morali-tea

Cellphones surely get u thinking about really weird and out of the blue stuff all of a sudden when u least need to. For example, i get this seriously outdated forward about something that goes like "sharing is caring". Well i think the last time i heard that was in my 6th grade during a very boring moral science class where u actually dunno who's teaching u wat, except that it was our favourite class of the week. My moral science teacher (honestly she was super ugly, and i think she dint know too much about morals herself, cos she spat on the road most of the times) usually started the class with "children, sharing is caring", and i instantly knew that the class was nearing its tragic end. I was too young perhaps to understand what it really meant, and how difficult it actually is to share (not that caring is easy) (like for example we dint care for tat crazy moral science teacher). Anyways so i started thinking about this thought very seriously and suddenly i remembered something, an incident, a very special one, a simple but really thought provoking one.
three years ago, i worked for this company called 24/7. It was a call centre, a very famous one. it somehow made its mark in the local news channels regularly. Like once the headlines read "hundreds of used condoms found in the garbage area of 24/7". I hope u got the point. So anyways, my shift started at 4.30pm and got over usually at 2am. it was a UK shift so i kinda escaped the graveyard timings. The pick up van usually picked us up at 2.15am after work. One fine day, after my shift, which got over at 3am, i was all ready to get my cab, and reach home asap. It was bloody cold, and i had nothing warm to wear and to make it worse my cab reaches the place a little late. So, the cab picked me up, along with a few others who worked late that day. the weather got to me so badly that it became unbearable suddenly. it was just 5 of us in that big cab, most of whom i dint know, and they dint carry anything warm as well. So i decided to ask the cab driver to stop at a tea stall, close to my house. The idea of hot tea before getting home was a little motivating to live those few seconds of seriously cold weather. When we reached the tea stall, i got down to grab a cup asap (i actually ran towards the tea stall as if i was being attacked by militants). when i reached there i got myself a cup of hot tea, which i dunno y, but looked deliciously delicious. It was time to pay, and when i got my wallet out, i realised i hardly had any money(i shud have visited the atm in the evening i thought). I had just three rupees in my wallet. I slowly looked towards the tea stall owner with a very sad puppy look, hinting that my wallet turned out to be quite a gulshan grover at the wrongest of times. watching my mishap from a distance was my collegue, who immediately jumped to my help. he gave the rest to the tea stall owner and i was finally going to have my tea, when suddenly an irritating begger decided to beg the shit out of me. he asked me to give him some tea cos he was feelin really cold. I was jus not in the mood, so i shooed him away, and he kept comin for atleast another 2 mins, which made me even more angry. He finally gave way, and i finally was going to taste gods gift "tea". i took a sip and suddenly felt like a stove. it was a brillaint feeling. and i dint want anything to spoil it. the place i stood was very close to the crowd, so i moved away towards a corner. When i reached there, i saw a small bonfire. I was super excited. Hot tea, bonfire,corner and just about no one at 3.30 in the moring, it was a perfect scene. i Suddenly realised i was not alone. There were two street urchins. A girl and a boy. The girl looked older and was tucked comfortably in a thick blanket, whereas the boy was wearing a shirt made out of the thinnest material in the world. He was shivering and making a weird noise, suggesting that it was shit cold. i continued drinking tea and dint bother too much. What happened next, is something that happens only in really senti bollywood films. The boy started shivering painfully and started crying. He was a 7yr old boy i think, and i strongly feel thats wat most 7yr old boys would do when in pain. both of them clearly looked like they were completely broke (like me) and had no other resourses to make themselves warm. The girl gave him her blanket, but his shiver was way to strong for the blankets material. She looked completely clueless and wandered here and there somehow to get some tea for him, while i continued to sip tea (which was not too hot by now). She finally gave up and jus stood next to him, and told him control it for some more time. the boy started crying and at this point i felt like a looser, a complete one, cos i couldnt do anything. Just then the begger who begged me for tea, ran upto both the kids and offered the boy hot tea (he somehow managed to beg for tea at the stall for himself). the boy felt much better and stopped crying. The girl, boy and the begger sat down at the bonfire and rubbed their hands and feet to feel better. The girl even started singing a song for the boy and he finally slept. the girl sat there , completely relieved. The begger sat there, and was beginning to shiver. He gave away the tea he kept for himself, without even thinkin twice, knowing hat he might not get somethin warm for a long time to come, While i stood there watchin the entire episode helplessly. I felt small, petty in front of them. Felt like i dint deserve to have that tea at all, felt like i deserved to die in the cold weather. it hit me that though they had nothing they share, and we almost always never care, nor for them or for ppl lke ourselves.
Sure it is a very cliche dialogue "sharing is caring", but seriously , do we ever follow it. If we dont, then i definitly dint miss too much of the moral science class in the 7th grade, if we do, then im glad that we were tortured in those classes. Hail Mrs Anandi (my moral science teacher).