Tattva

 A young college student is feverishly roaming around at Mumbai railway station. Reason? Simple enough—he has missed the train to his hometown in the state of Haryana. If he does not catch the next train which is in about half an hour, he will have to miss the marriage of one of his closest friends. What is the problem then? Why doesn’t he catch the next train? Before going any further, let us give him a name – Sidhartha. It turns out that Sidhartha did not start from his college campus with enough money to buy another ticket. And now there is no time to go back and get some cash. Remember, this is a time when there are not many ATM’s around! And the days of cell phones have just begun. They are not yet cheap enough for a student to afford.  So what should he do? In the only ray of hope he can see, he goes to the person at the nearest  ticket counter. Sidhartha does not know his name. Let us call him Sharma ji. Sidhartha explains his situation to Sharma ji. Sharma ji realizes that Sidhartha is a guy from a decent family and is in fact a student of a reputed college. He understands his situation and is kind enough. He offers him 400 rupees to buy the ticket for the next train. Sidhartha is elated. He thanks Sharma ji to the fullest and runs to get the  ticket for the next train, which should be coming anytime now. Sidhartha promises to return the money when he comes back.

A few days pass by and Sidhartha comes back after attending his friend’s marriage. After getting down from the train, he goes straight to the counter where Sharma ji sits. He thanks him again and offers to pay him back the 400 rupees. But Sharma ji asks him to wait. He takes him to a close by tea stall. The tea gossip goes on for about half an hour. At the time of leaving, Sidhartha offers him the money again. But to his surprise, Sharma ji refuses to take it back. When Sidhartha insists, Sharma ji says “Son, this money does not belong to me. I had given it to you the other day and forgotten about it. If you really want to return it, do one thing. Keep this with you. When you find someone in need of this money just like you were, give it to them.” Saying this, he says goodbye to Sidhartha and goes back to work. Sidhartha is surprised and inspired!

Friends, the above story did not come out of my imagination. This is, in fact, a true story that happened to one of my close friends, Sidhartha, a few years ago. I was moved and inspired after listening to it. Are you? It reminds me of the verse from the Bhagwad Gita which says: 

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोस्त्वऽकर्मणि॥

You have the right to action only and not to fruits thereof. Do not try to be instrumental in making your actions bear fruit (which will follow according to laws of nature). Neither let your attachment be to inaction. 

Parag Singla is a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Washington, Seattle. You can reach him at parag@cs.washington.edu.  

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Bhagavad Gita. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.