Saturday, July 2, 2011

A whiff of fresh air

Well seems to me the ''aam admi" is put to great difficulties day after day. This time it was the diktat from the Govt that all the LPG consumers have to go to the gas agency and submit their LPG number and the Electricity RR no.This drive is against weeding out those who have bogus ration card (I am sure the present day APL generation have never ever heard of something called ration card).  The thing is because of this extra burden the personnel working at the gas agency are not taking calls to book gas from consumers.

We therefore had to go personally to collect the gas cylinders as they said that they did not have enough delivery boys to deliver the cylinders home!! My mom had the same difficulty and hence we went to get the cylinder from the agency. Now once we got the new cylinder loaded and put it in our car we paid a small tip to the person who loaded it as we could see he was expecting it.

After getting it home, getting the cylinder inside the kitchen from outside was quite a humungous task so we looked here and there to see if there was someone around who could help us. My eyes fell on a boy of about 18-19 who was working at a nearby construction site. I called out to him and asked him if he could get the cylinder inside. He readily agreed and then lifted the cylinder and placed it inside the kitchen. As he was leaving, by habit I offered him some money and he simply said  "No, thanks!" (Did I hear it right?) At first it did not register and then when I tried again he said the same thing and that too in such a polished way I was flabbergasted. I knew this was not the run of the mill person but someone who is a rarity these days. I asked him how much he had studied as his English seemed very polished. He said that he had completed his tenth standard! Since we wanted to show our gratitude we gave him some sweets to eat and he went back to his work.

He came across as a whiff of fresh air amidst such pollution. I wished that may be we all should learn a thing or two from this simple and kind hearted person who is not educated academically but rich in knowledge of love, kindness and sincerity. People like him are the need of the hour, specially given today's state in our country is in. We need more people like him don't you think?

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