THE UMBRELLA MORAL

 

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm

to the vessel in which it is stored

than to anything on which it is poured.”

Mark Twain

 

After concluding my regular Accountancy class (Class 12) at 5.30, last evening, I was to hurry up to take a session on ‘Personality Development’ for the underprivileged students in a nearby slum area (Organized by an NGO). Some 20-30 kids were expected to be there. The 17-year-old Arfaat had attended my regular Accountancy class, and he was to accompany me for the PD session, too. As it was pouring heavily, I requested Arfaat to get an autorickshaw to my classes. In a few minutes, Arfaat returned, drenched fully despite a wind sheeter he wore…

“Where is the auto?” I asked him.

“Sir, it is there,” he pointed to the auto waiting a few meters away from my classes.

“Ask him to come in,” I said to Arfaat…

Arfaat, my gentle-natured student, went back to the auto and conveyed my request…

Through the heavy down pour, I could see the auto driver refusing to come inside (just a few meters and through a good approach)… I opened my umbrella, and rushed towards the auto, and we both (Arfaat and I) got inside…

Once inside, I gave a piece of my mind to the autowala: “You could see how heavily it’s raining, and you couldn’t even come a few meters inside to help your passenger?”

He was a young auto driver, and his young blood wasn’t prepared to see his passenger’s view point. He retorted, quite cold-bloodedly, “The approach was bad; I didn’t want to spoil  my tyers.”

“What… The approach was bad?” I was not able to swallow his justification, “Is it an aeroplane?”

A heated argument was ensured… A few meters on, I said, “Enough… Stop the auto.”

He did… but said, “Give Rs. 23, the minimum fare.”

“Oh, ask that from a gaon ka gawar,” I blasted and stormed into another auto which seemed to be waiting just to ferry the aggrieved passengers – Arfaat, my gentle-natured student, and his hot-tempered teacher…

You know what would go on inside such a ‘boiler head’ just after an episode like that… I knew, that I had lost my handle and wasn’t feeling good about it, at all. No matter how bad I had felt when that young auto driver rudely dealt with my gentle-natured boy, and how insensitive that he seemed to the situation I was in – yes, despite all the so-called ‘valid reasons’ – I still could have gone about it in a saner and more dignified way. But, the lid had already gone off the pressure cooker… I could do nothing about it, but reflect, learn and move on… Maybe, manage to laugh a little, lick my wounds a little.

I was quiet for the entire distance… Because, I knew I was on the way to conduct a session for young kids – of all the things – on ‘Personality Development’… I felt as though it was my ‘Road to Damascus’!

Well, just before getting off this new horse – read, new auto – I realized, that I had left my favourite umbrella in the auto that I had stormed out of saying, “I am not a gaon ka gawar”…

“Arfaat, we have paid that autowala the minimum fare he deserved,” I said, by now with all the peace I could muster in my heart…

“How?” asked Arfaat unaware of the umbrella that I had left behind…

When I narrated it to him, Arfaat said, “But, Sir, you have paid him much more than the minimum fare.”

“Ha-ha! There is no minimum fare for peace, my boy,” I explained, “The fare I have paid is worth it.”

There, during the session, I shared this story with the young kids… and we all had a good laugh…

“What’s the moral of the story, kids?” I prodded.

A little one raised his hand to say: “Practice what you preach.”

When I was of the age of these kids, we had A. G. Gardiner’s enchanting essays in our English subject… They were known as ‘Umbrella Morals’.

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: Pixabay

 

Video: Gaur Gopal Das/Curly Tales