True Indian!

"Where is your ticket?" , asked the ticket checker at the calicut railway station. He looked like a man in his 40's, with wisdom recondite and abstruse. He had a thick black beard (probably dyed it the previous day) and a scornful look on his face. And when he saw my face twitch he gave me a more contemptuous look that made me timorous.
"I came to drop a friend of mine here”, I replied in a low tone as if accepting a huge defeat.
"Did u check the board at the entrance? You are supposed to buy the so-called platform ticket to get onto the platform?” he retorted back.
"We were very late so we had to hurry, otherwise my friend would have missed the train. So I had to run in and I did not have time to buy the platform ticket”, I answered back cautiously wondering what was going through his mind. How I wished I had the intellectual ability to penetrate into his ideas?
"The usual answer everybody gives. You are no different. Stand-aside while i finish my checking and then I will deal with you" he shouted back.
So as always, when a government official like a traffic policeman or a ticket checker catches anybody, I was also asked to "stand aside". And the immediate thought that occurs to us is -okay now what next? How much cash do you have? How much you should tell him that you have? And finally how much should you give him? What is the maximum he can do? Can he put anyone into prison for not buying a platform ticket... Nah.. Not possible! I believed in the Indian penal code. I somehow felt something was amiss. This guy, for some reason din’t seem to me as a person who is so honest in his work. I feel it’s a rather common feeling that all these government servants are corrupted well from within. These people learn to excel in the three principal ingredients, of insolence, lying, and bribery. But then I just had 50 bucks with me and I had to try all my chances. Coming to think of it not even once have I gone onto a platform without a platform ticket (this was the first time-yes its true!). I felt an inside urge to speak to him about this.
So I approached him and said, "Sir, this is the first time I am getting onto a platform without a ticket. In fact I always advise every one of my friends to take platform ticket whenever they get onto a platform. So I am sorry just forgive me this time alone".
"You don’t have a ticket so you will have to pay the fine" he breathed.
"Sir, I just have 40 bucks with me. How much is the fine?" I asked.
"The fine is Rs 285", he replied. I understood everything that was going on. He too is no different from his cousins. I felt that bribery was a felonious act of extorting money. For a split second I had even thought that not all people are bad and there is still some good left in this world. But then when he said that I just wanted to kill myself for not taking the platform ticket.
Anyway I retorted back, "Rs 285 is too much. For not taking a Rs3 platform ticket i should pay Rs285 is it? I just have Rs 40. I can give only Rs30 because I need 10 Rs to go back."
He had a very thoughtful look and I felt as if he is reading through my mind. But to my disappointment he said," U look like a student, u might have ATM cards and credit cards so go get 285 Rs and come, Meanwhile I will have your mobile phone".
"Sir please I do not have cash in my ATM too. Just take this and leave me", I pleaded.
"What is your name?” he intervened.
"My name is Narendar", I replied promptly.
"Where are you from?", He questioned.
"I am from chennai.", I answered.
"Being a person born and brought up in chennai you are not following the rules and regulations, how will the uneducated people obey the rules?" He asked. I had no reply to it.
"Okay I will forgive you this time but you need to do one thing", he said.
I was expecting for this part of the conversation. I was about to take out my purse when he said-"Go buy 10 platform tickets and come, till then i will keep your mobile."
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I was horror-struck. I felt so guilty for having thought bad about such an honest person. Like all times I thought he too fell into the drainage of corruption. He proved me wrong. I was wondering how cruel life would have been to him. It's like you are a rotten apple in a basket full of good apples, but in reality you are the sole good apple.I immediately saw his name plate on his chest to see his name and there it was a name which could have made history which should have been given recognition of some form. His name was Syriac Varghese. I just felt what would he be getting in return for being honest in his work. Just a lame salary! He deserves more!

At that point a phrase said in the anime Full Metal Alchemist came ringing in my ears.

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange.But the world isn't perfect, and the law is incomplete. Equivalent Exchange doesn't encompass everything that goes on here. But I still choose to believe in its principle: that all things do come at a price. That there's an ebb, and a flow, a cycle. That the pain we went through did have a reward and that anyone who's determined and perseveres will get something of value in return, even if it's not what they expected."

Hoping that these words turn out true to that true Indian!

It all comes down to this- my way of life!

