The Woman from Iran

I slept with the TV on last night, and got up to this morning to a very dreamy tune. The TV is still on, and VH1 still has soft music playing. I'd walked for over 4 hours yesterday. I don't know if it is the music, or the feeling of waking up rested from a deep sleep, or may be it is the thought of the woman from Iran, or some other unknown reason, but I have a feel good factor, despite the long tiresome day that lies ahead. And the way that the frequency of such a feeling is dwindling, I intend to make the most of it. So any how, it was a Friday evening, and me and a friend of mine were going over to a friends place, and we stopped to get some fuel. So this woman comes up and tries to ask the petrol pump attendants for help. Unfortunately, she could barely speak or understand English, let alone Hindi, while the attendants didn't understand a word of what she said. I helped her translate, and it turned out, her car (parked across the street) wouldn't start, and from her description it sounded as though her battery had run out of juice. The attendant asked her to leave her car at the pump and to come back for it, the following day, to which she turned to me and asked me if it was safe to leave her car there. I wanted to tell her that this was India and her car wasn't safe even if she slept in it, but instead I told her that if she spoke to the manager and he said it was safe, it should be safe. There was something peculiar about her deep blue eyes, which said that she was scared. It's kind of strange how we still communicate at a primal level. I sighed and told her I would help her start her car. Despite numerous attempts, I could not explain her the procedure to push start the car, and it took me a good 3-4 mins to explain her that the car should be in the third gear. She asked me to take the drivers seat, and I asked her teen aged son to help push the car. Luckily the slope was downhill and the battery had enough power for half a self. Soon the car was up and running. Both the woman and her son thanked me, and I left. I never help strangers, especially at night, and this was probably the first time I'd done so. Why I did it, I don't know, but the one thing that I do know is that helping the woman from Iran helped me feel good about my self as well. May be I ought to be more helpful to strangers. I have often thought about starting a "Pay it forward" program, but I don't have faith on the average Indian to keep the chain going. May be I haven't met someone so desperate, but if opportunity knocks, I'd like to give it a chance. I've also been considering giving away money to a good cause, for a while now. I'd like to take my father's advice on it, but I don't want him to know about it either. It's not that he isn't supportive, he has always supported me. When I do save some money, I am going to give away a menial amount, and when I do, no one will know, not even my lonely blog. I'd rather be just another anonymous entry in an NGO's ledger book.

Shutdown -r

I am not someone who gives up easy, for I have had to fight for everything, but right now I am at a point where things have been rough for a long while, and I’m just plain tired. I am dissatisfied with everything, dissatisfied with life itself. How is it that you work hard to build something, and all of a sudden you get tired of it? I know I have been going on about change for a while now, but now it’s time. Wheels of change are in motion, and everything from this life must go, everything that makes me sad. I do not regret anything that I’ve done, for every incident, every scar teaches you something. I am just scared of what the future might hold. As a start, I’ve decided to lose the pot belly I’ve grown in the past few years, and have hence started pushing my body beyond what I thought it was capable of. I’ve grown fond of running. Nothing beats the feeling of having no thoughts at all, except the one about gulping down large volumes of air, and still being breathless. Sometimes I even get “runner’s high”. Fewer hours at work has been a side effect of this new addiction. There is a lot I have to set right. Recently, I read this blog post and really liked the analogy. I have realized that I have been concentrating so hard to get my pebbles in my jar, that I haven’t left much room for the rocks. It’s funny how it’s the rocks define you, yet the world judges you by your pebbles and sand. There were so may things I’d aimed at achieving, so many goals I’ve missed. I guess it’s time to reboot.