The (un)real times!

The narrative is something that happened a year ago during one of my trips to Lonavala. We had hired a SUV to drive around and what's an SUV that doesn't give you a high on rugged roads! It was an exhilarating experience given the driver - a fellow friend was loving his time behind the wheels. We were heading towards a fort and we must have driven along the terrain for more than 5-6KM. May be more. We crossed an old man, dressed in a typical Maharashtraian attire, who was walking with a bag mounted on his shoulders. All of us saw, since this was no highway. I am pretty sure all the good hearted passengers had a flurry of thoughts and in that split second, our driver halted. He looked back at us and asked another good hearted fellow to ask if the old man wants a ride. He spoke our mind. And in yet another split second this fellow looked at his wife and me, who were sharing the middle berth in SUV, and we were already making room for the old man. We asked and he obliged and we drove up along to reach our respective destinations.

What my friend noticed when he took the old man's bag before he sat inside the car was, that it was no less than few kgs. It was heavy. We started talking to him in Hindi and he in Marathi. We managed a conversation, somehow. His clothes were dirty but the man was so clean and his goodness was written all over his face. We met an entry booth. The watchman inside cracked, "Take money from this man, he is a pretty rich fellow". Laughter followed. We dropped him off at the foothill from where the small trek was to begin and that is where he resided. Although, there are plenty of tourist vehicles plying, they go their own way, the hard way. That rang loudly in our heads about their undettered attitude to push through life!

The old man was thankful for the journey which was around 2-3K from where we picked him. And the good gestured fellow invited us for some food at his place. We were humbled but not hungry and took leave and went our way.

Cut to present day.

I head out on a lazy Saturday evening, lazy because I was lazy, to pick some stuff at a nearby mall clad in a simple kurta and jeans with a scarf around and a little messy hair. Certainly wasn't dressed to impress.

Scene 1:  I enter a high-end store and pick some stuff to try on. Two blazer clad salesgirls are busy sorting out tried and discarded merchandise. One lady greets me and the other nearly frowns and gives me my token placard. Not wanting to be a racist or biased, this frowner was from one of the seven sister states. Just saying. You would realise why I was surprised for that brief moment. Because they are usually warm.

I get on the line for billing. A rich Tamil speaking couple were ahead of me followed by an ultra rich Muslim woman with a crying baby in the pram, who was shoving the pram to console. (Again, I mention ethnicity only because that is what I saw. The thought stops there). I am then followed by a bunch of Hindi speaking pretty girls (at whom any normal guy would give a second look), bantering and the only line of English one of them speaks seemed grammatically wrong! The Tamil couple looked ordinary but the woman was branded from head to toe, with sunglasses adorning her head at 6PM in the evening with shit loads of attitude. Style, may be. They had three girls (which showed they were pretty affordable and well off) along with an elderly woman. Both the mothers check me out once (let me remind you of my outlook. Lol). The baby in the pram starts crying more. The little girl, aged 6-7, of the couple is the only one responding to the baby making cute gestures to grab his attention. The baby stops crying and elderly woman and I exchange a smile. The mother of the baby immediately turns the pram to her side. The little girl is unaware and unfazed with this attitude and continues to entertain the baby. The two people who might have otherwise responded to the baby are standing still and just watching - me and the elderly woman. Thanks to the coldness of the baby's mother.

I head to a couple of other stores and then straight to Central.

Scene 2: This place always has two things in plenty. Merchandise and salespersons. I go to the shoe section and with no qualms in mind, I speak in Kannada. I do not garner much attention and I move along and pick my shoes. I continue to speak in Kannada. The boy has a grin on his face, clearly something else running in his head. I ignore, pick my stuff and move on. Enter ladies section, I speak in Kannada again. Three heavily make-up clad salesgirls look down upon me, very evidently. I ignore. Ask for my stuff. She tells me it's not on discount. I ignore. Ask what's the MRP. I ask for my size. She says it's not available and walks away. The usual manoeuvre of alternative brands was clearly missing. I ignore. I am at the billing desk. The lady scans me quickly and forms an opinion. I don't care. I pay and walk out.

And on my way back, I laughed at everything and headed back home.

On a serious note, I wouldn't even think it's the fault of those poor salespersons because if they were something beyond that they wouldn't have been doing what they are doing. In my honest opinion, the fault lies in the kind of atmosphere we - customers, shop goers, money launderers are brewing. Where no one seems to lose guard and are all part of cut throat competition to look good, make the less privileged feel more inferior, flaunt unnecessary attitude at places like shopping malls, where half the footfalls are just footfalls! I mean, c'mon, what is the whole purpose of all this? To gauge your self worth with money? To demonstrate your buying power? Is this all what you have got? To show the world your monetary richness!?

At the end of it all, I am glad that I went through both these contrasting experiences. The old man threaded his path from the town to his colony up the hill by foot, everyday. It was a simple life. The life of survival and being amongst nature with no expectations of luxury and had accepted the reality and the reality was survival. And with money being the central theme of one's life in cities, there is no room for human values. You are judged every minute by everyone around you. And in order to live up to someone else's expectations, you start making conscious changes in your ways and eventually become someone else and get into an infinite loop.

And then, there was an old man who was poor yet so rich and here are people around us who are rich yet so poor. This is the original gap.

Moral of the story: The world has plenty of fakesters. Identity them. Ignore them. :D