An admission...

He put me to shame. Let's not name this person. Let's just say I know him. With whatever that life has given and taken away from me, I have come to lose respect for little ( or rather major things) in life and it is indeed a bane that I have turned out to be like this.

I was in the queue in the canteen ( a very long one at that). It is awesome how academics can plan lunch in such a way that 260 people land up at the same time in the canteen with half hour to spare before the next class starts. So this person (lets call him Mr X) stands in front of me and being the hungry girl I am, I pick up a pappad from the buffet, rush back to the queue, munching it. I shared it with him and as luck would have it, the pappad was very brittle and it broke to pieces when he tried to share it with me. Some pieces fell on the floor. My instinctive reaction was to move that with my footwear (!!!) to a corner so that it wouldn’t hinder other people. He slowly bent down, picked up the broken pieces without damaging it further and held it in his hand without throwing it in the dustbin, as he would hold a flower. It hit me, really it did. What an impatient , insensitive dumb girl I was! I felt awful, went picked up some paper towels, cleaned the floor, got the pieces from him too and threw it away. Such is the force of simple things that happen to us, that they make us realize the big defects in our attitude towards things. I did not respect the food that was dropped and he made me realize it without speaking a word. It was a very strong message.

And from that day on, I can experience a small change in me. Whenever I pick up food, I do so with respect. I try my best not to drop it and I take only whatever that I can eat, I am trying to minimize the wastage that piles up on my plate. But it is disheartening to note that Sodexho, who is the caterer, just throws the uneaten food in to the dustbin when there are so many people dying out of hunger out there.