The Punjab Agricultural University “Kisaan Mela” – or a Farmer Fair – is organized twice in every year, and the mela is as interesting and fun for a curious visitant as it is for a kisaan. Hopping around the big festival – really one of its kind – you are expected to catch sights of tractors, combines, some other exciting farm machinery, in addition to food- and books-stalls.
In 2019’s second of such melas, I was there at a books-stall for some volunteer work, and it was my second time there. Before I came back home, I was sure to catch a curious experience, giving a first-hand go-through of some lesson I had gathered years ago from a book.
I got posted at a small stall in an otherwise busy way. In front of us was a tent pitched by some sort of veterinary doctors, beside some fertilizer- and manure-experts. At our place, customers were sporadic, but a much as usual.
While gazing around the surroundings and remarking farmer stuff I was completely unfamiliar with, I noticed a man pacing towards our stall in some hurry. I sat up, alert, and when he stopped on the other side of the table that featured books, I stood up out of politeness. The man had in his hands some stuff he had bought – packets, cans and little plastic bottles. I took note of the fact that he had either failed or forgotten to get a carry bag from anywhere.
I found it awkward, momentarily, when he looked me in the face instead of at the books unlike a general customer. And in hurried words, he asked if he could get a carry bag. That was the only thing he ever spoke.
I blinked, and then quickly pulled a bag out and gave it to him. Damn, I thought as he was putting his things into that bag, missed a customer. For once, I felt the pain in the fact that I was giving him a bag for free and he hadn’t even given a look the books.
‘Uncle ji, kitaaban vi dekh lo…’ I asked almost reflexly. Please also see these books. Just asked.
He tented his eyebrows and stared at me for a second. And then all of a sudden, I heard a ‘Hmm,’ and he was picking book after book and inspecting. He seemed to have liked a book with a light brown cover, and he handed it to me. I realized with a shudder what he was asking for, and pulled out another bag and pushed the book into its mouth. He stared at another book, as if with suspicion, and handed it to me. Book after book after book – and he had given me books worth several hundred rupees (even when they were at discounted prices), and he was a man who had come to just ask for a carry bag!
He didn’t utter a word, and gestured when he thought he had bought enough. I spoke to him the amount, he handed me the money and in the very same hurry with which he had come, went away and vanished somewhere into the crowd.
And I was left marveling. Yes, sure, I remembered the line from Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture: “Sometimes, all you have to do is ask.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment