Can you tell me...

I was walking down to my office around 10 years back. I had just completed college and it was in the early days of my career. As I was enjoying the morning walk to my office, I was looking at various people doing various activities and getting ready to start their work. There was a construction site near by our office and I could see laborers doing manual labour. In India the ones doing menial, hard, physical jobs are considered to have lower strata in the society. The kind of jobs they do, earn them lesser too. Amongst those laborers was a hardworking, older looking man, whose dedication to work caught my eye. I paused to watch him for some time.

A lot of times, there are thoughts that come, hit you and go - all in a micro second and you know you will never ever be the same again. I remember thinking - what is the difference between him and any employee in my software industry? He does the same work that anyone in my office does, perhaps harder. He feels happy when good things happen to him and feels sad when he is hurt. He gets angry at things, when they do not work. Why the hell does he not enjoy the privileges that I or any one in my community does!

And then I remember thinking – Arent all human beings the same ? Who am I to differentiate between them ?

A small thought, a very common thought - but my life changed for ever. Never again in my life, could I ever command any one to do a menial job for me. This made life very difficult for me, because whether I met a carpenter, a labourer or a multi millionaire - I could no longer see any great difference in any one of them. They all looked the same to me. And it would leave them confused too - coz a man with high social position wouldn’t understand why I did not get awed by him - and a labourer would get confused as to why was I not maintaining a distance from him.

I did not know how to react to the levels and strata of society. And honestly speaking, I did not know where I stood in strata with respect to the different, unique, beautiful people in the society. Some were poor, some were rich. Some were highly accomplished, and some were not. But each one of them was beautiful and unique.

When we built our house - I personally took charge of the wood work in my house. There was a team of carpenters who came to work in our house and among them was an elderly carpenter. The other carpenters called him chacha ( uncle ). This man had a godly look on his face and I would just melt out of respect looking at his honest, hardworking face. And then one fine day, my Dad had come to visit me when the carpenters were at work. I looked at my dad and I looked at the old uncle - and I wondered, what is the difference between him and this old carpenter uncle?

I could not see any difference– thinking back, I still am not able to see any difference.
Can you tell me – what is the difference between the ones who have special status in the society and the ones who end up serving them?

How do you handle this social differentiation?