I could manage to get a rikshaw after waiting for long time. Eying a sigh of relief, i sat in the rikshaw and said "hmm the no. of rikshaws have gone down drastically in last few months...i was waiting from long time." He looked serious, i could make out that something is wrong, or everything was wrong. I don't know. After almost 30 seconds, he replied that the rikshaws were not reducing..in fact the population of the city was increasing day by day. And many of the young buddies did not want to enter into this field.
After a minute he added, "we live in poverty and we will have to die in poverty. Because we don't have any other option. Market prises and inflation is increasing, but the fare of a rikshaw drive is constant. So how do we afford these soring prises? How do we educate our children and how can we buy medicines...? We cannot..and maintenance of this rikshaw is also too much. We pay for the gas and can hardly revamp the money from the little profit made by faring entire day long. May be that is the reason some of us are leaving this field and getting into some other..and may be that is why, people like you are complaining of rikshaw shortage."
He gave me a short example, "If a thief takes away your wealth, you say nothing because you are restless. But if rikshawwala fastens his meter and charges you a rupee or two extra, you shout at him like anything. This is not the fault of people like you. If poverty line crosses limit, cheating takes birth."
I was feeling good by knowing that he felt me capable enough of sharing his experience, but on the other hand, i felt very bad of his situations..i once felt like giving him a fifty rupee note but then i recalled my hand from doing so, because that would hurt his self respect. I just said, "Yes man, i can understand your feeling. But i don't know what is this all going on in this world. May be i am too young to know this stuff."
It is too difficult to understand a human in need unless you don't experience the same need!
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