Realizations...

Too start with a cliche-Small things give big you happiness but when you are surrounded with all kind of happiness, small never remains that small!

It’s after staying alone & commuting for hours in local transport that I developed this habit of ‘pondering’.

Thinking over the fights that daily happens either in bus or train, over issues which never require raised voices makes me remind of the days when I fought with my friends, and simultaneously makes me realize fighting is so simple & resolving equally difficult.

When a man in his 40’s get off his car in the mid of a jam to control the traffic singlehandedly makes me realize that not everyone in this country just sits and blame.

When a woman standing next to me in bus shifts herself to give me a comfort zone were no man can by mistake lean on me, makes me realize how my parents protected me in 22 years without letting me know.

When a roadside hawker calmly gives some free sandwiches to every passing cop, makes me realize of how patience comes by position.

When a father of a kindergarten student participates in racing competition to see his kid feeling proud makes me realize of the times when they still feel proud in spite of me feeding them in an old age home.

When I compliment my maid for the ‘gajraa’ she wears, makes me realize how a compliment makes someone’s feel elatated for the whole day.

When my mother waits outside the gate, on the day of my arrival in spite of knowing that the train is late, it’s then when I realize no one else can do that anymore, & that is how I label curiosity and unconditional love.

When small things make me realize that I wish I couldn’t have done that, I start questioning now, what earlier I use to assume, but If I would have questioned before, I wouldn’t have realized to explore assumptions.

Though these things aren’t something new or bizarre, but we tend to realize them pretty late in life and especially when we are left with no options. May be I am realizing it today because I get that time to observe the world and admire the beauty, and I find myself lost & blank.

There is a phase when you are surrounded with people & you struggle hard to figure out your identity but I find this ironical that you are alone now yet struggling to figure out your identity.

There is a slight difference between realizing expecting & accepting where realizing grades the highest.

(JLT) Just Like That:

Mumbai teaches you new lessons everyday, some good some bad, some with a reason, some without any, but what ever they are you tend to remember them forever. One such incident happened with me this Sunday morning when I was taking a local train from Cherney Road station to Dadar station.

I got my coupons punched from the machine counter and thereafter took a train & got down at Dadar station respectively, Where a Ticket Checker asked for me and my friend’s tickets, I showed him the tickets but as per him the tickets had wrong entry of timing, which showed I had punched them 4 hours before and were no more valied.

I told him the whole panorama, but the irony that thousands make the same set of excuses daily, made him immune to my 'excuse' as he termed it.

After some mintues of 'talk', the TC told us to come to his ticket office crossing the bridge, where this kind of scenario was normally seen. In the backdrop of my my fading patience to their casual reaction, the argument started heating to a higher pitch than the normal. In the mean time many people caught in similair situations came and went, some were guilty some weren’t, but who cares, giving money could be the simplest and in fact the only available option than taking their nonstop ‘bhaashan ‘!

For clarification I asked them to call the other station & figure out about the non functioning machine, but there phone couldn’t connect, so the functional conditions could be well understood.

I asked him about the left over option apart from paying the fine. Filing the complain was all he said and I expected. We thought to go with it. The more i asked him to hurry up with the formalities, the more he opted for casuing delay. The dreaded lethargy, stereotypical of a government employee.

The small room was packed with masters dealing with 2-3 cases simultaneously. A kid is crying, a poor lady begging, a student negotiating and our Ticket checker relaxing.Nothing could work politely or rudely, nor could his nor does mine ego satisfy.

The one liner argument of mine of not checking the date after punching & his station machine not functioning went on.

Though my ego won in the end by hook or crook, but the point still remains the same, who was at the fault? Me who got the right ticket for the right station or the railway authorities whose machines were improper? Would anyone if not me would have taken the ache and torture to fight uselessly for two hours in the mid of a filthy room for an issue like this? Paying 250 was really a good option. And this is what corruption is all about.

I have written my complain to www.consumercomplain.in , hoping when live moving authorities couldn’t listen, may be a mail could.And this is what optimism is all about.