For many years I commuted to my work by the local trains of Mumbai. Andheri 7:28 was my fixed train during that period. Reaching the platform early enough to have a vada pav or a ragda pav for breakfast and a cup of tea was a daily ritual. The return trip from Mumbai Central was always on a crowded compartment or at least I felt so. Beginning of every month, either during the commute or after getting down at Andheri station there was at least one person who was robbed of his salary by a pickpocketer on the train. The fixed reaction of people around that person was to give him advice and suggestions about how to be careful in the local trains and during the first few days of the month in particular. Does that person really need suggestions at this point? Maybe, but what I knew for sure was that the person who is new in the city and has lost his first salary if not anything will definitely need some money to survive.
Does that person really need suggestions at this point?
As a child, I loved to go grocery shopping with my father. Standing on the front side of the Vespa scooter, holding the handle for support and watching the market and people around, was fun. One day, during one of these shopping trips I saw an accident in the market. A man carrying two cans of oil on his bicycle was hit by an auto-rickshaw. Nobody got hurt but one of the oil can was toppled. The auto-rickshaw guy was not justifying his speed but was rather scolding the poor person who had just fallen from his bicycle. Now we (me and my father) had no role to play in this situation. But my father goes to the person who had just managed to stand with his bicycle and asks him about his condition. My father also learns that this man works for a small grocery store and how his employer will now cut the cost of the lost oil from his salary. An immediate response of my father was taking out money from his own pocket and giving it to the poor man to buy another oil can.
An immediate response of my father was taking out money from his own pocket and giving it to the poor man to buy another oil can.
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