Friday, January 30, 2015

Valued Values . . !

So, this is gonna be a busy day - expected to be TOO busy! Hence, Waking up "early" morning, as early as 06.45 IST with the help of thrice - snoozed alarm is the first thing to happen in the morning! Getting ready and gearing up for the day, is in need a big BIG thing! Thanks to the one year of familiarity at the current habitat, few commuting helpers are really, very familiar!

This guy Sharath kumar is one of the very rarely found autowalas (you will know why, read on) and I with a couple of my colleagues would prefer to travel in this auto for the next 9 KM ! Sharath who should be probably in his late 30's or even early 40's, is supposed to be a very ardent fan of M.G.Ramachandran, for, whenever, I get into this auto, I find MGR smiling amidst a bunch of flowers - fresh flowers! One can never hear - "it is twenty five rupees since this morning madam" "yakka enna meedhi kekkura"(why do you ask for change?) "This is the regular charge that everyone gets" "Have you ever traveled in an auto?" and all those phrases which is quite commonly attributed to the contemporary auto walas. Hold on, the rest is yet to come! The auto will only have 3 + 3 + 2 + 1 seating arrangement (excluding the poor driver) while you can easily spot all the other autos with 4 + 4 + 2 + 2 + 1(on the door as well) - to put it simple, over loaded! Fine,this is something that makes me to travel in this auto! Okay, things do not end there as such! Since I am a musical mammal, one can never find me without my ear plugs listening to music of my taste (Oldies real oldies and classics) during my travel in a vehicle (don't get me wrong, I don't wear a head phone while crossing road or self driving). And, if I am in this auto, I shall not be spotted with an ear phones plugged to my auditory canal via my auricles, that is because of the melodious music that fills my auditory canal and touches my ear drums so soothingly that you never feel tired of travelling! 

OK coming back to today's happening, I was in a hurry to go to office (stop saying "as usual", was in a real hurry by 8.00 am as such) and as this guy saw me standing all alone, he halted. Since only guys were occupying 3+3+1(1 empty), Despite me telling I shall take the next auto. the guy sitting in the front was now asked to occupy the back doors with all the other guys so that, I sat in the chairs and all pride :-) !

To my surprise, I heard some shrilling voices on the tape, singing something too damn spiritual. Enjoying the innocence in the voice and divinity in the lyrics, ( I had to fight over, to resist myself from asking what album it is) I started the journey. Half way to office, the auto was almost empty, left with only a couple of passengers. With so much of hesitation, this driver asked me, “madam, is it any holiday today? I usually will have my second trip by now, but even first trip is not loaded as well”. I was equally amused as he spoke in a shattered voice. I responded that there was no such “holiday” declared (I wish it was). With another cinch of hesitation, “madam, I am an illiterate. I drive this auto for my livelihood. I do not want more money and more crowds. Can I ask you one thing?” When I was taken aback and confused with the coherence and cohesion of his statements, he continued, “Can you tell me, how I listen to music without changing the CD in my auto? Every time I had to change the CD." He showed me some CDs, Man, they are rare collections he had bought, A kids album on GOD, selected songs of KJY, SPB, P Suseela, TMS, and so on and so forth. When I was examining the bunch of CDs, he continued  "I want have some of my favorite songs, can I record them in one CD but people say so much cannot be there in one CD. Also, all these albums are bought. If I freely buy from the internet, I am not doing justice to the singers who had been pleasing me and soothing me endlessly with their hard works. They will not have money to survive la madam! Can you help me please?"  "I do not know anything “proper” about music. Nevertheless, I like to enjoy music and start my day with music. I am asking my girl baby to learn music too. If you know someone who can teach good music to my girl, please tell me, madam. For, Music heals. Music alone heals neither time nor people”

I was spell bound and left wordless. When we are too bloody proud of cloud computing, DNA chips, Ethernet and all that, there are people who still worry for the different level of people in the society. While getting down, I paid the exact change for the travel, while my heart realized, I learnt something more, priceless, valued, more than the twenty bucks! I understood, every value has a value only when its real value is valued by valuable people! 

“Music heals. Music alone heals. Neither time nor People . . . !

I am not doing justice to the people who had been soothing me endlessly with their hard work . . ! ”

No comments:

Post a Comment