Attend to others' need first...

This happened a couple of weeks back. I went to a shop to buy a loaf of bread. There were quite a few customers already and I could make out that I will have to wait at least 5-6 minutes before my turn comes.

'Why not take out money in the mean-time...' was the thought that crossed my mind. I acted upon it and was ready with the exact change in my hand in a few seconds. As I lazily stood at the counter, waiting for my turn to come, I placed my hand holding the money on the front-desk. The shop-keeper, who had gone inside to fetch some items for other customers, came back to the counter with his hands full. He kept all the items on the front-desk. Next he took the money from my hand as he asked what I wanted. I told, and got the bread-loaf immediately.

As I walked away, I heard a customer grumbling that he had arrived before me but he has not been served yet. The shopkeeper started attending to that person next.

Lesson learnt: Attend to others' need first, and your needs will be addressed by them without asking.

Normally, we first select the item to purchase, and then we pay for it. But if we show the money first, and then place the order, the delivery is faster.

A stranger hurt on the road...

Traffic is one of the most spoken-about problems in Bangalore. Generally it takes around 20 minutes to travel a distance of 2 kms within the city limits. More traffic also means more road accidents. I walk around 2 kms daily from my home to office. And in a span of 7 days, I am a witness to at least one accident, unfortunately.

A day ago, I just saw a young woman (well-dressed, indicating that she was working) sitting on the road, grimacing with pain. Apparently, a 2-wheeler had just hit her, though not severely, seconds ago. I think she was hit on her leg as she was holding her leg with both hands. She did not seem to be seriously injured at all, but she was not getting up. I thought of helping her, and took a step towards her. And then following thoughts crossed my mind:

1. What will she think?

(In India, if a man approaches a woman, it is not taken with a good node by the people around. They immediately jump to conclusion that the man is trying to attract/impress/flirt with the girl. This prompts the women to evade any approach by a man, even if it is for a good purpose.)

2. What will others think?

(I always think of myself as a person who does not bother what others have to say, if I know that I am on the right path. Today it proved to be false. I do think what others think about me. I know that I need to come out of this groove; I will definitely work towards it.)

3. Will I have to shell-out some money if I take her to hospital, even for a superficial check-up?

(Money is a constraint for me these days. But I hope this can change over time when I can afford to help other financially in a similar situation.)

4. Can I explain her that I am there to help her & mean no harm?

(I am not a native of Bangalore & do not know the local language. And it will need some effort to learn it. Right now its not a high priority for me as I am concentrating more on my career.)

Above thoughts clouded my mind so much that I retraced my steps and continued on my way to office. There was one question; however which was answered by me:

What would have I done if the woman was my sister?

I know I could have gone ahead and help the person. But looks like I am yet to evolve…

Sometimes we have to pay to help others

The other day when I arrived at my office in the morning, I saw a young-one of a Squirrel lying on the ground near the office building. It had fallen from its nest, which was located on a ventilator on the 3rd floor of the building next to our office. Soon many of my colleagues arrived and all of us felt pity for it. It was helpless, and leaving it there would mean death for sure as crows or ants will finally get to it. We told our office caretaker to shift it back to the nest. It was not an easy task as he had to go to the next building, take the required permission, and then put the creature in the nest. He agreed to do so, and then I came back to my place to start my daily work-routine.

Hours flew by, and it was time for tea-break. As I passed through the same place, I saw that the little squirrel was still there where it had fallen. I enquired the office care-taker about it. He told that he had put it back in the nest, but the young-one had fallen once again from its nest..! This was a surprise. Other colleagues heard it too, and we all asked the care-taker to put it back once again. He agreed to do so, but we could feel the reluctance in his voice.

The young squirrel was still lying on ground after an hour. When we came to know about this, my colleague Aravind Bhat hit upon a plan. He told the office care-taker that he will give Rs.100 to him if he puts the young squirrel in the nest. Needless to say, the young creature was back in its nest within short time.

Lesson for me: Having compassion is not enough. Sometimes we have to pay to help others.

