The bus ride yesterday morning was hellish.
A proverbial measure of the breadth and depth of my discomforts.
I was seated in the opposite direction of the direction in which the bus was travelling. This causes me to build up a sense of motion sickness in my head. And the direction of the seat meant that the entire set of passengers were looking at me. Intently. As is the case most times when I begin to build up the situation unnecessarily in my head.
Thinking about how to make the proverbial lemonade about this instance and started reflecting on the various things happening in and around the bus.
The middle stop or the intermission, if you will, was a rest stop for about 15 minutes. And this gave ample time for interesting things to unfold in the bus. Having given up on smoking and being a tad bit uncomfortable in the journey till then, I decided to sit tight in the bus and not go out to even take a leak (which was a mistake as I learnt further along in the journey, but this is not that story).
One particularly striking thing about that stop is that, it weren't street vendors or salespeople rushing into the bus. It was mostly people requesting alms and charity.
I ended up watching each of them out of curiosity and the two people that caught my attention were a woman who was selling lottery tickets. A man who was limping and had crutches on him. I did not take a lottery ticket even though I felt that woman was the most in need of help among all of them.
I had taken up a ten rupee note and decided mentally to give it to this woman if she did not get any cash from anybody - but I saw her sell a few tickets. I waited for the limping man to come by. Right as he was half way to me - a man appeared by my side and then asked me to give him at least 10 rupees for a tea. He was very insistent and I sensed a little urgency and desperation in his voice - this made me act in autopilot and give him the ten rupees. And as the limping man came up to me, I took out a fifty rupee note and passed it to him - he silently pocketed in and left. I appreciate that he did not make a show of it and just pocketed the note.
I sense there is a little bit of a parable in this whole account.
What would any of you have done?
How would this whole instance have played out if any of you guys were among the people involved?
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