We see a bunch a people of various stereotypes- a female child with a baby in her hands, old man with long and dirty grey beard, man with a decent dress-up that includes a tie and a black hand bag, woman with a huge bag and a child holding her hands, a young woman with a yellow slip in her hands (may be she couldn't speak) and many more- at our doorsteps in a hope that that they get something they needed in some form or another. But most of them are sent back without even opening the door, without even listening to them. Some of us even bring the word ‘Police’ in between in case it helps.
These people are treated this way mainly because they usually interrupt in some of the unavoidable jobs being done by the very punctual people inside. People can’t afford to miss the break-up scene of a couple in a daily soap neither some of them can lose a life or two in their favorite computer game. It’s a fact that mainly of these door-knockers are fake, but this has become a common conscience that all of them fall in the same category.
Later this morning, a door knock interrupted my deep sound sleep. I lazily managed to have a glance at the clock hanging just over me- 11:30 it said. Dad was out to his office, Mom probably in her class with some science geeks and my sister in her own class- I was the one who should have turned the knob. But it was too soon for me to get out of the bed on a cloudy December morning as it seemed outside the window- there was no considerable noise except that knock with a constant frequency. I calculated all sorts of possible people who might be the door knocker, eventually arrived at the conclusion that he mustn’t be any important person, any possibility of ‘he’ being a beautiful ‘she’ who could spend the rest of her life with a geek like me was out of question. So I ignored that knock till it stopped permanently which I regretted later.
In the evening I heard about what actually happened earlier this morning. The knock was not exclusive on my door, similar cases were observed by other people in the locality as well. That was a young boy in his early teenage asking for financial help from people so that he could complete his education. He told people that his mother, who worked at people’s house to earn her livelihood, had somehow managed to get him into a private school so that unlike his father, he might not end up being a drunkard and eventually end up his life under a running train. He further told people that he also did his level best to give her a hand by selling groundnuts in the evening. He also had a genuine identity card and a written permission from his school to try his luck with the people of India, spending their precious time doing precious things- enjoying a daily soap break-up with the whole family (children less than 12 included), while he had an exam the next day. People called his school to confirm that he was not of the regular type of knockers. His principle gave detailed information about his life, and supported him with his ‘eagerness to learn’ as his strength and his ‘hope’ from people like ‘us’ as his optimism. This helped him raise some amount at least from those who opened their front doors.
Later that evening I sacrificed some of my precious lifetime to think. That was the time when I realized that I was actually thinking and it broke one of my greatest misconceptions that I used to ‘think’ all through my life. Things were definitely moving around me; air, motion pictures, sound waves, living beings, but I was sure I couldn`t feel any of those, I felt everything inside me to be absolutely motionless all of a sudden. Though that didn`t last too long but I could feel thoughts coming in, going out of my tiny brain.
I realized the potential barrier faced by that category and eventually developed a sense of respect of those young ignited minds. I also realized my life to be merely aimless despite having all sorts of comfort and opportunities at various stages of life which I’d ignored one after another. Now whenever I remember that incident, each time I hate myself more.
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