Saturday, August 15, 2009
Honesty And Integrity : Not yet an extinct species
The great American Humorist , Writer Mark Twain had once said "Honesty: The best of all the lost arts”
Honesty may be the best policy, but there is no getting away from the fact that this art form, is lost. Honesty & Integrity seem like two extinct species in today's world. They no more form a major part of the value system (if at all there is one). But my ideas and to some extent Mark Twain's prophecy were pleasantly shaken by a soul stirring incidence last October, which will always be stuck with me, in my memory, and inspire me.My husband , son and I were on a trip to Egypt and Kerala during the last Puja vacation. The Gulf Air Flight from Bahrain landed us in the wee hours of morning at Trivandrum International Airport. Even though there was a huge contrast between the grand Bahrain International Airport and the quiet Trivandrum Airport, looking still quieter in the early morning , the warmth exuded by the whole atmosphere was extremely soothing. After the baggage collection and immigration process was over, with half night's sleep and many more dreams in our eyes, we proceeded out - into God's own country. Our travel agent had religiously sent the car to the airport to receive us with a huge placard. The day was slowly breaking out and the first rays of sun had started to pierce gently trough the glass windows of the car when we reached our rest house. Since we were too tired from lack of full nights sleep , we did not feel like venturing into sightseeing before grabbing a few hours of sleep and delicious south Indian breakfast. So we told the driver to report after 2.00 pm for taking us to the picturesque Kovalam beach. The driver came dot on time. But we, the lazy tourists could make ourselves ready for the sojourn not before 4.00 pm ( that too after being threatened by the driver that if we delayed further we would not be able to enjoy the beach visit ). But as luck would have it, just after 5 minutes of starting our journey, the four wheeler simply refused to budge an inch . The driver with his little acquired skills of a mechanic, tried to fix the problem , but the snag was bigger than his capabilities could take care of. After trying in vain for 15 minutes, he apologized profusely to us and called up his manager to send another vehicle to the spot where we had halted. That would, take minimum one hour , the manager responded , much to our worry. Since we were leaving for Kanyakumari the very next day, we wanted to have the beach visited that day itself. Even though we had come to Kerala before, this was my son's first visit to this beautiful state. So I wanted to show him around the city and beach before we proceeded further in our itinerary. "Can we get a taxi from here ? we do not want to bother you with another vehicle" I asked the driver. He offered to find us an Auto since autos were more readily available and the main mode of non-public transport there. We wanted to treat this as an adventure . With the help of the driver's communication skills in local language , an auto was hired to ferry us from that point to Kovalam beach and back to town for Rs.300. The auto driver was a tall dark man with thick black moustache. With a cut mark on his face and dhoti folded till the knees, he looked like a rogue straight from a south Indian movie. I was feeling a little apprehensive looking at the appearance of the fellow. "I think he he is drunk" I told my husband. But he allayed my fear by saying "It is his accent , that's all. I do not think there is any thing wrong with this fellow. Do not worry, he is OK ". So three of us boarded the auto. It was my son's first Auto ride and he was quite thrilled with the idea. 10 minutes after we started , the auto driver stopped near a petrol pump and asked us if we could give us his fare in advance so that he could fill some fuel in his three wheeler. I promptly took out a Rs.1000/- note from my hand bag and handed over to him . After filling fuel , he gave me the change and started his vehicle.After driving through the M.G. road for about 20 minutes, we came to the road leading to kovalam beach and finally reached the beach. Auto driver in his broken English said he would wait for us at the parking bay. We had a great time at the beautiful beach adorned by huge coconut and palm trees. We became kids again and played with the waves on the back drop of the setting sun. After playing hide and seek for a while the setting sun finally said adieu to the horizon. We also said good bye and walked up towards the parking place. For a moment I was struck with an idea , "what if the Auto was not there. We had already paid full fare". But the idea vanished immediately with as much suddenness as it's appearance. We found the Auto there with the driver on it, his radio tuned to a local station. Generally a believer in the goodness of people, I felt guilty at the momentary thought about the integrity of the fellow and tried to make up by making polite conversation with the chap on our return trip. Since we had enough time in hand , my husband suggested going to a Shopping Mall to buy some classical music CDs. So I tried to tell the driver to take us to a Big Market. He took us to one of those swanky malls and dropped us there. We got down and started exploring the mall at Trivandrum