Changing Attitude.

As usual, I was waiting at the station to catch a CST local to reach to my college. I missed my regular train and so with a aggravated look on my face, I was waiting for the next train to arrive. I went to the wheeler, bought a newspaper and started going through the headlines. After a 5 minutes wait, my train finally arrived at the station. I boarded it and sat near the window seat, and went back to my half-read newspaper.
Suddenly I heard a feeble voice calling me didi. I turned around in amazement to see a 5-6 year old boy, shabbily dressed, with his right palm stretching towards me, asking me to give him a penny. I looked at him for a few seconds and something about him fascinated me that I started conversing with him. I asked him the reason why he was begging. He said, ‘He was the only son in his family with four sisters and his father used to drink every night and beat his mother. His mother was a laborer in a construction site where she used to work on a temporary basis. So, he had to provide some financial help to his mother and that could be done only by begging.’ I gave him a penny and got up to get down at my station. I got down with a grave feeling in my heart, thinking about the poor kid, who at this tender age of joining school and playing around with kids of his age, had to beg and support his family financially.
The next day I had to catch the same train and I met the same kid again. We started conversing. This time the talk lasted for a long time. I found a smile on his face while he was talking hence I curiously asked him the reason why he was happy. He told me that a person was going to lend him some money and from that money, he was going to start selling litchi in the train. He was happy with the work he was going to do as he had to stop begging after he starts selling litchi. I encouraged him to do so but also advised him to study.
For a few days, I did not meet the boy as I could not board the same train.
After a few days, I saw the same kid on the platform with a basket full of litchi. I walked up to him and bought some litchis from him. Along with the litchi, he gave me a packet of bindis. I was stunned and asked him the reason for giving me a bindi packet. He said, girls look good in bindis and that he addresses me as didi so he would love to see me wearing a bindi. I was astonished and touched by the boy’s gesture. Such a small kid showing such maturity flabbergasted me.
I told some of my friends about the whole incident but they kind of ridiculed me and advised me not to talk to beggars as according to them they are wicked and awful people. And, that higher-class people like us should not talk to such people and lower our standards.
However, for me, such a small incident changed my whole perspective of looking towards people. A shabby looking kid, who had never attained school, had so much respect for his elders. In a society like ours, we discriminate people according to their financial status and their way of living. People are respected on the basis of the bank balance they have and their way of dressing. Nevertheless, we often tend to forget that a person is not judged by the way he dresses or the way he looks. In today’s world a person is evaluated by taking the exteriors of the person into consideration rather than his interior i.e., his heart and his nature. Now a days, even children going to school, where they learn morals and discipline hardly show so much respect towards their elders. However, a small illiterate kid had by his everyday experience of life had learnt to respect elders and talk politely with them.