Intelligent auto drivers, and the lessons learnt

A long time has passed since the last post. In between, an interesting incident took place, which reflected that the world is still a good place to live in. A few of us had met up in Brigade Road in the evening, for a dinner, and after the dinner, the time was pretty late in the night, when I was waiting at a bus stop waiting for a bus to take me home. A pity that Bangalore is not upto the mark in terms of public transport. Buses stop after 9:30 pm, and after that the public is left at the mercy of the autos. The rates also keep spiralling, with some guys demanding more than double the usual fare if it is too late. Anyway, there I was, vainly waiting for a bus, along with a few other strangers. After a futile wait of half an hour, I decided to hail a rick, and take the long ride home, knowing fully well that the ride was going to burn a hole in my pocket. The auto rickshaw driver, who picked me up, spoke first in English, which stuck me, as it was uncommon. Anyways, he took a seedy bylane as there were the traffic cops at the junction, and he wanted to avoid them as he was not in his uniform. I don't blame the guy, as wearing the same khaki shirt all day long would have been irritating. Anyways, we got chatting, and out of curiosity, I asked him whether he knew Tamil, and to my pleasant surprise, I found that he was a native of TamilNadu. That started an interesting conversation, which opened my eyes about the world. A common adage is 'All that glitters is not gold'. What I found in my conversation with Mr. Alagasingham (that was the auto driver's name), was that looks can be deceptive. He was working as an auto driver, to feed his family, and his aim in life was to ensure that his children do not suffer from the same problems that he faced when he was a kid. He was working late nights so that he could make some extra money to provide for his kids during the holidays, when they would be at home all the day. But this was just the tip of the iceberg. He said, that his day began with him reading the newspaper, in the morning, and not one but two. How many auto rickshaw drivers would one find, who get up in the morning and read the newspaper, and the interesting point is, he read the paper to update his general knowledge. Most of us read the newspaper, jus to know what is going on around us, and after some time forget what was written in the newspaper. Here was a guy, who had an answer to almost any question that was posed to him. All this was possible, due to his quest for continuously improving himself. He has been an inspiration to me, though the meeting was short, it was far more revealing about the human nature than hours of talk would have been. This post is a salute to all such people, who want to continously improve themselves.
The blog has been ignored for quite some time now, and I hope to be more regular with the posts. Sundays are a good oppurtunity for updating the blog, as the office does not permit too much time to be devoted to the blog.