EXPERIENCE

Experience is such a wonderful thing….makes one what one is. Every experience adds a streak to the canvass of life. How a person behaves bears a strong correlation with his collective experiences.

The other day while I was driving back home the traffic restricted my progress and I had to halt waiting for the green light to flicker. Typical Mumbai, the road was flanked with slums. Just then, I saw a little kid from the slums with an iron rod like thing in his hand. He was making his way through the vacant space between the impatient vehicles. I did not take his presence seriously until I felt a screeching sound that emanates out when metals rub against each other. It was not before this that I realized that this little kid has deliberately rubbed his iron rod against my car. Without seeing, I could estimate the size and the shape of the mark on the car. I looked at the kid and he looked at me…with no regrets…no fear…and then he threw a smile, which was beyond his age and moved ahead through the space between the vehicles. Probably he did the same thing with other cars too.

I felt an instant rage with what happened. Came back home and thought about the incident. A little kid from a devastating slum….his origin…the live he has lived so far….the life he will live in future…his frustrations when he must be seeing the tall towers where the people with cars live…his perception of affluence…no wonder he derives a strange pleasure in making those marks on the cars when he walks through them….

This little kid has experienced the harshness of life too early. Not that my car deserved a mark, but certainly I cannot blame the kid for what he did…I will rather blame his experience…of life he has lived so far.