Lessons from Life

There was a child sitting in front of me on his mother’s lap. Looking at his mother one could tell that she strived really hard for her survival, but she’d dressed up her son without any of those signs. Even though she had nothing to protect her bare foot from the stones on her path, her son was wearing a floater pair. This is what I noticed about the mother-son duo seated in front of me, when I was woken up by the loud commotion on the bus that I was traveling to office on a Friday morning.

The little bean ‘d sharp facial features, cheerful like other kids of his age would be. He was gleefully clapping looking at the scenes outside the window unlike his mother who was worrying about various things that could happen, would happen and so on (though I couldn’t tell clearly from her expressionless face, but although I could see that her only source of happiness was her son).

The bus moved from stop to stop at snail’s pace. No sign of me reaching my destination for another thirty minutes. There is another stop and I see a lot of people getting into the bus. And this one particular lady makes her way through the crowd and stands beside the mother-son duo. There was a weird thing hanging out of her bag and after taking several looks at it, I realized it was a key chain hanging. (I do not know why people fancy key chains hanging from their bags! I just really hate it. Sometimes I see a dozens of them hanging from the same zip, sometimes a jingly one! OMG!).The kid started playing with this chain that was hanging like a long earring on a girl (pardon me, but that is the first thought that occurs to me whenever I see key chains hanging that way and I am not stereotyping anyone and a small note for all girls: you need not wear such long earrings to impress anyone, they really do not look good. No offence to guys who love them!) And when the owner of the earring (I mean key-chain) saw this she got irritated and gave the kid a dirty look but the kid was not deterred, he continued his work until some realization dawned on him. He suddenly folded his hands and loudly said “MAAMI”, a few times. Then I took a closer look at the key chain, it was Lord Subramanya on it. The kid ‘d realized this and the MAAMI was his version of SWAMI.A girl next to me started smiling at this act of the kid. Even I could not stop smiling at this marvelous bean! The owner’s expression too changed and it transformed from a dirty look to admiring one. The mother-duo pair got down in the next stop, but the their thoughts filled the empty space of my head and kept me occupied the entire day.

Why cannot we all have the same mind as that mother who knows to sacrifice everything for her son? Why cannot we smile and be cheerful always like that kid? Why do we miss observing our surrounding that is so obvious to us? Why do we frown or look down on people who want to work and discourage them? Why do not we pursue doing what we want in life? Why don not we show those people who discourage us, that we are capable of doing what we want? Why do we give up easily??

Some people come into your life to teach you something that you will need in life. This mother-son duo was one of that kind in my life. Though they were there for just a few minutes, they have left me with questions that will take me a lifetime to answer.