Some people are surprisingly inspiring!

It was a rush hour to the office and unfortunately, my vehicle broke in the morning. Somehow I managed to notice it in time and booked a bike ride well in time. The rider took 15 minutes to come to my place. The first thing I noticed was, fortunately, he was wearing a helmet. Earlier on many occasions, I found that the riders either didn’t have a helmet or they didn’t wear that. While conversing with the earlier drivers I noticed and realized that the helmet was just a tool to avoid challan ( police penalty), else helmet had no other purpose to serve, but this morning was a little different. The rider, named Praveen Naik, had a helmet on his head. I was amazed and happy. As soon as I rode the bike I congratulated and thanked him for wearing the head saving gadget and asked him the reason why he did so. I was anxious to know whether he also had the same feeling about a helmet or had a different version. He was very happy to receive compliments and said, “ye helmet bahut zaruri hai. Aap kitni bhi acchi gaadi chala lo, par logo ka bharosa nahi ki vo kaisi chalaye. Kisi ki galti par agar aap gir gaye to ye aapke sir ko bacha leta hai” meaning “this helmet is very necessary. You might be a perfect rider but you can’t trust fellow riders on road.  One might disobey the road rules but you will have to pay for it, so it’s better to be safe proactively.”

What a word of wisdom! for all the riders, commercial and non-commercial. I found him a good rider as he followed all the traffic rules on the road. In the morning at Eight o’clock, when there was no traffic police standing and performing duty on the road, this man, Praveen Naik, was performing his duty of being a good rider and silently contributing to the Indore Traffic Police in maintaining the status of Smart Traffic in the city. 

 We started chatting and he seemed a very interesting person to talk with. He told me that he starts his day at Five o’clock in the morning and by Ten o’clock he wraps s up his driving job.  Within 5 hours, he earns almost 300-600 rupees per day which get translated into around Rs 10000/-  to  15000/- monthly.  He immediately said, “I don’t know why people are not ready to earn. There are many ways; legal; to earn money but people are not ready for that. People want quick money. Money that floods in gets drained out equally fast. Without putting hard work, continuously, one cannot earn. To earn something, one has to lose something. So I decided to lose my sleep to earn money.”

He continued to share his experience of taking passengers from the railway station to taking working ladies to their office, to old people going to hospitals for their checkups. He had many stories. He mentioned that he did not talk to every passenger, because some people prefer to peep into their mobile than talking.  But he loved chatting to strangers. Chatting gave him information about many businesses, many religions, many countries. He came to know about non-famous, yet important places of Indore just because of his habit of chatting to passengers who responded to him.

As he was saying all these, I was thinking about the inquisitiveness of this person. It reminded me of a dialogue of the movie 3 Idiots- Gyaan sab jagah hai, pakad lo – knowledge is spread all over, just grab it. This person is actually living up to those lines, grabbing all the knowledge and information coming his way.

 

After his driving job was done, he works for a saree shop, he continued.  From 11 am to 7 pm he works there in a store. So in a month he approximately earns a good amount to run his family. He had been working in the store since his childhood and due to his good reputation, he leaves the store early than other employees. By 7 O’clock he returns to his home and spends some time with his family. He is a teacher to his child but he does not teach academics. He is the teacher of behavior science. He teaches his son about the behaviors of people and the society we live in.

As we were chatting, we reached the destination, my office.  We had to stop our conversation but chatting with him was very much fun and learning. Really, some people are surprisingly inspiring!