By nature I am a person of economy. I do not spend more as long as less serves the same purpose. And in this respect, I don’t make any difference between private and official matters. I have my reasons for doing so and in the process I get a lot of satisfaction in saving resources. Overall, it has been a great advantage for me with virtually no negative impact. I am sharing one incident which shows my conviction in this regard. In my service when I rose to a scale in which an officer is entitled to travel by air in a business class, I was blissfully unaware of it. As a result, I kept on travelling in economy class. Even if I had known, I would have continued travelling by the economy class in all probability. Generally, I travel short distances either by road or by train, but an air journey at times saves time. On one such occasion, I was travelling from Lucknow to Delhi by the economy class of an airline.
As I was checking in on the counter, a good friend of mine who was a Chief Executive in a private company was already there. Seeing me there, he perhaps entertained the thought of travelling together in the business class, as he himself had a business class ticket. On finding that I had an economy class ticket, he first pointed out my entitlement and then offered to get it updated. Though it was a small matter, I thanked him and politely declined his offer. My argument was that it was only a matter of 50 minutes and after that we would both be on the same ground. Over this he gave me a good smile, though I was not sure whether he appreciated my viewpoint fully. Anyway, we took our seats in the aeroplane as per our tickets. At Delhi airport, we met again after deplaning and the matter ended there. Obviously, we both were on the ground at the end of our air journey.
This situation applies to many circumstances of our life. Most of us pay more attention to the external form than the contents and in the process lose the true joy of living. While it applies to a short journey of air, it equally applies to the longer journey of life which is from womb to tomb for all of us.
Rakesh Mittal IAS
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