Cheer up! It’s Christmas!

It’s about 7AM in the morning and the sun is barely rising itself to the horizon. It’s as if it sulks like any other kid on a beautiful day to get up. Have you ever wondered, if you personify the sun, how it would feel to be getting up that early in the morning? Nyways... it was a beautiful day. The streets were covered in a thin layer of snow (it really doesn’t snow too much in north Texas). I had to hurry to my bookstore for my job and was walking briskly. Something amazing happened then, which has changed my outlook towards life.

There was an old man draped in a rather heavy jacket and he was using the shoveling machine to clear the road of sleet. He stopped his machine as I passed him and he gently said with a beaming smile: "Good morning young man, merry Christmas". I just stood there, not knowing how to respond and I guess I gave mixed signals to him as he reiterated himself to me. This just brought a smile to my face and I wished him back saying "merry Christmas". This moment was so profound that I began to deliberate... why is it that this doesn't happen in India? Are our people so cold hearted that they look at every other human being with suspicion? Why is it so difficult for us to smile in public? The whole day passed by with a tingling feeling in my heart. I just had a wonderful day. I felt everyone were rejoicing "life" in general.

I began to think.. is it the weather? Or the festive season? I guess it is neither. It is just pure and basic courteousness. Why can’t we Indians be as courteous as everyone else? I guess we have our own reservations about things. I guess the word "good morning" is rebuked by everyone strongly. The reason for this may be our schooling system where the kids get up coherently and shout in chorus "good morning miss/sir" every time a teacher walks in to the class. Phew... I just hated that and I loath it to this day. Why can't kids be taught to just say "Hi". That is the word they are predominantly going to use...

Getting back to the festive time I was in, it was really special. Wherever I went, people in their jocund moods smiling at everyone and stuff. it was really such a pretty sight. I guess a valid reasoning for this is that, on Indian roads, there are so many pedestrians that your face would begin to ache if you kept smiling at everyone. This is why we, in India save our greetings for acquaintances and friends. This seems to be a very logical reasoning.

I began to wonder if there was a specific season when we celebrate in unison. Well if you think about it, at any given point in time there is something going on.. Life is just too busy for us to think about trivial issues such as courtesy and stuff. When I had made my peace with "not being courteous" to everyone, a similar thing happened to me today in the morning. As I was walking to take my bus to work, a police constable was cleaning a car (it was a "***" car meaning that the car was for a commissioner or a higher rank). He just smiled at me and said "good morning sir". I was shocked beyond belief. It was almost like deja-vous. I have seen him stand there before but had never had a similar experience. I guess in all these days he had seen me walk by, we had developed a bond like an untold acquaintance or something.... It was phenomenal... I smiled back and wished him.

Now I realize, we are just as courteous as anyone else. We just take our time in getting comfortable with situations. Coming to think about it we as a race are the most adaptable of all. Can you as an American to settle down in the most obscure village in India? I am sure he'll go nuts before you can say "nuts". But we are there everywhere. There is a saying that every third person you would meet in the world had to be a Chinese or an Indian. We can adapt to any situation, country and people.

We should also have a unified festive season when everyone is just happy... period... does a lot of good to our minds. My notion of Christmas has got nothing to do with religion but it is just a global season of happiness all over the world. It'll be nice if we have more of such seasons. I guess as Shakespeare’s play, we are "a man for all seasons". We are getting there and I am ready to wait for the day when not being courteous to strangers becomes a thing of the past... What say guys ??????