Doing good to others

Doing something good to others is noble. Others can include social and not-so-social animals. I am sure all will agree to this. There is enough material shared in all possible social media to drive this point. I don’t have to over emphasise it here.

With that motto in mind I started cleaning my car myself. Good to the car and good to me as well, some exercise to my body. One fine day I found out that my neighbour was vacating his house. Not sure whether it is good or bad to me or to him -  only time would tell. But it was definitely bad for the boy who used to come and clean my neighbour’s car for a fee. I thought I would do something good to that boy. I could make out from his appearance, he was from another far-off state and being migrant struggling to meet both ends meet. Moreover, I believe that something, which I am not good at, needs to be outsourced to someone who may not be that good at it. But since it is a paid job he would be more committed than myself, of course under my supervision!

So it started off well on the first day, car cleaning by that boy, with no major incidents. But unfortunately, the very incident of cleaning the car itself happened only for a few days in the month. Many days, I used to wait for him and he didn’t show up even after 9 AM. I also could not undertake that work myself when he was absent since car cleaning is one such activity I would prefer to do early in the mornings like many other important cleaning ones.

End of the month, he promptly came to collect the charges. When I questioned him, he told me that he was absent only for a few days. I thought I would give him another chance. Gave him half-month charges and allowed him to continue with his services for another month.

His willingness to allow me to do something good to him drastically reduced. Far more less days he was present in the subsequent month. With lots of deliberation, I had to stop his services giving him another half-month charges by month end. Otherwise in the process of trying to help him, it might bring in lots of inconvenience to me.

So I restarted cleaning my vehicle myself.  And while doing that activity I find one fairly old man going for his usual morning walk. Good man like me. Nice music will play from his mobile phone, good peppy numbers from Bollywood – one usual song is “Choli ke peeche kya hey !”. He is kind enough to keep it in good volume. So that it is audible to others, just to keep them also in a good mood.

But, today apart from the music generating device, he had a large polythene bag in his hands.  As he moved away from me I saw him bending down and spreading the contents on the middle of the road. It was unused greens and he was trying to do something good to those cows. Those very cows who always pass by me and stop for a moment and appreciate what I am doing until I wave them off. Cows just smelt it and ignored. Good that they were not hungry, otherwise they would have eaten that huge chunk of rotten greens and also the huge milli-micron thick polythene bag which the old man mercilessly threw right in the middle of the road in anger ! As such corporation workers do good things hardly once a week by pretending to sweep the roads. No doubt that plastic bag would fly around eternally unless it is eaten by a hungry cow.

So let me stand corrected. Doing something good to others is noble, so long as it is required by the other party. So long as it doesn’t result in inconvenience to self or others.

Shocks help

I am extremely happy these days. You may wonder why. I am in the possession of a compiled list of fifty items one need to frequently do. Just to keep oneself happy and live longer. Yes, I am happy with those suggestions. Whether I will live that long, it is anybody’s guess, including mine. One thing I decided to do, read that lengthy document with full concentration, that too first thing in the morning. Effect of that is more than equal to reading the largest chapter from any religious book.

Two suggestions caught my attention more. First one – take one teaspoon of coconut oil daily. I gave it a pass. In my childhood, thanks to abundance of coconuts in that area, thanks to science and research not progressed enough to tell us that coconut oil gives more than enough cholesterol to human body, I had enough of that oil. Applying on head before bath, adding it to any food item made – ofcouse tea and coffee were spared, applied on skin for rashes or wounds, used for lighting oil lamps – every thing was achieved using coconut oil. So actively and passively, I had consumed enough of coconut oil, that accumulated in my body which is good enough to run it like a well -oiled machine for this life time, also for lives in the future, if any.

Second suggestion is, go through a fearful, scary, near-death experience. Tough one, easier said than done. Somebody should sincerely try on me something to achieve that. I am a fearless man ! Moreover  I am too old to try such adventurous acts on myself. That’s what I thought till last evening. But alas, I proved wrong.

I was walking on the footpath one of the busiest roads, not that difficult to find such roads here I guess. Footpath may or may not be there for pedestrians. This road had. Everybody says live in the present. But it has its own limitations. Walking on the road, I cannot watch each step while keeping my feet on the ground, people might think I have gone mad if I do that. So, though my feet were on the ground one at a time, my mind was several feet above ground level thinking about stock markets, RBI, central banks’s next move if at all any. Suddenly I stumbled over a stone and I was off balance. You know, I know, the whole world knows that with the speed I walk nothing is going to happen to me. But in that fraction of a second, I just blanked out, was not sure whether I would fall, and if at all that happened which direction and with what impact. It was a fearful experience that gave me some jolt. Most of my cells on the body became active with that incident.

I didn’t fall, I resumed my walking keeping my mind much closer to my feet then on. However I was not happy with the intensity of fear I went through. Definitely not upto the level prescribed in my fifty-item-list document. My state of disappointment did not last long.

After about another ten minutes of walking, I got my second shock. This one was more severe. I heard a thud noise and found a young lady falling from her two wheeler. The vehicles coming behind her stopped inches away from her with screeching noises. Though I was on the footpath, that sound and scene made me so anxious. That fear inside me was good enough to activate those cells which are at the remotest parts of my body, which were not active for a long time!

You may think I would have rushed to her assistance immediately. No. Though I wanted to go through near-death experience, I didn’t want to go that near! I waved hands to all the incoming vehicles, made sure that they all had stopped, made sure that none of them had the slightest inclination to resume their journey at high initial speeds. Then only I crossed the road, helped the lady to lift the bike and park it on the side. 

I could make out from her face that she also had her quota of fear, sufficient to last for another few months. There were a few fancy parts broken away from the bike lying on the middle of the road. We didn’t bother to pick them up, as such the vehicles can live and run without those parts anyways!  I just asked her two questions – “Do you have any injuries” for which she said no. “What happened ?”. She replied that the vehicle just got skidded. Then only I noticed the L sign on her vehicle. So it was an opportunity for her also to have more severe incident, not just to entertain me alone. Like my stumbling on the stone, she also must have been fed up of having minor incidents while training in an open ground. I just resumed walking as many more well-wishers joined there to give her advice and instructions.  I did see her passing by, riding the bike. I waved my hand to her, in return it was just a smile from her. Understandable, she would not dare to remove her hands from the handle for another year!

Whatever be the case, I do tend to agree with the fact that these jolts do help. My experience is that it gives good kick to the whole body. It rejuvenates the nervous system. It does give a good indication to my mind as what life in the body means.  

And luckily I live in such an environment that I don’t have to be innovative to create such opportunities. The environment provides these near-death experiences abundantly, just to keep me happy and live longer !!

Have a super Sunday ! Fearless one!!