Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Difference

“What’s the menu? Am hungry” asked Raj as he and Rohan settled at the breakfast table. “Coming dear” came the reply from their Mom. She served breakfast to them while simultaneously giving further directions to their new domestic maid for preparing the boys' tiffins. “Need to hurry, or else we will get late”, she said to her .

Both of them worked for Microsoft as Senior Technical Consultants. They were considered to be the best pair of brains working for the organization. Both of them had earned their graduation and masters from the best engineering institutions in the country. They held a formidable clout within the company.

“What work do your sons do?” the maid asked while preparing chapatis. Now, if the exact answer to this question was to be given to any educated and knowledgeable person, the usual reaction would be that of utter disbelief and amazement and awe, given the fact that both Raj and Rohan were at least a decade younger than their counterparts to hold this kind of responsibility for the world’s largest software company. But for the poor and hardly literate maid, the answer their Mom gave was ‘Both of them just play around with computers the whole day’, simple enough her to understand. Humble answers were a routine at the household given that not everyone would understand the honor the boys enjoyed.


“Even my son knows a lot about computers” she said with a smile on her face which disappeared rather abruptly with a ‘But…’. ‘What happened, anything wrong?’ Mom asked. “He was recently removed from his workplace” she said gloomily. ‘Why?’ ‘A jealous colleague of his framed him for doing something illegal because of which he got fired’. ‘Oh, that’s horrible’ Mom exclaimed. ‘Can your sons please help him get some work at their place?’ she asked. ‘What’s his qualification?’ Mom asked. ‘He has passed the 12th grade’ the maid replied.


Both Raj and Rohan had been listening to this conversation. Raj seemed visibly irritated. Though he spoke nothing, the obvious reaction in his mind was ‘How dare that woman ask for our help for her 12th grade loser. How dare she think that her son can even place his feet at our campus, a place which is ruled by experts like me and my brother. How pathetic, she isn’t even capable of having any understanding of who we are and here she is, asking us to help her son’.

Rohan, on the other hand, didn’t have a single wrinkle of disgust on his face. The thought that was running through his mind said, ‘Poor little mother. She is in such desperation to get her son employed again. I can’t even imagine what she must be going through. She is blissfully ignorant of who we are to ask us to get her son employed at our place but then it does not really matter. After all, she is a mother and a mother would do anything for her son. How I wish I could help her but alas there is nothing me or Raj can do for her since her son does not have any qualification at all.’


However, he did explain to her that the modern world was of cut throat competition and that it was absolutely imperative for her to get her son more educated first rather than being employed again. He also told her that there were numerous charitable organizations that she could approach to get funds for her son’s education and that this would be the right thing to do for her son and that education will certainly benefit him in the future.
The maid knew she had earned a few words of wisdom from a very trustworthy and credible person and that this was certainly going to help her son. She left the house with a smile again. Its really up to us to decide how to look at a particular situation and respond. If we choose, we can make this world a better place to live in.