THOUGHTS AND PEPPER by ROSHNI PUNJABI
“Your country, when RIGHT, to be said RIGHT, when WRONG, to be put RIGHT”- J. F. Kennedy.
With India
None of us, simply no one can be ignorant about the hospitality and the affection that our country and countrymen offer, and it makes no difference whatsoever whether the people are known to us… or complete ajnabi s….
Friends, this is just one of my numerous efforts to share the wonderful experiences and even the not so wonderful occurrences with all you people… so here it goes…..
Last week, I would not mention the exact date an place...not because of the obvious reason that it would seem uninteresting, but because of the fact that it does hold any significance, what is important is the feeling behind it, the emotion attached to it that makes the difference….so friends… resuming to where I was….last week I was traveling in a bus to reach a destination that was unknown to me… the reason... I being a novice in this pink city. After confirming that the bus would make me reach some place very close to my destination spot... I boarded it and took a seat (which I was lucky enough to bag) in that heavily overstuffed bus. The best part of the entire story occurred then… being sure that my conveyance would not make me reach the exact location as desired but somewhere around that place, I casually asked the bus conductor where I needed to leave the bus in order to reach where I had to….???
And believe me guys… that was the end of it!!!!!…. Except the conductor everyone around me heard my query… in fact not only heard it but also replied to it… my one question was literally blessed with replies springing up from each direction.
Everyone around me…simply everyone came up with one or the other reply. The list of directions that emerged one after the other seemed to be endless. With an old lady giving me a half- amused, half- dejected expressions…making me realize the gravity of the blunder that I had committed by getting into this particular bus... and in poured all the suggestions… “You shouldn’t have boarded this bus, it won’t go that way!”, “Ok, you can get down at that particular stop, your destination is just a five minutes walk away from there”, these just to mention a few. Similar advices appeared out of the blue for me…. And even till the bus stopped at the stop where I should be getting out of the bus according to most passengers surrounding me, the replies seemed to be a part of some continuous process, seamless and unending, with voices rising suddenly at regular intervals, “You should get down at the next stop.”, “Take a turn from the next lane after the stop.”, “It’s not that far, you can walk till there…”, and many more….huh!!!
It was at that particular moment that this thought struck me, to ponder over this incident and share it with you all. We almost daily hear the typical words, “There is nothing such as HUMANITY left in today’s world!!!” …who says so guys… there are exceptions for each and everything, and INDIA
Friends, my motive behind this article is not to pinpoint the mistakes or our wrong doings, neither am I doing this to promote some kind of patriotism. What I simply want to convey is that in spite of being a part of the busy and hurriedly running world, we need to take time to pause and have a look around us. The people, the environment, our country and in fact, the entire world around us is as beautiful, as good as we think ourselves to be. All we need is a slight change in our perspective.
As is said,’ Beauty lies in the eyes that behold…”
With a promise to return back soon, with some more thoughts and some more pepper added to them…
Take care
Adios
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