Life, or something close to it.

A few days back I was buying a bottle of coke at around 10 in the night, I think. I know what you are thinking, that’s a great beverage, and you’re right, but that’s not what this is about. Anyway as the shopkeeper was getting my bottle of the black elixir, an old lady, thin and in a ragged saree, came up and asked for a bar of soap. “How much for the Vim bar? “, she asked. “Eight rupees for the small one and twenty for the big” the shopkeeper replied not really looking at her. She was a poor old thing, frail and timid. She looked at the two notes of currency she was clutching. A ten and a five, and it was as if saddened by the sight of it. She didn’t have the money to buy the bar of soap she wanted. A simple bar of soap. “Give me the small one “she said and grabbing the polythene with the soap in it, clutching now a two rupee note with the five, was gone, leaving me to ponder on what I had just seen.
I hadn’t witnessed the resurrection or anything spectacular. It was simple ordinary every-day event but it had so much to say. Problems are subjective. They always have been, they always will be. Our problems will always be the most difficult problems and no one seems to understand that and no one ever will, because they feel the same. Sure I have to study for hours every single day, but do I have to worry about saving up five rupees so I can buy a proper bar of soap, that’s what the old lady would tell me. And I would reply, not really and hopefully I will never know that problem. Although I still think it’s not as big a problem as having sleepless nights preparing for a three hour ordeal the next morning and having my entire life resting on the hands of someone who analyses what I do in those three hours. Examination oriented education isn’t doing me any good. We all have our crosses to bear and well it feels my cross is just a little bit heavier than all of yours. And if I ask you, you would tell me the same thing. We are selfish creatures by nature. And for me, it’s not wrong that I feel my problem is bigger than everyone else’s. Along with thinking my problems are the biggest, I also accept that the person who is best equipped to do something about it, is me. If I give importance to my problems and not brush them aside, maybe I’ll work harder on solving them, or get totally crushed by it. It’s all very variable. But problems will always be there, till the end and we will always be searching for solutions. A life without problems would be boring, well at least that’s what I think. It would be great to experience it firsthand. But having a few things to enjoy does help. So I am off to get another bottle of carbonated joy and this time I am taking an extra five rupee, to do my good deed of the day, if the circumstances arise.