with each one of us going to their favorite corners. After half an hour , while making a desultory survey of the south cotton suit pieces available there , I heard a loud scream "Sir Sir " from near the ground floor escalator. All three of us and some other listeners too started looking down at the screamer. He was none other than our Auto driver. In his shabby attire and uncouth look he was looking like a cat among the pigeons inside the glitzy milieu. He came up seeing us and told that due to some mistake he had returned us Rs.200/- less at the petrol pump. He discovered it after counting his day's earning earnings at home and had returned from there to give back the money to it's owner. Since he had left us in front of the mall, he hoped we would still be there. I was plain and simple speechless. Here is a man , who has taken the trouble of coming back from home travelling 6 kms. to return 200Rs. which is no case a small sum for him. Rs.200 may not be a big sum for us, but for this fellow , it may as well be equivalent to a day's net earnings. His action made all the civilized onlookers dumbfounded and very small. In a country where for a few Rupees , a constable bargains with the terrorists for allowing the RDX laden truck to enter the city of Mumbai, where big corporate like Satyam cheat millions of investors behind a high profile facade , where scholars do not bat an eyelid before resorting to academic dishonesty, where the other name for bureaucracy is corruption and joining politics or govt. services is considered a gateway to achieve this, this humble semi literate half clad person was possibly giving us the most profound lession in human behaviour. I had tears in my eyes when I saw him extending Rs.200/-(by now crumpled in between the folds oh his Dhoti) apologetically towards me. I opened my purse, took 100 Rs. out and pushed it in his palm besides the 200 Rs. he was holding and said "Anna , I am sorry, I forgot to thank you properly. Thank you so much for taking us around your beautiful city. please buy some sweets for yourself with this 300 Rs." . Even my Hidesign purse was too small in value to take the Rs.200 back. He was refusing to accept at first , but finally gave in when other onlookers explained to him in his native language. He bowed and went away , leaving all of us saluting to his gesture in our minds. He had given a new lease of hope to us. After all every thing was not lost. There were still people who even under failing circumstances did not compromise with their beliefs, their ethics. When India celebrates today sixty two years of freedom , I bow to people like this for bringing back my trust in humanity....
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.” - William Shakespeare
Honesty may be the best policy, but there is no getting away from the fact that this art form, is lost. Honesty & Integrity seem like two extinct species in today's world. They no more form a major part of the value system (if at all there is one). But my ideas and to some extent Mark Twain's prophecy were pleasantly shaken by a soul stirring incidence last October, which will always be stuck with me, in my memory, and inspire me.My husband , son and I were on a trip to Egypt and Kerala during the last Puja vacation. The Gulf Air Flight from Bahrain landed us in the wee hours of morning at Trivandrum International Airport. Even though there was a huge contrast between the grand Bahrain International Airport and the quiet Trivandrum Airport, looking still quieter in the early morning , the warmth exuded by the whole atmosphere was extremely soothing. After the baggage collection and immigration process was over, with half night's sleep and many more dreams in our eyes, we proceeded out - into God's own country. Our travel agent had religiously sent the car to the airport to receive us with a huge placard. The day was slowly breaking out and the first rays of sun had started to pierce gently trough the glass windows of the car when we reached our rest house. Since we were too tired from lack of full nights sleep , we did not feel like venturing into sightseeing before grabbing a few hours of sleep and delicious south Indian breakfast. So we told the driver to report after 2.00 pm for taking us to the picturesque Kovalam beach. The driver came dot on time. But we, the lazy tourists could make ourselves ready for the sojourn not before 4.00 pm ( that too after being threatened by the driver that if we delayed further we would not be able to enjoy the beach visit ). But as luck would have it, just after 5 minutes of starting our journey, the four wheeler simply refused to budge an inch . The driver with his little acquired skills of a mechanic, tried to fix the problem , but the snag was bigger than his capabilities could take care of. After trying in vain for 15 minutes, he apologized profusely to us and called up his manager to send another vehicle to the spot where we had halted. That would, take minimum one hour , the manager responded , much to our worry. Since we were leaving for Kanyakumari the very next day, we wanted to have the beach visited that day itself. Even though we had come to Kerala before, this was my son's first visit to this beautiful state. So I wanted to show him around the city and beach before we proceeded further in our itinerary. "Can we get a taxi from here ? we