Attitude management

As usual, it was over this week end that my wife and I went to a nearby market to buy some ration for home. Every time we visit the market, we make it a point to have some food stuff which my wife loves and I head for a make shift stall where two boys from Darjeeling sell steamed momos / dimsums.

 

The momo stall is actually just outside an electrical store and I usually order for a half plate and relish it there besides getting some home.

 

This week too was the usual routine and after my wife’s turn of her favorite food stuff, I headed for my choice. While I was enjoying every bit of it, my attention was drawn to a lady who was waiting for the boy to pack her a few plates of momos and a lady who had come to the electrical store.

 

They knew each other and had struck a conversation. What I was drawn to was their sudden discussion about how ‘costly it is for a common man to travel outside the country’. Well how the conversation took to this choice of subject I don’t know but it seemed that they needed a random topic to share that both travelled out of the country in recent times.

 

So right in the middle of a ‘common man’s market’ they went into cost analysis of visiting Geneva and Chicago. One lady even went to the extent of saying that, “……..this guys selling momos will take a lifetime to save for a visit outside the country. And it is so important for exposure.

 

Hence in our country, we have not progressed so far”. Yes it sounded petty and they made it seem that acquiring the ‘cosmetic status’ of an overseas traveler has so much to do with a country’s growth!  And sure they were not talking in the lines of travel by Swami Vivekananda who represented and stood for correction of distorted beliefs at the Parliament of World’s Religion at Chicago in 1893 where the opening line, "Sisters and Brothers of America...” was greeted by a three minute standing ovation from the audience of 7000.

 

It was here he said, "Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful Earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now."