Earlier I have touched upon the subject of doing your bit for the world – so if I said, I am going to say it again – excuse me! So I am going to try and relate an incident here. Befor
e which I would like to add that when as the title says, the world is round, I mean just that. What goes around, comes around – you just have to wait long enough and sometimes even not that long either.
To make a long story short, yesterday, I suppose I did a good turn to an out-of-luck first time traveler stuck at DXB Intl airport (happened to be there because I needed coffee) and today what happens?
Here is what happened. I stop the Jeep at a petrol station, get out for a quick bite, the key is in the engine – as I step out, my sleeves get caught on the little knob on the door and tugs at it in a way that when I step out and bang the door shut, it actually gets locked. All I have is a wallet with very little money. The spare keys are at home, the house keys are with the Jeep keys (locked inside) and I have no money. The only spare house key I have is with a colleague at work – I have no phone to call, cant remember the number. The only option: Get a cab, get to office get the keys go home, get the spare Jeep key, come back to the petrol station and drive away.
But, I have no money for a cab!
I hail passers by. Few, including women, drive by – none stop. An Emirati man stops. I ask him to drop me to the metro station – have change in the pocket for a train ticket to office – but the good man (Mohammed Omar Dizeeli) working in the Health Dept, decides to drive 30 km to my work place and volunteers to drive me back home to fetch the key! Of course, I couldn’t take too much liberty for sure, so I get off at office, borrow money, get the keys go home, get my spares, and voila all is well. Even managed to get the best ever cab driver, who shut off the waiting meter as I rummage for my keys at home. All is well.
Today (let’s say from yesterday), life has taken a different turn, a very different and very positive turn. I remember that on my first ever solo trip to Thailand, I had fetched up Mrs SM, the kind hearted PP of Ayutthaya Province who showed me Ayutthaya and more than that, instilled in me a sense of confidence showed me that I could trust strangers. Then again, years later (and quite recently) in Uganda, Stella goes out of her way to show me around the city, drops me to the airport, feeds me and looks after a single woman backpacker on her last few tourist dollars – countless number of strangers around the world who let me free use of their beds, food – I suppose all these added up to my doing my bit yesterday and see what I fetch up today!!
***
When that perfect stranger of yesterday (Khan Mani Haider from Delhi), a young boy of about 24, curled up on the bed and fell asleep, so sure that he was in safe hands, it felt as though years of doing my bit for the world paid off!! It’s all about trust. You will always get is back – and just when you need it most.
Nice…