do not want to bother you with another vehicle" I asked the driver. He offered to find us an Auto since autos were more readily available and the main mode of non-public transport there. We wanted to treat this as an adventure . With the help of the driver's communication skills in local language , an auto was hired to ferry us from that point to Kovalam beach and back to town for Rs.300. The auto driver was a tall dark man with thick black moustache. With a cut mark on his face and dhoti folded till the knees, he looked like a rogue straight from a south Indian movie. I was feeling a little apprehensive looking at the appearance of the fellow. "I think he he is drunk" I told my husband. But he allayed my fear by saying "It is his accent , that's all. I do not think there is any thing wrong with this fellow. Do not worry, he is OK ". So three of us boarded the auto. It was my son's first Auto ride and he was quite thrilled with the idea. 10 minutes after we started , the auto driver stopped near a petrol pump and asked us if we could give us his fare in advance so that he could fill some fuel in his three wheeler. I promptly took out a Rs.1000/- note from my hand bag and handed over to him . After filling fuel , he gave me the change and started his vehicle.After driving through the M.G. road for about 20 minutes, we came to the road leading to kovalam beach and finally reached the beach. Auto driver in his broken English said he would wait for us at the parking bay. We had a great time at the beautiful beach adorned by huge coconut and palm trees. We became kids again and played with the waves on the back drop of the setting sun. After playing hide and seek for a while the setting sun finally said adieu to the horizon. We also said good bye and walked up towards the parking place. For a moment I was struck with an idea , "what if the Auto was not there. We had already paid full fare". But the idea vanished immediately with as much suddenness as it's appearance. We found the Auto there with the driver on it, his radio tuned to a local station. Generally a believer in the goodness of people, I felt guilty at the momentary thought about the integrity of the fellow and tried to make up by making polite conversation with the chap on our return trip. Since we had enough time in hand , my husband suggested going to a Shopping Mall to buy some classical music CDs. So I tried to tell the driver to take us to a Big Market. He took us to one of those swanky malls and dropped us there. We got down and started exploring the mall at Trivandrum with each one of us going to their favorite corners. After half an hour , while making a desultory survey of the south cotton suit pieces available there , I heard a loud scream "Sir Sir " from near the ground floor escalator. All three of us and some other listeners too started looking down at the screamer. He was none other than our Auto driver. In his shabby attire and uncouth look he was looking like a cat among the pigeons inside the glitzy milieu. He came up seeing us and told that due to some mistake he had returned us Rs.200/- less at the petrol pump. He discovered it after counting his day's earning earnings at home and had returned from there to give back the money to it's owner. Since he had left us in front of the mall, he hoped we would still be there. I was plain and simple speechless. Here is a man , who has taken the trouble of coming back from home travelling 6 kms. to return 200Rs. which is no case a small sum for him. Rs.200 may not be a big sum for us, but for this fellow , it may as well be equivalent to a day's net earnings. His action made all the civilized onlookers dumbfounded and very small. In a country where for a few Rupees , a constable bargains with the terrorists for allowing the RDX laden truck to enter the city of Mumbai, where big corporate like Satyam cheat millions of investors behind a high profile facade , where scholars do not bat an eyelid before resorting to academic dishonesty, where the other name for bureaucracy is corruption and joining politics or govt. services is considered a gateway to achieve this, this humble semi literate half clad person was possibly giving us the most profound lession in human behaviour. I had tears in my eyes when I saw him extending Rs.200/-(by now crumpled in between the folds oh his Dhoti) apologetically towards me. I opened my purse, took 100 Rs. out and pushed it in his palm besides the 200 Rs. he was holding and said "Anna , I am sorry, I forgot to thank you properly. Thank you so much for taking us around your beautiful city. please buy some sweets for yourself with this 300 Rs." . Even my Hidesign purse was too small in value to take the Rs.200 back. He was refusing to accept at first , but finally gave in when other onlookers explained to him in his native language. He bowed and went away , leaving all of us saluting to his gesture in our minds. He had given a new lease of hope to us. After all every thing was not lost. There were still people who even under failing circumstances did not compromise with their beliefs, their ethics. When India celebrates today sixty two years of freedom , I bow to people like this for bringing back my trust in humanity....
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.” - William Shakespeare
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