A Wasted Weekend?!

No office today, and that meant no lunch either, unless of course you are willing to travel in the killing heat, someone just told me that it was 46.5 degrees Celsius yesterday!I decided to have a heavy breakfast so that by lunchtime I’m not in a miserable situation as I had been last weekend. Had few slices of bread with butter and omelet, and poha for the breakfast. Spent sometime sitting outside the mess hall, cursing the heat for not being able to go out and enjoy on the weekend. Then I came back to my room, watched a few episodes of The Wonder Years, in the meantime cribbing to everyone I found online how discouraging the Gurgaon heat was. At 1 a friend called me for lunch, poor chap couldn’t wakeup in time for the breakfast. I could understand his situation. There were 4 of us, and by default we headed towards the one and only Om Sweets, the nearest good eating joint. We took cycle rickshaws from outside the college gate, sadly there aren’t any autos in the town! My friend almost screamed as he touched the hot seat of the rick. Luckily for us the passenger seat was covered with a roof which prevented us from the scorching sun, and seat from getting warm. The poor rickshaw puller had only the hot seat and the open sky to help him in his business. Sitting in the rickshaw I was wondering how painful it would be for the poor guy to operate his rick in such a hot weather. I forcibly turned my mind towards some pleasant thoughts, thoughts of having an AC office, an AC car, and of course an AC home. There’s nothing else that would help you survive the heat of this place. We even talked about having winter internships, instead of summers, especially for those who would be placed in the Delhi region.
Finally reaching the destination my friend handed the rickshaw puller 15 bucks, as I was out of change. The normal fare from the college to Om Sweets is 10 bucks, but I didn’t stop my friend from paying the extra 5 bucks, as I thought it would do the poor guy some justice to be paid a few extra bucks for riding in this heat. We had a filling lunch, at approximately 50 bucks a head. The AC interiors were more satisfying than the food itself. We cursed the heat once again as soon as we came out of the restaurant. We decided to have some cool drinks before leaving. We bought Mountain Dew from a nearby shop; it always feels refreshing to have something chilling in this heat. We again took rickshaws back to our college. I still had the bottle of Dew and was enjoying it leisurely. This time one of my other friends was accompanying me. We were again discussing the heat when suddenly my friend said, “I wish I could help there poor people. I feel so terrible whenever I see them. And the fact is I can’t do anything to help them, I feel so helpless!!” Looking at the rickshaw puller in front of us, who had been coughing constantly on our way back, I couldn’t take one more sip of my cool drink! I felt like giving that bottle of mountain dew to the poor chap. I couldn’t do it. Helpless! We can’t do anything; on the contrary we are also party to this! But what else could we do, if we stopped using their services then how would they earn their living? How would they feed themselves and their families? I had been cribbing about the heat and how it had ruined my weekend all day, but suddenly all these seemed so immaterial. The poor rickshaw puller is working harder than us, and what does he get at the end of the day, a meager 100 bucks, for him and his family. Am I really worthy of enjoying all the comforts like the AC and the car? What have I really done to live the life I am living? Since I was born in a family which could afford these amenities I could enjoy all these readymade comforts. That poor guy is probably more deserving than I am. But can I really give-up all these comforts and swap roles with that rickshaw puller. Probably not! Don’t ask me why. Ask yourself! Is there really nothing that I can do? I remember every morning while on our way to the office we fight with these poor people for 5 bucks here and there. Do these extra 5 bucks really make a difference to us? They certainly do to the poor rickshaw puller. Can I at least stop cribbing about the heat and the ruined weekends, if not doing something significant to help these guys? I don’t think I have a right to crib about the pains in my life when there are actually people, who stand there in the sun the entire day, just to earn a few pennies. Their lives are much more painful than I can ever imagine. I hope I can be a little more sympathetic towards them, and not crib about life in general!