Just a thought....

Respect, just like beauty, lies solely with the beholder - Joydeep Majumdar

Happiness, Unbounded...

Based on a pleasant true incident...

Two kids...tousled hair, soiled faces...a boy about 3 years or so old, the other, a little girl, who must have just learned to walk as she just managed to take only a few steps before falling down on all four, crawling. She could barely speak except for a soft yet loud shriek every now and then, as she tried to keep up with her nimble footed brother. The filthy rags covering their bodies could hardly be described as clothes, but that seemed to bother me so much more than it bothered them. It took me a moment to realize that the sound that had caught my attention, was in fact laughter as both brother and sister reveled under the hot sun, barefooted on the dusty pavement. Nearby, watchful, sat their parents over a make shift shop of plastic ware and knick knacks they were peddling on the floor. Like the children, their clothes were just about enough to protect their dignity. The mother seemed to have forgotten all her obvious woes and worries. Her eyes gleamed with pure joy as they followed every movement of both children, in that moment, she seemed to be the most content women on earth. Their father had a tired, faint smile on his face. I think he was brooding about his helplessness for not being to able to give his children a better life. The kids meanwhile continued their laughter filled play. They chased around what seemed to be a colourful round ball made out of pieces of rags sown together, which I am sure their mother had put together and an almost deflated orange balloon that was surely discarded by some child who had better choices for toys. To both of them, these two so very trivial items seemed as their most prized possession. With dirt covered faces and tiny bare feet, that would surely have been burning from the heat of the midday sun that glowed ever so bright on the concrete footpath, the children continued to fumble around for their playthings...continued to laugh as hard and as pure as they could. Even through the severity of their situation, the hunger, the poverty, which I know was too much for them to fathom at their age, they seemed to be so unworried , so HAPPY in the actual sense of the word. The kind of happiness each one of us spends every ounce of our energy pursuing, day by day, seemed to just free fall from the heavens for them. I looked around, and like me everyone that passed by, couldn't help but stop and stare at this innocent sight with smiles on their faces and I am sure, just like me, a little jealousy in their hearts as they witnessed happiness in it's simplest and purest form, carefree, unfettered...unbounded.

Bully

Life is like that bully who tormented you in high school, hits you hard right in stomach when you least expect and watches you collapse to the floor, writhing in pain. Now, the choice is yours, stay down & keep taking the abuse or get back up, face your bully, fight back and eventually, become the best of friends.
-Joydeep Majumdar

The book and it's cover...

The 9:15 AM slow local train(they call it slow cause it halts at every station en route) has been my regular mode of transport to work. And like every day for the last 5 months, I found a seat right next to the window, settled down and got engrossed into my cellular phone for my morning dose of social media. The horn blared a couple of times and the train was set in motion. The cool morning breeze started to blow through grilled rectangular windows and filled the boggie as we began to gain speed.
I glanced up from the glare of my phone and looked out the window, around the boggie and that is when I noticed the fellow sitting right across from me. This shaggy-haired, guy who was about my age is the reason I am recounting this somewhat eye opening incident.
As soon as the train began it's journey, he had taken out a pair of old glasses, the lenses of which had visible scratches and had turned pale yellowish over time. He wiped them a few times on the sleeves of his faint blue shirt which had been washed far too many times by now, but still had stains all over. He noticed me staring as he put the spectacles on and smiled, I smiled back and went back to browsing headlines on my phone.
He began searching for something in his shabby old backpack that had only one functional zipper left. I saw his gray jean trousers, maybe they were  black trousers once, washed out due to over use and his shoes even more so, the soles were barely holding on to the numerous stitches the cobbler had put on them time and again.
Pitiful, I thought and somehow had a vivid mental image about the chap's life, his poverty, his background, his job, his home, his education or rather the lack of it, his struggles, everything, as if I were some high functioning know it all.
And that is when it happened, this guy whom I thought to be poor, illiterate and even unemployed just because of his appearance pulled out from his backpack, what at first seemed to me like a date book or diary, but was actually an old and somewhat raddled, hardbound book with dark brown leather cover. In bold, embossed, faded golden letters, the cover and spine read "The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens". I read it aloud in my mind and felt guilty for the thoughts I had moments ago. The bookmark told me that he had read the book almost halfway through.  "Good book!" he said as he opened the book. I had been caught staring again. "One of my favourites" I replied and we both went back to reading, him a literary classic and me the drab nonsense of social media. Who was the misfortunate one here, I thought.
The irony is, we all do it, more often then not. Prejudice is human nature. We pass judgement our fellow humans on extrinsic appearances. I am sure my fellow traveller had his own ideas about me as well.
Be it acquaintance or stranger, friend or foe, something as simple as clothes and shoes, makes us evaluate the lives of others in our minds, regardless of facts and might I say, common sense. I guess we all forget that we were once taught not to judge a book by it's cover.
I looked up yet again, he was still absorbed with his book. I remembered being equally absorbed by the same book a long time back, the train's horns blared and I made a note to remember this little life lesson the next time and went back to reading news bulletins myself.