Today, we got into a Tambaram-bound train at Park. I rushed on to fetch myself a window seat, as my friend ambled along in his, ‘I don’t care what I end up getting' attitude as he always does.
One never can get enough of a window seat, especially when a light drizzle with the sun setting in the distance, is what is on display. We were ten minutes into the journey and the window show was proving to be another box office hit. The train had reached Mambalam by now; the station where the trains lose their tranquility and become more of what a train in an Indian metro should be like at an evening hour.
I was restlessly fidgeting with the window railings, like a calf tied a metre away from the manger. My friend had lapsed into a quiet nap, or so I thought. That is when; he got up with a jerk and offered his seat to this elderly person, who was standing in our part of the compartment. I looked at my friend with disapproval, but he handed over his bag to me and went out to stand at the footboard, another thing I don’t really approve of.
It always is a tricky situation, every time we see someone senior, someone really tired, sick or injured standing a couple of metres away from our seat. We do feel like getting up, and offering our seat, but more often than not something holds us, (I mean me) back.
Today, was no different. I had seen the old man get into the train, and his face reflected discomfort. But I chose to look away. I knew the damage had been done. A strange sense of guilt would not let me enjoy the rest of the nature show, and yet something even stranger would not let me stand up and offer my seat to the man. And somehow my friend seemed to be completely oblivious to that strange feeling. I was wondering how my friend always is so sure about everything he does.
And that is when something startlingly out-of-the-world happened? “Wondering if your friend did the right thing by offering me the seat,” that old man enquired. That question caught me totally off-guard and I really didn’t know how to reply. In recent times, the only other occasions, which have managed to make me blush so generously, have been those when a beautiful girl would catch me staring at her. A sheepish, “Not exactly,” is all that I could summon myself to say.
“It so happens, that when I was of your age, in fact for most of my life, I never offered a seat to anyone. It just felt so weird. For most of my working life, I’d do up-down through trains with this colleague of mine. In the 20-odd years that I travelled with him, there must have been thousands of occasions when my friend would just stand up and offer his seat to any and every stranger he’d feel needed it more than him. There must have been numerous occasions when I tried to talk him out of this strange habit. He’d give just one argument, “I am sure that someday we’d reap the fruits of the goodness that I am sowing.” My friend never needed anyone to make place for him in any train though. He signed out of life when he was at his best, died of a heart attack five years ago. Since, then, just to keep his spirit alive, just to rekindle his memory, once in a while when I’d get carried away by emotions, I’d offer my seat to someone I’d feel needed it more than I did, but without much conviction. I had a knee-operation a month ago and today happens to be the first time I am traveling on my own, by a local since then. All the way to the station and as I got into the train, there was only one question ringing in my head, ‘Will someone stand up for me today?’ And some one did, just like that, the moment I got into the train. Wish my friend was around, to know that he was right, all along.”
What is it that makes us stop doing all the things that we want to, but just don’t? Why do we always get lost in the moral gray area and try to categorise everything as right and wrong? Do we really believe that we are promoting mediocrity; every time someone who can afford to, sacrifices a little something for someone he/she agrees needs a little more? Will it be pity that will make you make way for someone else, or will it be something as simple as spreading goodwill and the message of goodness?
The fact that the equity markets are a risky affair, doesn’t really make us stop investing, does it? No, because the returns that we stand to gain are definitely worth the risk. Why then, should we even give it a second thought when it comes to investing in goodwill and goodness?
We’d reached our destination, Guindy. I whispered, “Thanks,” to the old man as I stood up to leave. As we alighted, my friend cast a questioning glance enquiring what the old man was muttering to me. There’s no way I am going to tell him, what he did. He will guess it anyways, I guess; when he’ll notice that I’ve stopped casting the reproachful look every time he offers his seat; when he notices that I too stand up and make myself count when it matters…
- Chirantan
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