chhuttan ka chunaav ticket

The Insensitive Indian

Shocked!/Amazed?.....by the title. Perhaps you should not. The reason I am saying this is because in everyday life we may come across various instances where we may find several annoying fellowmen whom we find very hard to resist, ignore them and babble out few cuss words and move on. More importantly we spell out some famous one liner like,” this is why our condition is so pathetic”, “nobody can reform this country”, and so on…..

But the situation changes as soon as we are on the receiving end. Let us take an instance for example. Shobha, a lady from Mumbai, is travelling with her family in an unreserved/ general compartment in a train as she was not able to get a reservation. Her family comprises her husband Mr. Mehta and her 8 year old daughter Reeni. She took the train from Mumbai and captured a full lower berth with standard occupancy of four. As the rush was less, they travelled very comfortably for about four stoppages, then suddenly Shobha realised that the rush was increasing, so she asked her daughter to lie in a supine position (half sitting half lying) and pretend that she was ill. People came pouring in and they started asking Shobha and family to accommodate them but Shobha told them, as her daughter is unwell, so she needed space. As the fellow travellers were sensitive enough, so they provided them space while travelling on their legs. Shobha was very happy on her wileness.

Now unfortunately on their return journey again they have to travel in the unreserved/ general compartment. This time as their boarding station was not the starting one, Shobha and her family had to face the crunch. Any how they boarded the train, only to find themselves in a coach full of heads as the bogey was as packed as hounds. On every full berth on an average 6 people were sitting instead of 4. As her daughter was very uncomfortable standing in the crunched space and suddenly she started crying. Fortunately Shobha found a berth where just 4 people were sitting as against 6. On seeing a chance to improvise, Shobha moved ahead to the seat occupied by four and she asked them to adjust a bit. One of the elderly men came upfront and tried to explain to her that as one of the youth who was sitting beside the window had a broken limb and if forced to sit in cramped space, it would exacerbate his injury. But as Shobha was not willing to compel to his excuse. Infact she started abusing them and doubted their credibility, it led to a brawl between the two families.

This story presents two conditions:

1.       When Shobha faked the illness of her daughter she was happy over her wileness and not her genuinity or credibility.

2.       When she was not able to occupy a seat due to a genuine reason, should we appreciate her?

The point is that, Why do we react differently in two different situations?

Why do mothers use their children for such a paltry purpose?

And that brings us to our core question:

Is Shobha an insensitive Indian?