Soul soup

16-Sep-08
Human mind is biased, pretentious, easily influenced, masked, sometimes alarmingly negative.
The mind works in a routine way. I am saying this because most of the times my mind works that way and also because i hv observed people in this regard.I met this guy when he joined the infamous WebPDM team. I immediately labelled him a dud. My
analysis was pure.Simple.Very convenient. He looked like that!! I never treated him with an ounce of seriousness. He cannot hear well and I cared the least.
But life is strange. It plans well. It changes course when it feels enough is enough, this girl needs some lessons, needs to experience and learn from it. So i and this dud landed in the same sub team. i had to help him out in any technical
problem he faced, which made me cringe. Unfair, i thought, to make me sit with a sweaty, stinking fellow, who needs to be explained everything loudly and mutiple times over.And hence began our association, with me throwing tantrums, I showed hell of an attitude.I really dont know if he remembers this, because he never complained.Thank god he did'nt. I was assigned to deal with him, now when i look back it was pretty much the other way round, emotionally.
Over a period of time, I mellowed down. Listened to him more than before. I started to ask him to help me out in certain issues. Stopped cribbing (big deal!!). Its an amazing transformation. I no longer see his quiteness as a flaw. I find it refreshing sometimes.
I mustered enough courage to tell him that he should change his toothpaste and that he should consider using a deo. His response was "arrey tho pehle bolna tha naa". The readiness to correct one's flaws(physical or otherwise) is a damn tough thing to do and i really admire him for that.
He decided to tell me his story from the time he could remember.
Its a privelege, i would say. If one trusts you to an extent that one volunteers to share his/her innermost thoughts,feelings, difficulties, then you can go treat yourselves because you have been good to one fellow human being. Its a responsibility.
So one fine evening we met up at CCD and it took a good 3 hrs as he gave me his life's best kept secrets, feelings, insecurities, ups and downs. It is an unbelievable tale of sheer grit, determination, goodness, success, of faith in an image of god tht he found on a dusty road.
His life's account made me nervous because i dont know how i would have handled or if at all i could handle a physical disablity, a crunch in financial resources, all at a time.
It made me feel ashamed because the person I labelled a "dud" was actually an immensely responsible man. He has always kept an account of his expenses, to this day, which shows he has a calculative mind with the understanding of where he is required to divert his money.
It made me feel thankful to god, my parents for giving me a life as this.
It taught me to never evaluate a fellow human being solely on the basis of appearance and
tht there is a purpose behind every creation in this universe.
It made me realize tht each human being is born to do different things and their
personalities develop in accordance with tht. So it was unwise of me to expect him to revolt or shout or be aggressive at the drop of a hat.It is unwise of me to think he can behave like me.
It made me think of my perception of the human mind. The mind certainly does not deserve the adjectives i used when i started off. Its the environment around us, the education, the values, that are biased, pretentious, easily influenced, alarmingly negative.Once we tune our mind to break free from these hindrances, once we fight the fear, we will realize that the mind has the greatest power of all.

It made me feel small..he certainly towers over me.