Be Kind!

Ishani woke up late today, as she couldn’t again sleep last night because her toddler son was down with cough and cold. Though she really wanted to take off today, in fact, she needed it so badly after not being able to sleep properly for the past 4 days straight. Unfortunately, she has an important well-planned presentation with the client today. This is the biggest client in the whole support services department.

She was engrossed in her own thoughts, not even realizing when she crossed the whole corridor, entered the lift, then moved into the car & reached the first stop too on the way to her office. Ultimately it was so frustrating for her to leave a 2.5-year-old child on her help especially when the kid had been sick, and she is also drained both physically & emotionally. She felt like thoughts are just flooding her mind like why am I doing the job, is it really required, is it really worth leaving a toddler on someone and pushing myself to go for a job that is ultimately not even acknowledging my work, not promoting me mentioning the maternity leave every year!, am I not devaluing myself by doing such a thankless job, if I leave the job would we be able to bear all expenses like home loan EMI, 2 cars EMIs, household expenses, toddlers monthly expenses, what will parents say, wouldn’t they think now I am useless and will expect me to do every single work at home, what will relatives think that I took a break 2.5 years after the pregnancy, would I sound silly in front of my friends, would I be left too behind from my MBA classmates…..ah, Oh God! What should I think and what should I not!

Her mind was just flooded with so many things and she didn’t even realize that she had been driving mindlessly and was almost about to hit an ambulance which had been behind her car, with the siren on, but she realized only when it overtook her car before the signal. Probably, the siren sound broke her train of thoughts and brought her to the present.

She realized that she had been in her own world of thoughts and totally lost the track of time, in fact, she had been driving slower than usual, its already 9:15 am and she is supposed to be in the office exactly in 30 mins as client presentation is at 10 am and she needs 15 mins for setting up the meeting room. To make it worse, there’s huge traffic today and it will take 35-40 mins to reach office assuming normal traffic. She was feeling irritated, in fact, frustrated! She was now waiting for the traffic signal to be “Green” right away, she was just getting impatient like a child who’s rolling on a shop floor for his mom to buy the toy he is demanding! Just when the traffic light went “Green” and she was just bumper to bumper with the car ahead of her, a person with dirty clothes crossed the road as soon as he got some space before her car, Eshani got so furious that she started yelling and abusing the person through her window! “How the hell you think, you can cross the road as if you bloody own this road! What do you think you are! If you want to die, go and jump from the bridge, why do you want to target my car, do you want to make some money to show it as an accident” and she continued mindlessly, and the person hung his head down and uttered just two words “sorry madam”. With this response, Eshani just went calm!

By this time, the signal turned “Red” again, but now as Eshani was calmer, she told herself, it’s fine, I will reach just in time and started calling her bestie Nisha, who could help her in setting up the presentation room. Just when she ended her call with Nisha & took a sigh of relief as the signal turned “Green”, realizing she is the first one crossing the signal now, she just turned to the left and got a glimpse of the scene on the service road. There was a lady who was lying unconscious on the footpath and a toddler girl was crying in her loudest voice, sitting next to her and the same man in dirty clothes was splashing water on her face, same water which he got a few mins back. The lady was looking pale, so as the small girl and the man, but Eshani failed to notice it before. Eshani had already crossed the signal and now traffic seemed moving. Eshani just stared at the number board of the truck which her car was following, and it just got glued in her mind, it said

 “BE KIND! For everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about!