Saturday, November 10, 2007

Ironies of life

Recently I became a father of a baby girl. We were in a hospital in Jayanagar and there were scrores of my relatives and friends visiting us, to see the baby and wish us. We had kept some sweets ready in our hospital room to offer to the visitors. What I observed was that most of the visitors were reluctant to pick up a full piece of sweet, either because they were diabetic or because they were trying to lose weight. Most just ate a small piece, that too after mentioning that they should not really be eating it.

Later, I went around the hospital floor to offer sweets to the staff there. Their approach towards the sweet was in stark contrast to our visitors. While nurses picked up a full piece of sweet without any qualm, some of the the cleaning staff (ayahs) actually asked me if they could take a second piece as well. I saw one of them preserving the second piece which she said was for her son.

This had a profound impact on me. While we go around offerring something to people who already have too much of it or don't want to have it, there are others who want to have it, but probably won't even be offerred. I then took out a box of sweets and left it at a desk where the hospital staff can take from at will. At the end of the our stay in the hospital, the box I left at the desk was empty, whereas the one I had kept in my room was not :-)