Last Thursday (7th March-13), I
had gone on a sales trip to Haridwar to meet one of our business partner in UK for
Uttaranchal territory sales planning. I reached the office of our partner in
the afternoon & finished the job around 4 PM. Same day I had a return
ticket to Delhi from Shatabdi Express & it was scheduled around 6.10 PM
from Haridwar. I reached Haridwar railway station around 5.00 PM. There was
good one hour to spend at the railway station. The station was crowded with
people waiting for their respective trains. Since Haridwar is a holy city,
people from all walks of life, from different regions in India & world were
present. All the benches were occupied, so I started roaming on platform no. 1
& observing the people. Beside me two foreigners were standing &
talking to a disabled person with polio in both legs. One of them was tall
& thin & the other was a little bit healthy. The tall guy was who was talking
to the person on skates felt that it inconvenient to talk to the person who was
sitting on skates. He sat on the floor opened a packet of chips & a cold drink.
Soon after this the other person also sat on the platform & joined the
discussion. To my surprise all three were sharing the same packet of chips
& cold drink bottle. They were talking in the manner as if they all were
old friends. After 15 minutes the train announcement was made & the tall
person asked for permission to leave from his friend & guy on skates. Both
of them shook hands with him & said good bye.
Then the person on skates took
the wrapper of Chips & cold drink bottle towards dustbin to dispose it. On
the same platform there were other people also who were littering the station
with the leftovers. These fifteen minutes really touched my heart & gave me
the lesson of life-
1. When
we get a better social & economic position in society in society, we forget
the basic tenets of humanity & start treating the unfortunate & unprivileged
ones in inhuman way.
2. We
often try to follow the western culture, but we still don’t know our own culture
which teaches us kindness, love, respect & humanity.
3. Does
education makes us civilized? The answer is no. An uneducated, physically disabled
person knows that littering is bad, but on the same platform there were so many
educated people doing it.
