Truth is something which never needs a definition. It surfaces itself at any cost. Yet many of us remain unaware of the fact that what we consider the truth may not be complete on its own. It is this uncertainity that keeps us on bay and continues to encourage us for the search of that incomplete.
I was holed up in a similar situation sometime back and it is then when I came to realise that nothing is complete on its own. I was waiting for my friend to pick me up from the railway station when I came across this never lasting experience of three hours.
It was a bright sunny day when I landed in Ahmedabad, my flight being on time. My friend was supposed to pick me up from the railway station which was on the way to his home from airport. But fate had something levied in it and he was caught up in a meeting giving me a three hours of time to experience something new. While I stood there with my luggage I had people of all kinds around me. Civillians had a company of army personnels, rich had a company of brats and beggars and I had a company of a nice little family. As my shadow shortened nothing changed much. Faces changed but the categories (don't have the right word) did not. I regret that I had no camera to capture that moment but I am glad as well because had that been the case I would not have been writing this post.
Let me ask you a question; "How much will you pay to a cooly for carrying three suitcaes, five airbags and some more luggage.... say for a distance of 300 meters?" I guess you would be thinking he won't be able to carry so much on his own..ya true he used a trolley for carrying this stuff. So now your bet would be 60 / 70 rupees. This cooly took all these luggage for merely 25 rupees. The bargaining lasting more as an order. So the first truth which surfaced was India in its true sense hardly values all the work and still we say "India Shinning".
Even if we consider this wage rationalization to be justified in some sense or the other I don't know what would you say about this nice little family. The oldest man in this family (in his odd 60s) was sitting upright on the floor and managed to stand up without taking any support. He sat on the ground (in the way people sit during their morning ablutions) for nearly an hour and he seemed to be enjoying his style. I don't know about other young generations of the country but I can bet you I can not sit so long. If my guess is not wrong more than 75% of the youth won't be able to do so. All of us seem to be so fitness freak but how fit are we compared to this old man? Seems a little amusing but its really true, Indian youth seem to be loosing their strength to the work culture we have imbibed in ourself.
I also observed a couple of beggars enjoying their time and cracking jokes more than often. Their loud laugh caught the attention of many and their talk caught mine. One of the beggars threw a brand new slippers to the other and said mockingly "Look what I got from the train going to Godhra." So this is what the beggars have been doing don't know since how many years. Beggars or theives? no one knows the truth but one thing that I was pretty sure of was that i had started to hate the beggars. Not because they were beggars but because they had fake faces. Wait a minute... am I doing the justice? Obviously this is a cruel question but I have no answer to it.
Enough of this social questions. Let me share one fine moment as well. As I observed all these things I saw a group of students (perhaps +2 batch) gearing up for some sort of tour. I saw my school days in them and I was in a moment one among them. There were some guys trying to impress some of the girls and there were some cool dudes living within themselves and leaving their own impression. Other kids were enjoying the moment in their own way. Isn't this the golden time of their age? Ya definately it was and though all of us know this we are always in an uncanny mood not realising this at the nick of the time. It takes a lot of learning and experience to realise the hard facts of life.
Those three hours were definately like one of those moments when you get into a retrospection mood. May be you get answers to some of your doubts and at the same time increase a number of them. Still we continue to dangle between what is the truth and what is the complete truth.

First and foremost Greetings to you for creating your own blog "PROMO".
ReplyDeleteSecondly a piece of appreciation from my side for being such a keen observer of the life and its components whether tangible or intangible. Keep going and unfold life more as you move along your way ahead thereby allowing these valuable moments to contribute heavily and positively in terms of your growth, be it professional, personal, social or spiritual.
All the best.
cheers,
Ajitabh
Thanks. This is just the begining with many to follow..:)
ReplyDeleteMan .. u got the work done in 25 which was 70 rupees worth for.. well ,considering ur bargaining ability, i am not surprised..
ReplyDeleteLet me tell you that i knew that "boy trying to impress girl" thing was coming once i saw that +2 gang going sm where ..
anyway ,these are the trivial things anyone can point out at the outset itself if he had been privileged to have ur company..
i will keep coming here in the hope that some day i wll get Apple ,bee story also.
will take it offline [;)]
Next time I will certainly take you along with me..Anyways just keep looking and more personal experiences will pop in
ReplyDeletebahut mast likha hai ... ab jald hi tu news paper em editorial( sampadakiya) ka dhandha karna chalu kar de.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the appreciation. I think I got a new business plan with your idea. Will certainly keep this plan stored for sometime in future.
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ReplyDeleteRight attitude, dude. I am sure with time, it will be a really nice collection of work. :)
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ReplyDeleteA summary of conversation I had with one of my friend "Ram Kumar Sharma" regarding this topic. I thought this could be very useful to share with you all.
ReplyDeleteRam's first direct question was what was my intention behind writing this blog.
Me: The key theme was - many things which appear before us may seem crystal clear to us but there are several other factors which when linked and then the fact reviewed..truth may change
So Ram went through my blog again and what he thought was..I came across for turths
1. wage system is not proper in india..
2. our new generation is not fit..
3. school boys were doing masti..
4. beggers are not good..
Definately true but my point is if we do not look into these matters as i did...i.e. leaving out some facts attached to these matters our understanding is crystal clear in our own way. Only when we try to think about these facts along with some other lines our truth / reality changes and all 4 examples are just to support my hypothesis.
life is about small things. Even if there will be 50 people who hit the blog everyday and condemn it, in the long run, there will be thousands who would appreciate the right views.
ReplyDeleteIf the coolie would have asked you Rs 1000 for carrying your luggage, you definitely wouldn't have availed his service. Right? Now the question comes "why". First of all you will think "is it worth enough paying this guy Rs 1000". Secondly you will think "may be i should try out some other coolie who will ask for lesser money".Another scenario can be where there is only one coolie and 5 people who want him to carry their luggage. The coolie rates will go up. The reasons cited above govern the "wage system" in any society. These reasons made the coolie agree for Rs 25. So i think wage system is proper in India. The wage system just cannot be improper(leave apart "bonded labor").Why do you think there was a wage revision for Central government employees?
ReplyDeleteWage system is totally based on supply-demand model. Just because you are a very good painter,does not mean your paintings should fetch you a lot of money(value for work).Someone should be there to pay for them.
So does it mean you should not pay someone according to the effort he is making..because that's what we have been paying him for ages? I tend to disagree with it and may be it's not about paying Rs 25 or Rs 1000, it's about having value for the work. When we know that there are so many coolies, why can't we have standard rates at the railway stations? I just wanted to draw the attention of the reader to giving thought to some changes we may not have thought since a long time.
ReplyDeletethats highly appreciable....such an expression of deep and thought provoking ideas is very rarely found...such a keen observer...no doubt u r a great philosopher and deep thinker...
ReplyDeletehw do u manage to think so dofferent...so distinct from others.....its nice to have people like u who atleast use their brains and think differently astray from the normal course...keep goins...wishing to see some more better works from ur side...
Bahoot maska maar liye...ab jameen par aa jao
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