Living life is the only common thing we all humans have in this world of rat-race. Every Tom Dick and Harry wants to live life the way he wants. Everybody has their own perceptions about life and people. Some one has rightly said living is like licking honey off a thorn. We all, no matter what, have to live both the pleasant and the agonizing parts of life.We think life as an inexhaustible well. Yet every thing happens only a certain number of times and a very small number really.

I was wondering what to jot down now that I am in my final weeks of college life, which perhaps is one of the most significant moments of everybody’s life. Looking back at these 4 glorious years makes me wonder how these wonderful years have affected the way I think about life, about my perceptions of people and the way I want to lead my life. These 4 years have definitely taught me how to live or at least the way I want to cultivate my priorities in life and give a helping hand in the greater good!

Everybody needs everybody’s help in this world in one way or the other. No one can victoriously proclaim he can travel with the tide in solitude. Likewise u can’t have people always around you though u might need them. I am one such person who needs to have people around me and friends to share. But again there is an alter-ego which prefers solitary confinement. I guess every body has this two-sides-of-a-coin life!

The situations and problems I faced in my college life changed my perceptions about everything in a significant manner ( and I hope in a positive manner too..:).Usually i enjoy talking about my opinion regarding any subject, especially to a person who has an honest interest or even honest skepticism towards the topic.Most of the times i meet a person who is committed to not accepting my answers because he enjoys the role of having me strain to make contact with him while he sits back. I can nearly always see why I'd begun to press so hard.The person either hasn't responded to what I've said or he's been smug or he dint acknowledge that I've answered them. In the beginning i used to argue back if i felt i was right, but then now i have learned to be thankful to the feeling that warns me to stop. I feel that, most cases when you know what you are feeling, you are less likely to act irrationally.

Your thoughts and attitudes are special to you. Some of them are almost universally shared and others which you consider indisputable, are not nearly so obvious to people with different vantage points. I started accepting the fact that I'll hold nearly every attitude at some time, even toward people closest to me.I have faced situations(well.. i feel everyone would have..) where i momentarily feel enraged at anyone and acknowledge the fact that i feeling this way is the best safeguard. Feeling of rage is not wicked, in fact no feeling in itself is wicked. Attempt to deny the existence of such a feeling only has repercussions very harmful to you.

Of nearly any purely personal attitude that we have held for long, we are unknowingly reproducing it, or holding it in place not by a single activity but by a multiplicity of them. I understood this the hard way that we can seldom alter attitudes by adopting single practices or stopping them and not condemning other people is a good step toward relieving the tension of unwanted attitudes.

One of the most significant things this college has taught me is- love and friendships. However, it was very easy for me to understand the latter much better and feel has more significance or reality than the former. Love, like life also seemed an elusive thing to me or at least the so-called love i have been seeing in my college. Is it man's nature to be able to love only what he cant fully possess? I feel there is not much love in the word love. Love when done unconditionally and unquestionably is the true love u can get in any forms of life. But sadly, we are left with the fact that only few love their mates forever and others find it difficult or rather impossible to love or respect those who become accessible. Such people, no matter how much they acquire, feel unrewarded.My experience is that whatever we most esteem and try hardest to attain declines in value the moment we secure it. Probably, most of us have this illness. We perpetuate the belief that easy availability decreases value of what we own. This phenomenon is observable in everyday contacts, where our feelings are not so intense as in the so-called love relationships.If some one has known us for years and has watched us grow and learn, he or she may forever refuse that we have become capable.The philosophy seems to be-"If you are familiar and especially if you have needed me then i cant respect your skills".

How far does a prejudice against familiar influence us? Don't we all tend to treat the dinner guests than people who live with us? We keep our near and dear ones waiting many times but be very prompt in meeting a stranger because we don't want to give a bad first impression. Time you allocate for a stranger(probably a girl... in case of a guy) seems to be more important than the time you devote to your own mother.

Perhaps, the main cause of decline in feeling in love relatively, is that after assuring ourselves we have secured our loved one's affection, we slack in our efforts to treat them as respectfully as we did.When we come to feel relationship is secure, we see no reason to continue that behavior and love diminishes.

The miracle is that each choice we take modifies our subsequent views of ourselves and the world. We must rejoice this miracle though at times it produces tragedies. We must make those choices in life that enable us not to look back but to move forward in the right direction.At this juncture, when the time has come to bid farewell and move on with our own ways it makes me wonder where is the good in goodbye?

Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos. ~Charles M. Schulz

An episode of my life is over, and perhaps the most important one, but the greatest happiness lies in the fact that it couldn't have been more memorable. And there goes my life in a nutshell...