Helping a stranger -2

I have the habit of walking to my office from home in the morning, and back in the evening. I enjoy this as not only this gives some exercise after continuously sitting in my chair for hours, but also gives me solid 30 minutes when I am alone, & can reflect on my actions at the end of the day, and plan for the next day.

Two weeks ago as I was walking to my home in the evening, I heard a couple asking the passers-by whether he/she can understand Hindi or Marathi language. (Bangalore's local language is Kannada.) Since I knew Hindi, I stopped and asked them what is the problem.

The man told that he came to visit Bangalore with his family (which included his wife, child, and his father). His father is not mentally sound, and during the day time, he got down at some bus-stop while they were travelling in a local bus. Unfortunately, the money that they were carrying is in the bag that is carried by father. So now they were penniless, and were hungry. He asked whether I can arrange for their dinner.

As is my nature, I took pity on them and I told them to follow me to the near-by restaurant. I decided to spend around Rs.50-60 (US $ 1-1.5) for the dinner of the entire family. As we were walking, the man said it will be a greater help to them if I could sponsor their bus-fare, because ultimately they will need that. Without giving much thought, I gave them Rs.100 (US $2). That will not be enough for them, but I could not afford more than that.

As I walked to my house, I was still wondering whether it was a right thing to do.

The real surprise came next day evening. At the same spot where I had found the couple, I saw another couple asking the same questions to the passing-by people. Again I stopped to listen to them. The story was pretty similar, only thing that was different was that this time they had lost their money by the way of a pick-pocket. I was not sure whether the story was true. This couple too asked me for food. This time I decided not to give them cash. I took them to a near-by restaurant, bought the food-coupons worth Rs. 60, and then handed over to them.

As I walked home, I felt slightly better than the previous day.

Next day I discussed these 2 incidents with my colleagues. And to my utter dismay, I was told that there is a gang of people who collect money in this manner. And, some of my colleagues did fall prey to them as I did...

Audit teaches me a lesson

Recently we had a Quality Audit conducted in our organization in order to become an ISO certified company. This audit was conducted by external auditors. Almost everyone in the organization was aware of the dates well in advance. But when the audit date arrived, there was a sense of panic on every face. Everybody was busy in documents, ensuring that they pass the audit.

The situation reminded me of a story that I had read long back. There was a king who ruled over a very small kingdom. In order to spread the kingdom, he began to spend on arms & men, and soon he had a very powerful army. Once he was confident enough, he started attacking the neighboring kingdoms, and added them to his rule. His kingdom spread far beyond he had thought, and thus was very happy. After few years of conquests, his kingdom touched the sea on all sides, and thus he became the lord of all the kingdoms in the land. His army had no more battle to fight. So the soldiers had lots of free time to heal their wounds & spend time with their family.

Few years later, a neighboring king attacked this king to take the revenge. The king called upon his army. When the soldiers were called upon for another war, they readily accepted the challenge. They put on their armour, went in the battle-field. But the moment their eyes fell upon the enemy, their courage left them. They fled from the battle-field, and lost the battle. The enemy took his share of land from the king. Seeing this, the other neighboring kings too attacked & took away some more land. At the end there was same land left with the king that was before he started his campaign.

Why did the king lost to the same enemies whom he had conquered earlier? The reason is the army was not ready. The soldiers relaxed after all the battles were won & did not practice their skills anymore. This their skills were rusted, their body forgot the art of fighting, and their mind had no courage to face the enemy.

Why I correlate this story to the audit in the organization is because we also undergo the same cycle in our office. We have an internal audit schedule in our organization. That is similar to the continuous war . These audits ensure that we update our documents at regular intervals & the entire process is maintained. If the internal audit is delayed by even a few days, people start relaxing. And when the external audit takes place, people panic as they have forgotten which document is where, and which document has to be updated. Finally everybody wastes precious time going through all the documents, and that makes the entire day full of stress & strain for everybody.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this. But the one I would like to mention is that we should do right thing at the right time. If we make this a habit and the amount of time saved by this habit is phenomenal.

Is it casual relationship, or is it love?

