Living by Example!

The way we think about people is generally based upon their dress and deportment. It is not always that we end up judging them for what they really are. One incident comes to my mind. One my bosses, for whom I have the highest of respects, narrated this incident to me.

He had a custom of inviting an employee on the last day of his service for a cup of tea. After inquiring about his health, wealth and etc., the employee was given a warm send off with appropriate words of praise and encouragement. So here was a cook who was retiring after 40 odd years of service. The conversation went something like this:

So, what is the plan? You will stay on here in the city or will you join your son?

Sir, I will be here and let my son be happy wherever he is.

Why? You will find it more comfortable to be taken care of by him in your old age, don’t you?

No, sir. Actually I would be happy to be otherwise.

Why, doesn’t your son love you?

Quite the contrary, sir! We can not ask for a better son than he is.

So where is the problem?

It just happens, sir, that my son is the Collector of so and so district. He is in a different league than what I am. While I am proud of his achievement, I do not have the stature to be of any comfort to him, if I stay with him. You will be glad to know that despite what he is, he comes to my ‘jhopdi’ (a Hindustani colloquial for hutted accommodation) once in a while, stays with me and sleeps on the ground. He is as affectionate and proud of us as we are of him. Throughout his childhood, I have told him only one thing. ‘Son, you aspire to be an IAS one day. I am an ordinary, unlettered cook. There is only one thing I can tell you. Through my 40 odd years of service, I have never been absent, drunk or undisciplined. I may not be the best cook that the establishment has seen. But I have been devoted to my work and did whatever I can from my heart. There is nothing more I have to say to guide you through your life.

My boss, he confessed, was speechless. He told me that he considered as a privilege to shake hands with this cook and bid him farewell on retirement.

People can always surprise you. The most complicated things in life are actually extraordinarily simple. It is the simple basics that always confound us. It is important to have our bearings right, if we seek to be happy and contended in life. Buddha considered ‘desire’ as the source of all sufferings. A more pragmatic philosopher is yet to walk on Earth! In our vexations about life, most of the time we are only concerned about what we want to be tomorrow. Seldom do we seek to know what we are today.

But there are some who do know what they are and happy to be so, however simple and humble they may be. They live by their example!