Could be that I have been experiencing this daily all through my life but been oblivious to it for so long; but, better late than never as they put it.
Was really wondering about people in India. We probably expect the well educated to be ones cultured and polite mannered. But just as an observation, from my brief journey from home to office - which involves a walk from my house to the auto-stand, a brief 5 min auto-ride and then a short walk from the office gate to my cubicle - guess who were the most-cultured, friendly and respectful people I met?
No chocolates for the correct guess :). It was the watchman, the auto-walahs and the office boys. Most of them had nothing to gain from giving a broad wide smile to me as I passed along but they did. Every one of them .. a wavy good morning from the watchman, a jolly hello from the auto-walah and a well-mannered and warm greeting from the waiter at the idli counter at office ...
in fact, just so happened that at a blind corner in the office, I met kinda head along with an office boy. We just missed butting into each other. The office boy was really hysterical and kept continuously blurting out, "sorry, sorry sir .. really sorry". I was surprised. It was in no way any fault of his. I had to really pat him on the back and tell him "kya bhaiyya, kiske liye sorry? " [since am not "yet" aware of the local tongue here .. my broken hindi "what brother! sorry for what? " is the best way to communicate around] athough I have "received a bulb" several times (this phrase in chennai college tamil means "to be embarrassed in a silly fashion") from the office boy who might reply my native tongue (tamil that is) ;)
Many a times, the people whom we kinda take for granted in our lives are probably those who add the most value to it. Am sure every one of those warm hearted smiles did a lot of make life a great one for me today and every other day.
