Conscience

I was at a Carrefour last night, buying some vegetables. Ahead of me in the billing queue was a short Indian guy- evidently a man who does hard labour for living buying a bottle of water. The billing girl scanned the bottle and said this is 6 Dirhams. He hesitated a bit but immediately took out his wallet. The girl sensing the discomfort said, "why dont u pick a cheaper bottle". He wasnt sure. I pitched in and said in hindi, "That whole rack has a variety of bottles, why dont you pick that xyz brand, why do u want to waste money on this brand when you dont want it". He walked till there and came back saying, "But sir those are not cold". He obviously had a hard day and wouldn't be happy with himself if he forced warm water on himself.

I left the queue and walked with him to another rack I knew had colder bottles. Got him the bottle and walked back to the counter with him. By that time, the queue had become suddenly quite bigger. I thought, "Ouch, could I have just pointed the rack to him and got my billing done faster". But no, I know how intimidating these hypermarkets can get. This guy could have come back with a wrong bottle again and this time go through with it. In the queue, in that brief 3 mins, he told me he works for a laundry and he gets paid only 900 Dhs per month and he is thinking to go back to India (where he can prolly make more money and live better probably).

Thinking about that made me happy that I helped this guy save some money he would have regretted spending. I was on that thought for a while until it struck me how sad the thought was. How important it has become for us to fill our empty lives with giving something in one or other way. How common decency has become an agent to 'feel good'- a novelty instead of a natural reaction. Disappointing!