~~Tired & Thankful~~ Blog-week-athon post #3

Okay!! I am tired! Damn Damn tired!! Yes, on a supposed-to-be-a-lazy Sunday! Phew! I thought I could nap for a while once I was done with my work(yes had a production deployment today!!).. But for some reason, I couldn't and so, after a heavy lunch, I grabbed "The old man and his God" by Sudha Murthy from my bookshelf and finished reading it, say 5 minutes ago!! I am not going to post a review or anything, but then, I couldn't stop myself from writing how I felt about the book!

In a nutshell - the book narrates author's real life experiences with various kinds of people! Its written in simple English and yet holds its own charm! As we read, each snippet/experience keeps oscillating between selfishness and selflessness of "real" people! There were many which moist my eyes! There were a few which made me feel good..There were also a few which disgusted me to the core (particularly the one where a blind girl mentions that her poor parents left her in a bus stop with just a pack of biscuits(5 yr old) and never returned to take her back home - I just cannot imagine how scared & cheated that girl must have felt).. It left me wondering about the behavioral patterns & the decisions that people are forced to take at various stages and circumstances in life!! It also left me feeling thankful for a lot of things that I take for granted in my life!! 

Well, overall, a good read  - I would recommend this book to school children/teenagers so they learn to value what they have in life and be thankful!!  

Okay - now that I am both tired and thankful, let me go get some sleep!

#Yayyy - Blog-week-athon post #3

~~Kind Stranger~~(Blogathon post # 2)

So, something unusual happened which made me write about it and also confirmed what I already believed in! It needn't be just ourselves or a person close to us who can change the course of our day, even a stranger can(in ways we would have never thought of when we woke up that day)!!

As I have mentioned before, I travel to and from work.  I boarded the bus as usual on a Monday and as soon as I chose a seat, I had this immediate feeling that something was wrong.. And then, it struck me like a lightning bolt - I had forgotten my purse at home.... I had taken it out of my office backpack over the weekend for shopping & had never put it back again! I just couldn't believe this had happened to me and I started searching my backpack thinking I might be wrong about my "feeling",  but it proved to be right! I also didn't have any spare money in my bag! Meanwhile, the bus had already crossed quite a few stops from my original stop.  This was the first time ever in my whole life where I had forgotten something like that & I was just too shocked and embarrassed when I had to finally accept the fact that  I had no money to buy even a one-way ticket, let alone the daily pass that I usually buy!...

I went to the conductor and asked him to stop the bus as I had no money. I wanted to get down & go back home for my purse! However, the conductor(who probably had already guessed my plight)  just smiled at me and handed me my bus pass for the day! He mentioned that he would pay on my behalf and I could pay him whenever we happen to meet next time (which was not a possible probablity as I don't travel everyday at the same time nor is he assigned to the same bus (timing) on a daily basis)... I couldn't agree to this as I was not sure when I would board his bus next - but he insisted to accept the ticket! I accepted this generosity halfheartedly and inquired about his bus timings so I could return the ticket fare! He couldn't give me the exact information as there were no fixed schedules & he added a note that I needn't worry & just pay the next time I happen to board the same bus he was in! 

And just like that - a stranger had changed the course of my day! My day would have been entirely different if not for this gesture! Though a part of me was relieved that I didn't have to get into the extra trouble of getting down to go back for my purse which would have delayed everything planned for that day, I was also not very comfortable with that lingering thought of owing money to someone (a stranger at that, who in all probability, I might never meet again at all)... I knew I would continue to feel so until I paid that ticket fare....

Thankfully, I happened to board his bus the very next day and was mighty relieved when I handed him the complete fare with a BIG BIG THANK YOU for the kind gesture! 

Its so true that  - Whatever you plan, how much ever you plan, every little acquaintance throughout the course of your day and your life would contribute something unpredictable & insignificant(or sometimes significant) leading to a tiniest(or a large) deviation changing the course of your plan .. Though at times its frustrating, in the end, when you look back, all these acquaintances & events that brought about those deviations were "meant " to be and were always for the greater good :)

P.S:- 

I cannot believe I am blogging almost a month later to when I published my previous post which was supposed to be a declaration of sticking to blog-week-athon!! Hmm... Well, I must accept, I now have a new-found respect for those who start and stick to a blogathon (1 post per day definitely is a GREAT achievement)