Sometimes life can teach you a lesson that you might never be able to learn from all your teachers and preachers. Not a very while ago my boss/mentor told me something that summed up to a lot of lessons. He ended up the conversation by saying- That's life, Shankar...that's life.
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This is about a recent visit to my place. It's a long way back home. Planes, trains and automobiles. It's an exhausting and fun journey all the time. Yes. It's so full in contrast. A small part of my journey is a ride in a passenger train(local train). Best part of these trains is that I never have to worry about booking tickets in advance and the worst part- it's very...uncomfortable. But this journey, while it held to its unsaid promises, did teach me a big lesson.
One of my co-passengers was an old blind person who was traveling with his wife. His very appearance gave an impression that he was living a difficult life. He probably also was a regular traveler. He seemed to know almost every part of the train. At the first sight, i noticed his red eyes and i thought that his wife was taking him somewhere for medical help. Contrary to my belief, he was the one who was leading the journey. He pushed his walking stick under the seat, placed his luggage in the luggage holder, grabbed a seat for himself and realized his wife was still standing. He then bent down and found his walking stick and the quickly sat on a different seat that had enough space to accommodate his wife as well. Once settled, he did a quick check about the amount he had in his pocket. It were a few five and ten rupee notes. He did the maths absolutely correct. He figured out the total amount by the size of all the paper notes he had and crossed checked it with his wife. Such a sweet disapproval of Braille's innovation!
All this was done in such a clean way that it made me wonder if one ever needed a pair of eye.
After a while, a blind beggar came to our compartment. It was a regular scene. Everyone gave him a few coins. What really amazed me was the sight when my blind co-passenger got 2 coins from his pocket, checked its worth again simply by its size(he did reconfirm it with another co-passenger) and then gave those coins to the beggar. That sight gave me a shiver to be utterly honest.
Emotions never did require a channel. Sight was never necessary...it is always the vision.
God bless the soul!