World isn't so bad after all

My friend Teju was a bit sad yesterday over lunch.

Her colleague, Manish, lost his brand new cell in the Volvo bus while coming to office. Generally he comes with his friend on bike. But yesterday, his friend didn’t turn up and so he came by the bus. When he reached office, he realized that the cell was missing. He had put aside some money for a few months now and had bought the new cell and now he had lost it within a week. He was sad and so was his team for his loss. He didn’t have any insurance on the cell and hence couldn’t even get a replaced cell from the stores he bought. When we buy a high end mobile cell nowadays, the store itself offers theft insurance for free and it is always safe to have an insurance, because we do not know what awaits our cell in future.

Someone suggested him to file a FIR in the police station, but who has got back his/her mobile cell till date? I haven’t heard of it till date that someone got back their cell with everything intact. So yesterday, the mood of Teju’s whole team was a bit down and everybody was trying to cheer Manish. But Manish was feeling so lost that just tears weren’t there in his eyes as he was in office!

Today over lunch, Teju is jubilant and tells me that Manish got his cell back! I was all ears to what she narrated after that.

A guy from Orissa, who was sitting next to Manish in the Volvo found his cell and he called one number from the Address book which was of Manish’s roommate. That stranger, let me call him Poorab here, called Manish’s friend and asked him where is Manish and where should he come to return the cell? When he came to return Manish’s cell, he told Manish about his feelings when he found the cell. Poorab confessed that he wanted to keep Manish’s cell, who would have known anyways that Poorab had it? But then he happened to browse through Manish’s cell and found his birthday pics in it where he was looking so happy. He recently celebrated his birthday and the whole team cut cake for him and gave him presents and he had clicked the pictures of this occasion. Poorab saw all those pictures and his conscience started biting him and an inner voice told him that he should return the mobile to the owner and then he searched for some number to contact and got in touch with Manish and returned him the cell.

Manish was so happy that he offered Poorab to give a treat. Poorab refused and said that Manish shouldn’t spend money like this unnecessary, getting his cell back was important than anything else. They both exchanged mobile numbers and promised to keep in touch with each other. A beginning of new friendship, I must say! 

 

I was listening to this just like a small child would listen to a fairy tale. Isn’t it a fairy tale, after all? Who would return a high end mobile to a stranger? But then I thought, there is still some goodness left in this big bad world out there. The inner voice is active in every living human being, some choose to listen to it and be at peace just like Poorab and some people (especially our politicians) have killed that inner voice and have earned a very bad reputation on the Indian political scene.

I couldn’t help smiling to myself thinking about many more such Poorab’s all around the world, who are making this world a better place to stay.

Kudos to them!