People

I was on a bus on my way to watch a movie (interestingly, most of my enlightening moments happen during bus rides). I was running late. Life wasn’t too good at the time with just two friends- depression and loneliness. A middle aged man got in the bus and walked towards me. There were no seats left. He had a weird smile on his face. He asked me something in Bengali which I did not understand (I could have if I wanted to). I think he was asking me if I was going to get off soon. I think he wanted to sit down. Since I was not feeling great and was also in the middle of checking the cinema’s location, I simply told him, “Sorry, I don’t speak Bengali” with an expression that implied “leave me alone”.

Lets go back a year. I was in a different country. I was in a bus (again!). I was running late(again!). I asked a woman for directions. She looked tired and frustrated. She did not understand me the first time. Then she replied, “Sorry, I don’t speak Indian”. I felt really bad because I had asked in English.

By now you probably know what I am getting at. I understand that frustration causes people to do bad things. Sometimes, it takes a lot of effort to keep it under control and do the right thing. I had this realization during my bus ride to the cinema. Unfortunately it happened after the guy got down from the bus. I thought to myself, “Fuck! I did the same thing!”. By that time I had missed my stop and I missed the first half hour of the movie. Worth it!

You know what I want to think of myself? As a human being. Because, I mean I don’t want to be like “As Confucius say,” but under the sky, under the heavens there is but one family. It just so happens man that people are different – Bruce Lee