THE JOURNEY THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

Good morning fellow toastmasters and respected guests. As all of you, at least most of you may know that I study in tanjore and hence travel a lot from there to Chennai. Incidentally I think I will be travelling for the 100^th time between trichy and Chennai tonight. So I am going to share with you a journey from trichy to Chennai which happened about a year ago, which absolutely changed my life and the way I see my life.

                It was a busy Friday evening. Everyone was preparing to leave to their respective homes as it was an “open holiday”. An open holiday is one where most of the hostel guys go home ( In my college, one is not always allowed to go home, there a million restrictions when it comes to hostel life) . The monthly tests had just got over and I was in a bad mood as I had done them pathetically. I thought that life can’t get worse. I packed my bags and went to the college entrance to find a huge surge of students wrestling each other to get into the buses. On seeing this fish market like situation I became even more frustrated and thought that I have worst life in the world.

                With great difficulty and a torn shirt I finally got into a jam packed bus. I was hanging from the footboard with two heavy bags clinging to dear life. There in that bus I saw that the conductor was seated in his seat and was asking people to pass the money to him for him to issue the tickets. This was very unusual because conductors always come around to issue tickets. Many people who were seated in the rear end of the bus started hurling abuses at the conductor for not coming to their respective places.

                Then the conductor offered his seat to an old lady and started slowly walking through the crowd to the rear end of the bus to issue the tickets. He was not at all angry with people who scolded him with abusive language but issued them tickets with a smile. It was then that I realized that he had only one leg. The other one was a false one.  I then found out from him that he had lost a leg in an accident but still continues to work as a conductor, which is a very strenuous job keeping in mind his condition, to support his poor ailing parents. I then realized that there is one person who has a harder and worse than me.

                I then reached trichy station and boarded “Rockfort Express” B2 coach and occupied my berth. Sitting opposite to me was a young, smart, well dressed person wearing black glasses. I casually started talking to him about what he does, where he is from etc. etc. It was then that an elderly gentleman came and sat. He asked the young guy whether he could exchange his lower berth for the old man’s upper berth as he could not climb. The young lad readily agreed. After out tickets were checked and all of us had decided to go to sleep, I noticed the young man was searching all over the place for the climbing ladder which was bang in front of him. To my shock I realized that he was blind. As he was my opposite berth I started talking to him and asked about his past.

                He told me that he was working as a supervisor in a factory after finishing his B.E . He told me that he lost his eyes 2 years ago in an accident in the factory. His employers cheated him without offering compensation and had removed his name from the employees list and claimed that such an accident never took place.

                His wife ditched him as she thought he was a vegetable without eyes. But this guy left his past behind him and started to learn blind reading. He even started learning many languages. Today he works as a linguist for a leading translation company.   

                Hearing his story I was nearly in tears. I realized that all my thoughts about my life being miserable were rubbish. I realized that there are thousands of people out there in the world have a much worse life than me. The blind guy never felt that his life was miserable. He told me that he is blessed to have a life that he currently has. Those words hit my heart like bullets from gagan narang’s rifle. I have heard about

                I became a totally new person from that day onwards. It was from then that I started thanking god to have given me this wonderful life. It was from then that I started facing problems head on without bickering about it. It was from then that I started seeing disabled people as Differently abled people.

                Hence I conclude by saying that we always feel that the grass on the other side(pointing  towards left) is green. But we fail to see the other side(point towards right) is a barren desert and that the people living in that miserable place are not fretting as we are on the comparatively better place. So the next time you think that your life is miserable, pause for a moment and think about these people who have a much worse life and don’t fret about it. “ Don’t live to enjoy. Enjoy to live .“