Monday, March 21, 2011

Perceptions can be dangerous!!


The train just cruised from Mumbai and the all the berths in 3rd AC were full.Traveling on the side berth gives you the complete view of all that happens inside the compartment and still you can keep yourself aloof from participating in any cacophony.

The inside 6 berths were occupied by one old man and a young girl and 3 middle aged ladies and one man who might be in his thirties sitting with a side bag on his shoulder who was asked about his berth by one the Marwari lady which was duly conformed by the young man.

Intermittent calls from home about safe journey were peppered by personal discussions mostly by the ladies.

Within half a hour or so the train stopped at Kalyan station and this young man with the bag slinging ,suddenly got up and went out of the compartment.

Almost within a second one lady said "these types of persons normally travel from Mumbai CST to Kalyan without reservation ".

Some one said "this is the modus operandi of thief who flick valuables and get down".

The old man cleared his throat and offered with all the intelligence ,"we should be more alert ,he could be terrorist in disguise and might have left a bomb in nice bag".Immediately all eyes were scanning all the bags and everyone ensured their belongings.

The old man also went down on the platform to see the name of the person on the reservation chart pasted on the bogey.

These group which till now was not knowing one another were quite relieved once the young man alighted the train.

In couple of minutes the train started slowly to move from Kalyan station.

Next 2-3 min were lull , suddenly the young man who had been target of everyone appeared with a bottle of packaged drinking water in one hand and other clutching his personal carry bag.

All of a sudden you can see the bewildered expressions on the faces of all the ladies and the old man .While some one was smiling and others tried to look outside the windows at all those sun burnt trees.

May be they felt bad about the comments made for this young man or may be they were still not believing their own eyes.

I was zapped how we people make perception about anyone without knowing an iota about the person.The irony was the young man was not aware of all that happened behind him.He took rest of the people as his own and started mingling once again.


Knowing a person takes many years and judging someone in jiffy can be dangerous!!

2 comments:

J said...

Pijush,

You have a keen sense of observation and the narrative style you have used delivers the message well.

Yes, this is one more parable that teaches us not to be prejudiced and judgmental!

I liked it.

And thank you for the comment on my latest blog. J

J said...

Pijush,

You have a keen sense of observation and the narrative style you have used delivers the message well.

Yes, this is one more parable that teaches us not to be prejudiced and judgmental!

I liked it.

And thank you for the comment on my latest blog. J