ByB (1) : Trust your fellow human!!!

As I was racking my brains to think of a big story for the Blog your Blessings (ByB) Sunday, I realized that it was not the big things, but the little things that usually go unnoticed, that have to be taken notice of and remembered.

It was a few years back that this happened. I was traveling alone and was on my way home. The last part of my journey was a railway trip. At the railway station, I found that my train was delayed by more than 12 hours. That was more than the time it would take me to reach home. So, I decided to take a bus. It would take a bit longer than the train, but there we would be no wait. Since it was towards the end of the trip, money was running short and I had barely enough to get home.

As a safety measure, I decided to get a refund on my ticket, whatever little they would give me after deducting their charges would come in handy. I was given a couple of forms to fill, which I duly filled and handed back. I was given a receipt and told that a cheque would be headed my way very soon. I tried in vain to get them to give the money to me as cash.

All I got was: Sorry Sir, but that won’t be possible until the due formalities have been completed.

I had money enough, barely enough, to pay my bus fare. So, off to the bus station I went. It was about 8 in the night, when I reached the bus stop, only to be told that there was no direct bus to my destination and I had to make a stop at some place in between. I enquired about the fares and I to my relief I still had enough

Now, I had been told that there was a connecting bus from that station at that time and the fare was exactly what I was left with, so I was not worried. It was about 12 or 12:30 in the night when I reached there and as soon as I got down a man approached me and asked if I needed a ticket for the next leg of my journey.

Maybe it was sleep, or maybe it was the fact that I was expecting, as I was told, the bus to be there, I handed all the money I had to that person and he disappeared. Now as minutes ticked by, sleep vanished and senses returned, I realized what I had done.

I was in a strange place, a busy one, as I saw now. Even at 1 o’clock in the night people were moving about and there were lights and buses everywhere and the man I had given my money to was nowhere to be seen. It is at such times that all the stories about people being conned return to your mind in their full force. In the past, every time I had heard a story like that, I countered it with if it was me, I wouldn’t have done it like that. Well it turned out that I was easier to con than anyone else. The hands of the clock moved from five minutes to ten and then to fifteen.

I began to panic because I didn’t even have enough to make a phone call or anything. Tired as I was, the situation seemed desperate.

Till, I saw a person coming towards me. I was sleepy when I had handed my money to him, so I really wasn’t sure it was the same man. He gave me my ticket and even took me to the bus that would take me to where I had to go. I guess the expression on my face when I saw him was as if I had seen a Ghost, for he broke into an instant smile and asked me what the matter was.

Now, I couldn’t tell him what I had been thinking, so I just smiled in return. I realized then that there were good people and there were bad ones. But until we have had reason to classify someone as bad, we should go ahead and trust them. I have done this and till date, I have had no reason to regret it.

It is also a reminder that we should also keep the trust, not only of our loved ones, but strangers too. A deed well done might change the way a person looks at the world and that in turn will affect us all in the long run.