In love, we are decieved may times. We think that certain person loves us, but he/she actually does not. Or, we may think that we have no more than just a casul relationship with him/her, but actually it is much more than that. Is there any way to know how much we love a person?

I received the following quote from one sister of mine. It is very relevant, & it is a very high probability that we all have experienced this at least once so far in our lives:

And ever has it been, that love knows not its own depth, until the hour of separation.

Just stay away from the person in question. Do not see his face, do not speak to him, even on the phone, throughout the day. And check your feelings in the evening. If you feel sad, you definitely love the person, irrespective of how much you deny it.

We do not need to show-off

Have you ever come across a person who likes to show off his/her status?
Yes.
Did you like him or her?
No.
Would you like to become like her or him?
No.

Above is an imaginary conversation that can take place between you & me. But, if I ask you whether you are a person who likes to show-off, what will be your answer? If you like your friends to know your status, or let us say, what your standard of living is, what do you do? Throw up a lavish party?

One may ask as to what is wrong in doing that. They are our friends after all, and they ought to know how we live. Mitch Albom answers this question:

If you are trying to show-off for people at the top, they will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show – off for the people at the bottom, they will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

Quotes worth citing #8

During my MBA course, our teacher made us do a simple exercise. He asked us to form teams of 8 people each. One of the team-member will then stand on the edge of a platform approx. 1 ft. high. He will then turn his back towards the other team-members. Now, he will close his eyes and allow himself to fall back. The other members of the team, who will be standing on the ground will be ready to hold him. They will, in fact, convey the person on the platform that they are ready and he can let himself go. One by one, all the members of the team will climb on to the platform and allow others to catch them.

The exercise seems simple enough. But it is in fact very difficult to fall gracefully in others' arms. The 7 people who are down, are always confident of themselves. Its the person who is about to fall who falters. Many times the person falling will not trust his team, with his eyes shut, and nobody in his view. He will tend to break his fall half-way through, and thus make everybody's task difficult. This exercise is basically a trust-building exercise, where you have to have complete trust in your team members.

Mitch Albom gives the analogy of this exercise in the following words:

Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel you can trust them too – even when you are in the dark. Even when you are falling.

Do we use the dust-bin?

A couple of months ago, I had gone to attend marriage of my cousin sister. She lives in a small village located in the state of Uttar Pradesh. There is nothing special to mention about the marriage ceremony. If you know the traditions followed in atypical Hindu marriage, the same were repeated here too. But I noticed something that made me write this post.

The dinner was served in a huge hall, having a capacity of more than 1000 people. It was a buffet system, where the guests could go to any food-item they wanted (around 40 items were up to be gobbled), and take any quantity they wished. As some of the food-items were served in paper/plastic-plates, dust-bins were placed at many places in the hall so that after use, these plates, cups can be thrown into them.

The dinner started around 7 p.m. As I was busy with the other arrangements, I could enter the dining-hall only around 9 p.m. And I felt sad with what I saw. Most of the plastic-plates, cups and spoons were just thrown on the ground, all over the place. And to my astonishment, the dust-bins were empty except for a couple of used plates. People had not bothered to go near the dust-bins and used them. They just threw these things where-ever they stood and ate. And this made the area near the food-counters even more dirty than the rest, as people ate, threw, ate and threw again, all in one place. Worse, many people had thrown tumblers filled with water, and that had made the floor slippery in many places. And I saw around, it continued to happen with people eating around me.

I just wonder do we really need dust-bins in our society? Already we know the state of cleanliness of public places in India. And there has been a big hue & cry over this issue for a long time now.

It is truly said: Charity starts at home. Next time when we go to a public-place eg a restaurant, can we ensure that we do not make the place dirty? This is irrespective of the hotel-staff that has the duty to keep the place clean. Can we ensure that when we throw some trash, we throw it only in dustbin? That too not trying to throw it from too far, but going near putting it? And in case if it falls out, not hesitating to bend down, pick it up, and put it in the bin again?

To put in other words, can we make the work of health & hygiene workers a bit easier?