Choosing to be happy

People never cease to surprise me. Every human who changes my perception about the world generally has one blog entry associated. It just reminds me that the world is what you make of it.

The normal route I take to office was closed because there was a religious procession. The car in front of me, a really impressive car ;), took a left to take an alternate route. I followed suit. The alternate route wasn't exactly a main road but more of an alley that passed through many houses. Out of the blue, a water tanker joined us in between and we were forced to follow it. He led us comfortably at his own sweet pace. If you live in Bangalore, you know that the water tankers form approximately 10% of the vehicle population here ;) and on inner domestic roads they are capable of causing snarls and high tempers.

Back to my anecdote, at one particular juncture the water-tanker got stuck in a nasty pothole. Obviously the car behind it had to stop and so did I. Suddenly people came running with buckets, opened the tanker's water-tap and started filling water. All this in a matter of seconds! The little Kannada that I manage, I could understand that they were requesting the driver to just let them fill a bucket each since they do not have water at all. Suddenly the car door in front opened and from the passenger seat exited a well-to-do, formally dressed gentleman. I expected a blasting and some lecture about road and civic sense but he went and stood with the folks and started smiling. In manageable Kananda he asked them to resolve the issue fast because he was running very late and if he wouldn't reach on time he would have to join them with the water bucket. The gathered set erupted at his joke.

We were stuck there for some time till the tanker driver moved his vehicle but all this while the car guy stood happily with the locals. As most of us were fretting about our lost time he chatted away to glory. It just felt nice and human for a change and I realized that happiness is generally our own making :)