You know, Gandhiji has aptly said that a person’s worth is determined not by his attitude to his peers, but by the way he behaves with people who are below him in the social order. Now, I know that’s not the way he said it, but yes, that’s the way I interpret it. Only today did I realize how true this maxim really is.
This incident occurred at my GRE class today. The unlikely protagonist of this story is a young boy by the name Ram Kushal. Now, I probably will never know anything about Ram Kushal except his name. But I do know this, that day in and day out, he has just 1 job. Sit in the elevator, and operate the doors so that the likes of me don’t need to waste our energies doing such “menial” work. Sounds like a boring job, doesn’t it? I’m sure it is.
The elevator is a weird place. Stuck in that claustrophobic space with another person, even if it is for just a few seconds, feels weird to me. Especially, if all that person ever does is to look down at his feet with one hand on the door handle, (Yeah! As if you I'm not capable of opening that door myself) things do get a little awkward. One notices small things that would have otherwise been looked over in the normal course of the day. For instance, have you ever noticed how bored that poor chap is with his job. No new challenges, nothing new at all. Just repeating the same mind-numbing chore over and over again to earn his bread and butter.
This day, I decided to bring a little joy into this boy’s life (not much by the way, for that’s all you can do in a 20 second elevator ride). all I did was this – I asked him his name. At first, I don’t know whether he was shy, or just too shocked to respond, but as the elevator reached the 5th floor (which is where I alight) he managed to squeak in the words “Ram Kusal”. And thus with a small smile and a pat to the back I left the world of the elevator and back into the world of cutthroat competition. 2 hours later, I returned to head back down the same way I got up, via the elevator. This time however, the boy was a different one altogether. A shadow of the listless boy I left there 2 hours back. This boy was more cheerful, almost invigorated. He opened those gates with the speed and agility of an Olympian and closed them with equal fervor, almost making the crude actions look graceful. There was a disarming alacrity in his actions that day, even as he went about the same boring ritual he goes through a hundreds of times a day. And to think of it, all by the power of a polite smile, a casual nod and a pat to the back.
It made me wonder thus: Are we so busy today in our lives that we have no time for others? Are we so self-obsessed that we do not see the army of faceless people behind us (mind you, most of them can’t even read this, so consider yourself among the lucky ones) that help us go about our day? So this is my request to you today, that whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you go, just wait for a minute and appreciate the little efforts that this army of faceless people puts in to keep you going and lets you be the self-important, self-obsessed creature that characterises us today. Spread the smile
