A TRUE HUMAN

Encounter with a TRUE HUMAN being.

I was just watching the recaps of the Great Indian Laughter challenge. A sentence said by a performer caught my mind. He said “ Insaan ek ajeeb janwar hai, Kutte ko kabhi batana nahi padta ki tu kutta ban, kutte ke jaisa bartaw kar, Gaay ko kabhi batana nahi padta ki tum Gaay ke jaisa bartaw kar, Lekin… Lekin Insaan ko hamesha batana padta hai ki aree tu insaan baan tu insaniyat ko jinda rakh!!!” LOVELY ONE..

Its really true that humanity is becoming lesser and lesser in today’s mechanical world. People try not to get involved in things where they would have to go out of their way to help or they will need to take up some trouble for others.. There are people who earn lots of money by cheating others.. Monetary and mundane pleasures are on top priority for people nowadays.. But I still believe that there is lots of humanity in this world.. If you have ever been to North India, Places like Kulu, Manali, Gadhwal region, all the religious places like Badri Kedar, Gangotri.. you will agree with me completely..

I shall narrate an incident which has touched my life (perhaps all who were there when this incident took place) and whenever I feel there is no humanity or humanity is vanishing I remind myself of this incident and this feeling goes away.. I feel soothed by the feeling that atleast in some corner of this world humanity exists in full quantity!!

“We (a group of 16 people) had gone to the Northern India tour. It was the month of April. We had planned out a trip to Shimla, Kulu, Manali, Ranikhet, etc..
We finally arrived at the place. That was the day when we all were excited about having a good time at Manali. We had planned to play a lot in the snow.
It was seven in the morning. The sky was clear. The air was cool and refreshing. The whooshing river which was quite close to the rest house we were in. We could see the river from the balcony of our room. The lovely trees were swaying against the wind. Though the air was cool it was not so cold that we needed some coats etc. So we decided to go in our normal jeans and T-shirt dresses. When our cab stopped at the base of the mountain from where we were supposed to climb up we could see that there were dark clouds gathering in the sky. The air suddenly became chilled and we felt the need of overcoats, gloves, woolen caps.. Luckily there was a lady (the typical Gadhwali, one with red cheeks and fair skin) giving such clothing accessories along with gum boots on rent. We were all happy and we pounced on the warm clothes to make ourselves comfortable and to stand the wind and cold. So there we were all in different kinds of furry coats with the same kind of caps on the heads, Gloves in our hands, Gum boots worn.. I felt as if we were astronomers ready to go on our space campaign. Finally with all the preparations we started climbing up the mountain to reach our skiing camp. Hmm though it was cold, we played like mad in the snow.. The local people must be wondering from which mental hospital we all had come. But we had a great time playing in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other, making some funny shapes (which we named as snowmen) from the snow. All in all it was a great time. In the midst of this playing and enjoyment we realized that it was sunny again so since we could not remove our coat, because we would have had to carry them in our hand we removed our gloves and caps and put them in our pockets. Then we continued playing for quite some time. Finally the time came when we had to start our trek down again. Laughing and chit chatting we finally arrived at the base of the camp. We gave back the coats, gloves etc that we had taken on rent. The lady counted all of them and found that one of the pair of gloves was short. She looked quite sad. Though it was our mistake she did not even say a bad word. But then we had to make up our mistake, we paid her the cost of the gloves, apologizing to her we went to the nearby restaurant to have a nice hot cup of tea. The lady said that she has sent her son on the mountain to check whether he could find the gloves, if at all he finds it we will come and return you the money in the restaurant. We told her it was not a problem, even if she found the gloves she could still keep the money as a gift (For us Fourty Rupees was not a big amount) After the tea we even forgot about the gloves, the lady and that Rs 40. We went to the car and started our way back to the rest house. Suddenly we located a figure coming running from the mountain towards the tar road. All of a sudden that human figure came ahead of our car and spread hands in a position asking to wait. The one driving applied full breaks and some of us were on top of each other… Finally when we got to our normal positions we looked ahead, surprised to see the same lady giving the clothes on rent standing ahead of our car. !! We got down and asked her what the matter was. She said “ My son found the gloves, here are your forty Rupees!!!” We were thunderstruck, was she crazy! Running 3 kilometers along the difficult mountain path, she had come to return our money!! How Honest can a person be! I thought her to be God, because living in a city am not used to this kind of things happening. I said to her also that you must be a saint or else God… She said “No I am just a human being and I am just doing what a Human being should do, I cannot live on the money which I would have earned by cheating you’ll” We were thrilled and said that please don’t return the money keep it as a gift of your honesty, infact take this Hundred rupees also. But she nicely refused, gave the money back in our hand and vanished in the green trees running quickly back to work.. She went away but left this incident engraved in my heart as a symbol of humanity. I feel happy and satisfied when I recall this incident, because I feel I am lucky that atleast once in my lifetime I have met a true human being!!"