Gandhidham Express

Too often we live under the assumption that life is all about achieving something worth inviting the cover page of a magazine. While on the deathbed, Aldous Huxley reflected on his entire life’s learning and then summed it up in seven simple words: “Let us be kinder to one another.”  The more I tried to install this concept within the more I understood that what all we call kindness is not kindness at all. 

All these rolled on through my mind as I was idly sitting in Gandhidham - Nagerkovil Express train in which I was returning from Ahmedabad. It was a cool afternoon on the Konkan corridor when a good looking man past his sixties hurried in with his baggage. He occupied a seat close to me. Very quickly he pushed his baggage under the seat and opened his handbag to take out a book. Because of his tense behavior I could not help watching him. The book he took out was ‘An autobiography of a Yogi’, a famous great book written by Shri Yogananda Paramahansa. It was easy for me to guess that he should be spiritual man. As soon as he opened the book came in the pantry man with eatables. He bought something and started cracking it. Then came a beggar hardly 35, walking with great difficulty even on his wild stick. His one leg seemed to be totally disabled. The man closed his book, took a coin and dropped it into the stretched palm of the beggar. I noticed that he was dropping the coin and not giving it; and I assumed that cast wise he could be from a privileged upper caste category. Incidentally, the coin fell down. I saw that disabled beggar struggling to bend his body and take the coin. Fortunately a passenger who came by took the coin and gave it to him. What that surprised me was that this man did not at all turned his head to help the beggar but only continued reading the Autobiography. I thought, ‘What use all these messages he consumes in dozes unless it could not generate within him the sort of kindness Huxley meant?’ I finally concluded that this typical aspirant is a commonly seen model, who claims to have great masters and possesses great knowledge but without kindness in its tender nature.

Two hours passed by and the train stopped at a minor station. The man with the book closed it and moved out with his luggage. He had not completed even a single page during the two hours in the train. Either he was checking his baggage or was bargaining with the vendors. The train began to roll on again. There I saw another strange thing – the physically disabled beggar was running into the moving train. My fellow passengers also noticed it. “Life is a whole drama.” I commented. The one thing that pained me was not just that. I had to admit that I too am a player in this cosmic drama though not as smart as the disabled beggar or as loose as the disturbed aspirant. Is it not about developing personality that we talk about? Personality is all about masks while individuality is all about self-holiness. 

Joseph Mattappally