When life seems to be like travelling in a never ending dark tunnel, just look around.

         

               I just finished my college and found this job.This incident happened when I was working for a Multi National Company and was working at nights. The company has provided us transport and we would drop the other employees on the way. I stayed pretty far and would ideally be the last one to reach home. That was Christmas season and the city was blooming with joy and decoration. A female employee had to be dropped at her place and her house was inside a lane through which the cab couldn't pass by. The security guard offered to drop her at her place while the rest of us waited in the cab at the end of the street. It was pretty cold and I covered myself warm enough and was looking through the car window. A thin and frail woman was standing by the side of the road may be for alms. She cut a very sad figure. She must have been starving for couple of days for now. Before I could reach out to her to help her, I saw a cop on a 2 wheeler stopping by a fruits stall to pick up few fruits. The lady still shivering, and out of desperate hunger walked up to the cop for alms. The cop looked at her frail figure, spoke to her for few minutes and demanded that she get on at the back of his bike. The lady's expression is still afresh in my memories. Without a word, she sat on the bike and the cop rode off with an expression that was easily understood. He did not buy the fruits. Obviously, he was no more hungry for the fruits from the stall. He found something that would satiate his hunger. "Speechless" is a small word to express my state of mind.

            Years later, while I write this in the comfort of an air-conditioned room, I often think of that night and that helpless woman. I can't help but think of the exploitation that happened that night. As a young woman who started her career, it was an experience that taught me how to enjoy life given freedom and opportunities to enrich my inner self. That was the last time I ever hated my life and its problems. If my life was like a journey in a never-ending tunnel, the woman's trade for hunger showed me how fortunate I have been to live everyday on my own terms and not on anyone's demands. By no means am I demeaning her choice and its none of my business what must have happened that night after she rode pillion on the cop's bike.

           When life seems to be like travelling in a never-ending dark tunnel, just look around. You will see people frail than you and experiences difficult than yours'. Instead of whining, maybe you can be grateful for the necessities at your disposal which might be luxuries for the other person.