Love Understand No Boundaries

I saw a man today at the railway station sitting quietly on a bench on a cold December night. While I was trying to fight the bone-chilling cold by standing near a tea stall and trying to absorb some heat emitting from the gas stove, he looked unabated by the same. From what was he wearing, I assumed that his cloth was not enough to help him safely spend this cold, windy night. While I was waiting for my cup of tea to arrive, numerous thoughts were running through my mind. "These junkies and drunkards are the real threat to our society", I said to a man standing next to me. He nodded in agreement. "These freeloaders create a lot of nuisance. They live like insects and parasites on our blood. Our tax money is wasted on trying to save and help these useless addicts." I said, fuming with anger.

There was also a family waiting on the platform for their train to arrive. Their son was crying and asking his mother to give him something to eat. The mother was busy in arranging the luggage and asking her son to wait for a minute. But, like any other toddler, the son was persistent and kept on crying. My attention got diverted from the addict and I started enjoying the antics of the small child with my cup of tea in a small earthen pot, called kulhad.

Suddenly, the small boy's attention was caught by the addict. He saw him shivering and trying to cover his body from the inadequate piece of cloth that he was wearing. Suddenly, the boy stopped crying and was looking at the addict. This moment of silence gave the breather that his mother was looking for and she took out a packet of biscuits from her handbag and gave it to her son. The son took a biscuit out from the packet and was about to eat it, but then he suddenly saw something in the eyes of that addict. He went ahead and handed the entire packet of biscuits to the addict. Reluctantly, the man took the packet of the biscuit and smiled at the small child.

This shook me from the inside. Even something broke inside me. I was cursing myself. Even though I am a fully grown man, but I was only seeing the addiction of that man, not his hunger. It was his hunger that gave him the strength required to fight the cold. Now, once this hunger is taken care of, he got up and slept next to a couple of street dogs, at the corner of the platform. My senses and humanity were dead but the small child assured me that the human race will be able to survive.

I heard the horn of the train getting into the platform and started to move towards it with a drop of a tear rolling down my cheek.