light, as you stay calm, telling yourself, "I will not budge until the signal turns green." And once it does, he swerves past you like a maniac.
At Secunderabad Railway Station, there are no lines to speak of at the single counter where they sell platform tickets. I have never been one to ask for separate queues for women but i must confess that when standing in a single line means having to put up with men jostling you from all sides, a certain fondness for that idea has been felt. So I reach the counter, somehow, and hand over the three rupees for a single platform ticket--"It is five rupees madam," the harrassed counter clerk says, "tender exact change please". I don't have the additional two rupees in change, and while I fish in my bag looking for the possibility of a wayward coin, someone else pushes his hand toward. There's a slight young man next to me who had moved to a side, having been told off by the counter clerk for not having five rupees in change. He quickly puts his hand across the counter and asks for two tickets as he hands the clerk his tenner. He gives me a ticket and smiles as he walks away. I'm stunned.
Of course, this is not the first time I've been the recipient of unexpected kindness from strangers. A complete unknown handed me five thousand rupees once when I was in the middle of a mob that gathered after my car hit a seven-seater auto rickshaw. Then there was the cheerful policeman who gave me a quarter to make a collect call at La Guardia Airport in New York--I was twenty one, had just landed from India, straight into a freeing new year's eve, no change in American money and as nervous as hell because I'd missed my connecting flight. When I tried to thank him, he said, "Hey, smile, it's new year's eve!"
Inside the railway compartment where I am dropping off my aunt, is more kindness. Co-travellers who share their dinner, or move aside to make room for that extra child or to hold the baby while the harried mother goes to wash up.
And ultimately, that's what gives you hope. Despite the filth on the streets and the bad behaviour of drivers, the corruption in politics and the mismanagement of public money, there is still kindness enough to go around.
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