A saturday afternoon revelation

This Saturday afternoon I was taking a much cherished siesta when the doorbell rang loud. Irritated on being awakened unceremoniously, I walked up to the door, rubbing my eyes.

“Madam I am from Kutchina, have come to service your kitchen chimney.” A young guy, neatly dressed in a formal blue shirt and black trousers, carrying a black side bag spoke up.

“Of all times, you have to come on a weekend afternoon.” My irritation had now spread all over my face. Reluctantly I let him in.

Thankfully dad was at home and he volunteered to oversee the servicing while I retreated to my room and closed the door behind me. My sleep was already disturbed so I decided instead to switch on my laptop and check the recent updates on my FB page. Soon, the pungent smell of kerosene spread everywhere and I  began to feel suffocated. Further irritated, I rose up and opened the windows and door for some much needed ventilation.

Voices started flowing in from the kitchen.

‘Oh dad is back at it’ I thought gingerly and bit my lips.

My father is a school teacher and like every other profession, his too has its own set of occupational hazards. He strikes conversations with strangers at ease, so much so that it gives an impression that he has known the person for years. He gets too emotional, gives away too much personal information and asks too many questions, even bordering on the personal side. While I know he is a typically sweet not-so-old man, wanting to know about people and share their miseries, it does get a little embarrassing at times. Many take him as ‘Intrusive’.

Today was no different. He was asking the boy about his home, education, work and pay.

I was silently hoping him to stop when something else drew my attention. The boy was sharing his story as earnestly as my dad was listening.

A Commerce graduate, the boy works for a private Indian company which sells kitchen appliances. He does a door to door servicing throughout the day ,throughout the year, rain or sun, summer or winter. And for one hour of back breaking labour, he gets only Rs 10, or 0.18 dollars. As it is, he needs to travel from one end of the city to the other, and his company doesn’t even reimburse all his travel expenses.

When dad offered him some sweets and sarbat, he got a little emotional and revealed more.

He is the only earning member in his family and after sending home few thousand rupees every month, he hardly has anything left for himself. On most evenings, when he is exhausted after a hard days work, he has to think twice even to buy a cuppa of chai (a cup of tea) from a road side stall.

Initially he was a little shy, but when dad insisted, he ate like a man starved for days. As I was now standing close to the door, leaving my lappy and host of online friends back on the bed, I noticed  immense gratitude on the boy’s face.

I felt sad. Very sad...I remembered the words I had spoken to him when he had rung the bell and wished I could gulp them back.

Most of the times we are so cocooned up in our lives and its never ending problems that we neither have the time nor the compassion to look out of the window. There is a whole world out there, comprising of people who don’t have one tenth of what we have. And at times like these, when I am forced to look out, my problems suddenly start looking trivial.

I am sure, many of you, who have read this far would ask in silence, ‘what difference can I make?’

The problem is we are too structured and we always think big. We learn how to present ourselves in a certain way and in the bargain lose touch with our humanity.

I don’t know, but I believe those who truly want to, are making a difference in their parts of the world. May be if I wished fervently, I could get a way too. May be I will try. For starters, I won’t frown when somebody comes for servicing on a Saturday afternoon next time. Someone’s livelihood is way more important than my afternoon siesta. Neither would I silently hope that my father stops asking such questions to perfect strangers. Thank god for such intrusion, the hapless boy could return home with a full stomach and a full heart.