After alighting the train, I boarded the city local bus to the area where I stayed in a hotel. It was past 9pm and the bus was moderately crowded, almost all seats were occupied. I got to sit in the middle seat of last row which was quite elevated and I could everybody in the front of the bus.
The bus started and there were still a few standing passengers. These buses tend to accelerate and brake hard, and it's a usually a challenge for standing folks to stay rooted. Just when the bus moved into Outer Ring Road, I saw a small girl of about 8 or 9 years sit down in the step in the middle of the bus that separated the elevated seats in the back.
Soon enough, I saw a man in his late-thirties, dressed in smart casuals who was seated close to her two rows behind, feel uncomfortable about this situation. She could easily topple over if there was a hard braking near a bus-stop or get disturbed from her perch by passengers getting down. He looked around if there were any empty seats for the girl, but could not locate any. He then stood up with his bag and offered his seat to the girl and his mother. They seemed to be from a different part of the country and didn't understand him and didn't take the offer from this stranger.
All this happened, while nobody else in the bus seemed to bother about this situation, but were busy watching the IPL match of the day or their favourite distraction in their smartphones. But this kind man would not give up, could not rest easy looking at the small girl on the floor step. He looked around to see if there was any other way he could help and I caught his attention from the back seat of the bus and pointed at an empty seat near me, that he missed noticing. He quickly took his backpack, got up, gestured to the girl and her mother to take his seat, ensured they occupy it and then walked to the seat near me and sat down.
A few minutes later, we saw the girl safely sitting on a her mother's lap in that seat, and I just turned to this man and casually remarked -
"Two people are now sitting because of you giving up your seat".
That's it! He was touched to hear that acknowledgement of a simple everyday act of kindness and gave me a warm handshake and said politely "I got up too late, waited too long, Sir!" reflecting his helpless indecision for a few minutes.
We got introduced to each other, he seemed to be the typical south-indian IT professional working in Bangalore.
He was in a senior position in a startup company and was also telecommuting for work and had arrived in the same Vande Bharat as mine from Vellore, that's where his family resides. We even found out that one of his uncles was also an ex-colleague of mine, whom I remembered to be another genial person. This conversation lasted about 10 minutes before he had to get down at his stop.
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What was the image of person you could visualise when you read the above narration? I had not given any details about him, except for his approximate age or profession. I would not be surprised if it was something like this.
(Image from Meta AI with prompt :
South Indian male working in IT industry in his late thirties)
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My co-passenger was Azhar, from Ambur town, Vellore district, who actually looked something like this.
(Image from Meta AI with updated prompt)
Now if you read the incident described above again, you may see other hidden facets and the story unfolding slightly differently in your mind!
It's a small world, and we are all co-passengers.
